Jean Dominique French-speaking elite. Dominique and Radio Haiti also reported increasingly on events that would challenge the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier, often strategically and indirectly to circumvent the regime's censorship laws. For example, Radio Haiti reported in 1972 for weeks, on the fall of the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza Debayle, as a proxy for talking about Duvalier. In 1973 and 1976, Dominique reported from the annual Vodou pilgrimage at Saut-d’Eau on worshippers’ lamentations and entreaties to the spirits: an implicit way of talking about peasant resistance : “We were under Jean-Claude Duvalier, we were under [high-ranking Macoutes like] Luc Désir,
Anti-Duvalier protest movement and Duvalier suspended certain civil liberties, declaring a state of siege. Stores closed and remained shut. Graffiti carrying certain popular slogans increased on walls around the capital in early February. Activists defaced a large statue of Duvalier in front of city hall. For several consecutive days in early February, Duvalier traveled around the capital as a symbol of his continuing control. Stores and businesses stayed closed, ignoring Duvalier’s demand that business should proceed as usual. On 7 February 1986, Duvalier fled to France in a U.S. supplied plane. However, before leaving, he set up the 6-member National Council of Government