College Bird - Haiti Observer Blog

The year of 2010 brought many changes to Haiti, and to the Nouveau College Bird. It was to be the year of their 50th anniversary, and at the beginning, the college was decimated by the earthquake, a second time of desolation for the school in its impressive 50 year past.

Named after the American Methodist missionary Rev. Mark B. Bird, the Nouveau suggests rightly that the school had been reborn once before. It began as Wesley College, a school for both boys and girls, in the 1840's. After Bird's death in 1880, the school was moved and given its new name, then, College Bird. A fire gutted that building and today, after a build in 1960, Nouveau College Bird stands at the spot.

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Jean Claude Duvalier was born in the Capital City of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He spent his academic life at Nouveau College Bird and Saint-Louis de Gonzague. Later, he studied law at the University of Haiti. one of his teacher was Gerard Gourgue.

In April 1971, Jean Claude became presidency of Haiti at the age of 19 upon the death of his father, becoming the world's youngest president.

It has been reported that Jean Claude Duvalier did not have any ambition to follow his father's footstep to become president. All this was an arrangement made made following the death of his father. He preferred at the time that the presidency position goes to go to his older sibling, Marie-Denise Duvalier. One of the most influential persons at the time was the interior Minister of Francois Duvalier, Luckner Cambronne convinced him to take on the role of President for Life

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April 26th is an infamous day in Haiti's history. Two events of senseless violence, 23 years apart, occurred on that date. In 1963, mass killings of soldiers and their loved ones by Haitian National Police (HNP) were ordered by François Duvalier, in advance of son Jean-Claude's planned abduction. In 1986 at a commemoration to honor victims and families' murders and maiming, another mass killing occurred.

The father-son Duvalier regime was one of the cruelest in Haiti's history. Blood-thirsty monster François dispatched death squads, the Ton-Ton Macoutes, to kill any citizen suspected of being opposed to his government. People would sometimes disappear at night, never to be seen again. Others were murdered in plain sight of a terrified public. When François received word oppositional factions of the HNP were planning to kidnap son, Jean-Claude, he took swift and retaliatory action. His police torched occupied family homes. In other instances, they separated children from families, imprisoning relatives, tormenting and murdering them.

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