Saturday, April 24th 1971.
Footage of the funeral ceremony of Francois Duvalier, dictator of the French-Speaking Caribbean Island, at the National Palace in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
Source of footage: Reuters News Archive.
Note:
Trained as a doctor, Duvalier was a diminutive man who rose to head a repressive government which sought and obtained backing from its powerful US neighbour by pursuing a strongly anti-Communist agenda. His regime was backed by the Tonton Macoute (renamed as Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale) , a brutal paramilitary force he created in 1959, as well as by the cult of Vodou.
See:
"Sudden Panic Grips Duvalier Mourners In Funeral March" by Homer Bigart for the New York Times. [ Ссылка ]
"Book Review of Alex Von Tunzelmann’s RED HEAT: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean" by Adeyinka Makinde.
[ Ссылка ]
