Difference between revisions of "Jean-Claude Duvalier"

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Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed "Bébé Doc" or "Baby Doc" (born July 3, 1951) was the President of Haiti from 1971 until his overthrow by a popular uprising in 1986. He succeeded his father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, as the ruler of Haiti upon his father's death in 1971.

After assuming power, he introduced cosmetic changes to his father's regime and delegated much authority to his advisors, though thousands of Haitians were killed or tortured, and hundreds of thousands fled the country.^[1] He maintained a notoriously lavish lifestyle (including a state-sponsored US$3 million wedding in 1980), and made millions from involvement in the drug trade and from selling body parts from dead Haitians while poverty among his people remained the most widespread for any country in the Americas.^[2]

Relations with the United States improved after his ascension to the presidency, and then deteriorated under the Carter administration, only to again improve under Ronald Reagan due to the strong anti-communist stance of the Duvaliers.^[3]

Following a quarter of a century in self-imposed exile due to a popular uprising in 1986, Duvalier returned to Haiti on January 16, 2011. The following day he was arrested by Haitian police, facing possible charges for theft due to the profiting lifestyle enjoyed by him and the bulk of his regime.^[2]

On 18 January 2011, Duvalier was charged with corruption, and will be held before a judge in Port-au-Prince for trial.^[4]

Early life[edit]

Duvalier was born in Port-au-Prince and was raised in an isolated environment. He attended College Bird and Saint-Louis de Gonzague. Later, he studied law at the University of Haiti, under the direction of several professors, including Maître Gérard Gourgue. In April 1971, he assumed the presidency of Haiti at the age of 19 upon the death of his father, François Duvalier (nicknamed "Papa Doc"), becoming the world's youngest president.^[5] Initially, Jean-Claude Duvalier resisted the dynastic arrangement that had made him Haiti's leader, having preferred that the presidency go to his older sister Marie-Denise Duvalier, and was content to leave substantive and administrative matters in the hands of his mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, and a committee led by Luckner Cambronne, his father's Interior Minister, while he attended ceremonial functions and lived as a playboy.^[3]

Political and economic factors[edit]

Duvalier was invested with near-absolute power by the constitution. He took some steps to reform the regime, by releasing some political prisoners and easing press censorship. However, there were no substantive changes to the regime's basic character. Opposition was not tolerated, and the legislature remained a rubber stamp.

Much of the Duvaliers' wealth came from the Régie du Tabac (Tobacco Administration). Duvalier used this "non-fiscal account", established decades earlier, as a tobacco monopoly, but he later expanded it to include the proceeds from other government enterprises and used it as a slush fund for which no balance sheets were ever kept.^[6]

By neglecting his role in government, Duvalier squandered considerable domestic and foreign goodwill and facilitated the dominance of Haitian affairs by a clique of hardline Duvalierist cronies, the so-called "dinosaurs". Foreign officials and observers also seemed tolerant toward "Baby Doc" in areas such as human rights monitoring, and foreign countries were more generous to him with economic assistance. The Nixon administration restored the US aid program for Haiti in 1971.^[6]

Marriage[edit]

Jean-Claude miscalculated the ramifications of his May 27, 1980 wedding to Michèle Bennett Pasquet, a mulatto divorcée with an unsavory reputation. Her first husband, Alix Pasquet, was the son of a well-known mulatto officer who had led an attempt to overthrow Papa Doc Duvalier. Although Jean-Claude himself was light-skinned, his father's legacy of support for the black middle class and antipathy toward the mulatto elite had enhanced the appeal of Duvalierism among the black majority of the population. With his marriage, Jean-Claude appeared to be abandoning the informal bond that his father had labored to establish.

The extravagance of the couple's wedding, which cost an estimated US$3 million, further alienated the population. Discontent among the business community and elite intensified in response to increased corruption among the Duvaliers and the Bennetts, as well as the repulsive nature of the Bennetts' dealings, which included selling Haitian cadavers to foreign medical schools and trafficking in narcotics. Increased political repression added to the volatility of the situation.^[3]

The marriage also estranged the old-line Duvalierists in the government from the younger technocrats whom Jean-Claude had appointed, including Jean-Marie Chanoine, Frantz Merceron, Frantz-Robert Monde, and Theo Achille. The Duvalierists' spiritual leader, Jean-Claude's mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, was eventually expelled from Haiti, reportedly at the request of Michèle Duvalier. With his wife Duvalier had two children, François Nicolas and Anya.^[7]

Destabilization[edit]

In response to an outbreak of African swine fever virus on the island in 1978, U.S. agricultural authorities insisted upon total eradication of Haiti's pig population. The Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and for the Development of Pig Raising (PEPPADEP) caused widespread hardship among the peasant population, who bred pigs as an investment.^[8]

In addition, reports that AIDS was becoming a major problem in Haiti, which caused tourism to decline dramatically in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, most Haitians expressed hopelessness and helplessness, as economic conditions worsened and hunger and malnutrition spread.^[9]

Widespread discontent began in March 1983, when Pope John Paul II visited Haiti. The pontiff declared that "Something must change here." He went on to call for a more equitable distribution of income, a more egalitarian social structure, more concern among the elite for the well-being of the masses, and increased popular participation in public life. This message revitalized both laymen and clergy, and it contributed to increased popular mobilization and to expanded political and social activism.^[6]

In 1984 Ernest Preeg, U.S. ambassador to Haiti (1981–1983), wrote a monograph^[10] on Haiti's part in the Reagan Caribbean Basin Initiative. One paragraph stated ..."It can honestly be said that the Jean-Claude Duvalier presidency is the longest period of violence-free stability in the nation's history."

