Talk:François Duvalier

message: I was looking for a photo of a Papa Doc with this article, but there is none. Does anyone know of a good picture? Supermagle 18:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are many pictures of him available on the internet. I am fairly sure that there must be at least a couple of them in the public domain, though last time I checked, I was unable to locate any at Wikimedia Commons. Albert Wincentz 22:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A picture would be nice 

message: Is there any verifiable evidence to substantiate the potentially defamatory comments about FD's mother ?  If not, ought not this slur be deleted from the article ?  Even if there is, ought not consideration be given as to the relevance of the matter to this entry ? --- SockpuppetSamuelson (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 09:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother 

message: The election that brought him into power in the first place was not a free and fair election. Hardly the case. Paul Farmer's "The Uses of Haiti" details this in its brief examination of Haiti's modern history, and is thick with citations for that section; Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" is similarly informative. It is widely agreed that the first totally free and fair elections in Haiti were in 1990, which resulted in bringing Jean Bertrand Aristide to power, and he is widely considered to be Haiti's first democratically elected President. This needs to be clarified in the article. The election that brought Papa Doc to power is not taken seriously (it was rife with rigging and intimidation). Neither is the election of 1988 that brought Leslie Manigat to power, with the participation of 4% of the population. 50.74.192.11 (talk) 22:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "elected" -- dubious, needs to be explained 

message: There seems to be a gap in the information reported in this article, between
:"Political rise
:In 1946 Duvalier aligned himself with President Dumarsais Estimé and was appointed Director General of the National Public Health Service. In 1949 he served as Minister of Health and Labor; however, when Gen. Paul Magloire ousted President Estimé in a coup d'état, Duvalier left the government and was forced into hiding until 1956, when an amnesty was declared.[9]"
and
:"Presidency
:Consolidation of power
:After being sworn in on 22 October, Duvalier exiled most of the major supporters of Déjoie[5] and had a new constitution adopted in 1957 .[6]"
If no one else is interested in locating sources to document what Francois Duvalier did between returning to Haiti and being sworn in to the Presidency (one assumes he ran for the office and was elected), I'll do it.  
It's just odd to see a gap like that in a recent Wikipedia article. 
Also, reference #4, 
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/duvalier.html Heroes & Killers of the 20th Century
is now a dead link.
:I found another source which supports a paragraph I wrote to describe the period between Duvalier's exile after the Maggiore coup d'etat and Duvalier's election to the Presidency AND the material in the article which the old reference #4 supported.  The changes have been made, so that now the narrative of Duvalier's life from exile, through his re-entry into Haitian politics and election to the Presidency is complete again. 
::Furthermore, another editor located an archived copy of the old Reference #4 and reverted my edit above, leaving the new reference I'd located in the reflist, as it replaced that the reference to a book on Haitian music which only supported the article's account of Duvalier's life between his exile during the Maggiore regime and his swearing-in as President with anecdotal material with references to an actual biography of Francois Duvalier.
::This sets right both of the issues I'd originally raised here. loupgarous (talk) 14:57, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about the period 1956-1957? and, Reference #4 is now a dead link 

message: The claim that Duvalier claimed to be the Haitian flag seems dubious to me. A more likely reading of "je suis le drapeau haïtien" is "I follow the Haitian flag." I may be unaware of other evidence of this claim, of course, and would appreciate learning about it. If I overlooked anything in the footnotes, I apologize in advance. John FitzGerald (talk)
: without doing OR on this, it may be a mis-translation or a pun.  Duvalier was an egomaniac though.  Putting my French hat on, 'suis' sounds similar to 'suivre,' suivre being 'follow' conjugated to present tense.  I suppose it is possible that it was deliberately ambiguous.  'Suivre' sounds very similar to 'suis' but with a vʁ at the end.  Both translations are reasonable.  Just a thought.  Jip Orlando (talk) 14:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The first person singular of suivre is je suis. It is identical with je suis meaning I am. I suspect this was not a pun at all but just Duvalier wrapping himself in the flag, but as I said before definitive evidence is needed. For one thing, as you note, he was an egomaniac and the idea of his claiming to be the Haitian flag is plausible. For another, he was crazy. I fear this may forever remain a mystery. John FitzGerald (talk) 15:50, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Je suis le drapeau haïtien" 

message: Duvalier is listed in the "Genocide perpetrators" category, but the article gives no information on what genocide his regime perpetrated. Could this be specified? For what it's worth, it's beyond doubt that he was a totalitarian dictator. --2A02:AB04:2C2:E300:7CFD:68EC:FB1C:F7FD (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genocide perpetrator?