Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, scion of the maniacal despot Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, has just returned to Haiti after almost exactly 25 years of exile. He was extracted by the US (though Edward Seaga, Jamaica's Prime Minister at the time, takes credit for his government's central role in these arrangements in this eloquent excerpt from his autobiography) and sent to France where he has spent much of his time skiing in the alps and in court fighting Swiss banks for the millions of US dollars he and his family siphoned from the Haitian treasury during their time in power.
Duvalier was the impish son of the iron-fisted dictator Papa Doc who is said to have galvanized his grip on the nation with supernatural forces that included a gang of voodoo priests as well as the real life boogey men, his personal militia the Tonton Macoutes.
The macoutes were supposedly trained by US special forces and their sole mission was to terrorize poor black people into submission to the Duvaliers and by extension the wealthy elite.
Baby Doc's ascension was the definition of vulgar nepotism as he simply inherited the presidency when his father died. No one had the clout to oppose the installation of a 19yo buffoon as the President of their country as his father had already set up the mechanism by which to dispose of dissenters. It was a classic dictatorship.
It was business as usual for Jean-Claude. He didn't really do much in the way of improving his father's system of brutality, in fact if anything it became more primitive as he lacked his father's political savvy and charm. It was a simple agenda to break the backs of the opposition to his boyish mistakes and clumsy leadership so as to maintain his power
So Why has Duvalier returned, and why now?
That is the question on everyone's lips.
Is Aristide the next to return?
This is certainly an interesting time in Haitian history.
Stanley Lucas has offered a very enlightening perspective on this debacle.
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2 comments:
Don't forget his nasty wife Michele Bennett (since divorced), famous for her lavish spending and throwing dollar bills from her limo as a form of welfare for the poor.
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