A revolt began in the provinces in 1985. The city of Gonaïves was the first to have street demonstrations and raids on food-distribution warehouses. From October 1985 to January 1986, the protests spread to six other cities, including Cap Haïtien. By the end of that month, Haitians in the south had revolted. The most significant rioting there broke out in Les Cayes.^[6]

Jean-Claude responded with a 10 percent cut in staple food prices, the closing of independent radio stations, a cabinet reshuffle, and a crackdown by police and army units, but these moves failed to dampen the momentum of the popular uprising against the dynastic dictatorship. Jean-Claude's wife and advisers, intent on maintaining their grip on power, urged him to put down the rebellion and remain in office.^[6]

In January 1986, the Reagan administration began to pressure Duvalier to renounce his rule and to leave Haiti. Representatives appointed by Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga served as intermediaries who carried out the negotiations. At this point a number of Duvalierists, and business leaders, met with the Duvaliers and pressed for their departure. The United States rejected a request to provide asylum for Duvalier, but offered to assist with the Duvaliers' departure. Duvalier had initially accepted on January 30, 1986, and President Reagan actually announced his departure, based on a report from the Haitian CIA Station Chief who saw Duvalier’s car head for the airport. En route, there was gunfire and Duvalier’s party returned to the palace unnoticed by the U.S. intelligence team.^[11] Duvalier declared “we are as firm as a monkey tail.” He departed on February 7, 1986, flying to France in an U.S. Air Force aircraft.^[7]

Exile[edit]

The Duvaliers settled in France. For a time they lived a luxurious life. Although he formally applied for political asylum, his request was denied by French authorities. Jean-Claude lost most of his wealth with his 1993 divorce from Michèle.^[12] While apparently living modestly in exile, Duvalier does have supporters, who founded the François Duvalier Foundation in 2006 to promote positive aspects of the Duvalier presidency, including the creation of most of Haiti's state institutions and improved access to education for the country's black majority.^[13]

A private citizen, Jacques Samyn, unsuccessfully sued to expel Duvalier as an illegal immigrant (the Duvaliers were never officially granted asylum in France). Then, in 1998, a Haitian-born photographer, Gérard Bloncourt, formed a committee in Paris to bring Duvalier to trial. At the time, the French Ministry of the Interior said that it could not verify whether Duvalier still remained in the country due to the recently enacted Schengen Agreement which had abolished systematic border controls between the participating countries.^[14] However, Duvalier's lawyer Sauveur Vaisse said that his client was still in France and denied that the exiled leader had fallen on hard times.^[15]

Following the ousting of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, Duvalier announced his intention to return to Haiti to run for president in the 2006 elections for the Party of National Unity; however, he did not become a candidate.^[16]

On September 22–September 23, 2007, an address by Duvalier to Haitians was broadcast by radio. Although he said exile had "broken" him, he also said that what he described as the improving fortunes of the National Unity Party had "reinvigorated" him, and he urged readiness among his supporters, without saying whether he intended to return to Haiti.^[17] President René Préval rejected Duvalier's apology and, on September 28, he said that while Duvalier was constitutionally free to return to Haiti, he would face trial if he did so.^[18] Duvalier's radio broadcast address was given in French and not Haitian Creole, the language spoken by the majority of Haitians.^[19]

In February, 2010, a Swiss court agreed to release more than US$4 million to Jean-Claude Duvalier,^[20] although the Swiss Foreign Ministry said it would continue to block the release of the money.^[21]

Duvalier lived in Paris with Veronique Roy, his longtime companion and chief public-relations representative, until his return to Haiti in late January 2011.^[12] Roy is the granddaughter of Paul Magloire, President of Haïti from 1950 to 1956.^[22][23]

Return[edit]

On January 16, 2011, Jean-Claude Duvalier made an unexpected return to the country he had left 25 years earlier.^[24] Duvalier, accompanied by Veronique Roy, flew in from Paris, indicating that he wanted to help: "I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the reconstruction of Haiti," he said.^[4] According to Mac McClelland of Mother Jones:

The former dictator was greeted at the Port-au-Prince airport with cheering and celebratory chanting. . . . The word from Duvalier is that he's come to help his country. According to everyone on the street and on the radio, the Americans and the French conspired to bring him here to upset current president René Préval, who's been accused of fixing his country's recent elections.^[25]

On January 18, 2011, he was taken into custody at his hotel by Haitian authorities.^[26] He was charged with corruption, theft, and misappropriation of funds committed during his 15-year presidency. He was released but will be subject to recall by the court.^[4]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• PROFILE: Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier: The story of a former dictator upon his return home. 2011-01-17.
• WikiLeaks cables: 'Baby Doc' Duvalier's possible return to Haiti concerned US. The Guardian.
• Did Baby Doc Duvalier Return to Haiti to Pressure Préval in the Election? - video report by Democracy Now!
• Jean Claude Duvalier and Michele Bennet Wedding 25 May 1980

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