Tonton Macoute Tonton Macoute was a Haiti an paramilitary force created in 1959 by dictator François ' Papa Doc ' Duvalier . In 1970 , the militia was officially renamed the Milice de Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale ( Militia of National Security Volunteers or MVSN , probably taking name from the homonymous Italian Fascist paramilitary organization ) . Haitians named this force after the Haitian Creole mythological " Tonton Macoute " ( Uncle Gunnysack ) bogeyman who kidnaps and punishes unruly children by snaring them in a gunnysack ( " macoute " ) and carrying them off to be consumed at breakfast . Reign of terror . The force was created in 1959 , only two years after François Duvalier became president , due to the threat the dictator perceived from the regular armed forces . After an attempted " coup d ' état " against him in 1958 , Duvalier disbanded the army and all law enforcement agencies in Haiti , and executed all high - ranking generals . Duvalier authorized the Tontons Macoutes to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses toward his ends ; they were responsible for unknown numbers of murders and rapes in Haiti . Duvalier employed the Tonton Macoute in a reign of terror against any opponents , including those who proposed progressive social systems . Those who spoke out against Duvalier would disappear at night , or were sometimes attacked in broad daylight . Tontons Macoutes often stoned and burned people alive . Many times the corpses were put on display , often hung in trees for everyone to see . Family members who tried to remove the bodies for proper burial often disappeared themselves , never to be seen again . They were believed to have been abducted and killed by the MVSN , who were called the " Tontons Macoutes " as a result . Anyone who challenged the MVSN risked assassination . Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption , extortion and personal aggrandizement among the leadership . The victims of Tontons Macoutes could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had previously supported an opposing politician to a businessman who refused to “ donate ” money for public works ( which were the source of profit for corrupt officials and even the dictator himself ) . Tontons Macoutes murdered more than 60 , 000 Haitians . Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the Tonton Macoute throughout the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s . His cruelty earned him the nickname “ Vampire of the Caribbean ” . He profited by extortion carried out by his henchmen and by supplying corpses and blood to universities and hospitals in the United States . After Duvalier ' s death , he was ordered into exile by Duvalier ' s widow Simone , and son , Baby Doc Duvalier . Cambronne left Haiti in 1971 for Miami , Florida , where he died on 20 September 2006 at 77 . Some of the most important members of the Tonton Macoute were vodou leaders and this religious affiliation gave the Macoutes a sense of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public . From their methods to their choice of clothes , vodou always played an important role in their actions . The Tontons Macoutes wore straw hats , blue denim shirts and dark glasses , and were armed with machete s and guns . Both their allusions to the supernatural and their physical presentations were a tool to instill fear . The Tontons Macoutes were an ubiquitous presence in a rigged 1961 election in which Duvalier was unanimously reelected to another term , and once again in 1964 when Duvalier held a rigged referendum that declared him President for Life . Legacy . The " Tontons Macoutes " remained active even after the presidency of Papa Doc Duvalier ' s son Baby Doc Duvalier ended in 1986 . Massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned from the Macoutes continued during the following decade . The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990s was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti ( FRAPH ) which " Toronto Star " journalist Linda Diebel described as modern Tonton Macoutes and not as the political party they claimed to be .