By Victor Jean Junior in Port-au-Prince
Astoundment and confusion continues to surround the circumstances of the surprise arrival in Haïti on Sunday of the country's former dictator Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc' Duvalier, ousted from power 25 years ago by a popular revolt.
Until now, Duvalier, 59, had been living in exile in France. Between 20,000 and 30,000 people are estimated by human rights organizations to have been murdered under his brutal regime, and he and his father are accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars of Haïtian state funds.
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Following two days of speculation, he was on Tuesday finally charged with corruption, theft and fraud relating to the period he was in power, between 1971 and 1986. "His fate is now in the hands of the investigating magistrate, we have filed a suit against him," commented Aristidas Auguste, senior public prosecutor in the capital Port-au-Prince.
Duvalier owes his nickname to that of his father, dictator François ‘Papa Doc' Duvalier, who died in 1971 after 14 years in power. Baby Doc took over power then at the age of 19, declaring himself a president for life and continuing a reign of terror that began under his father and which saw some 100,000 Haïtians flee abroad.
Haïti, still shattered by the earthquake in January 2010 that left 250,000 dead and more than a million people still homeless, is in the throes of a major political crisis; the second and decisive round of presidential elections originally due to be held on 16 January has been postponed amid contestation over fraud in the first round, the ghost-like return of Duvalier has triggered considerable commotion.
Several government ministers who suffered persecution under the Duvalier regime, as well as political party leaders Serge Gilles (Social Democrat Mergence) and Evans ‘K-Plim' Paul (Democratic Alliance) have called for an official explanation over his return. There are claims that he was helped in the move by France and the US in a move to destabilize incumbent president René Preval.
Duvalier has said his return was "to help the people of Haïti". He arrived with an expired diplomatic passport, and a return air ticket with a booking for a flight back to France on 20 January. Questioned by reporters, French ambassador to Haïti, Didier Le Bret, said France was in no way involved in his return. The diplomat has said that the French authorities became aware of his trip only after he changed planes in the French Caribbean island Guadeloupe, and urgently immediately alerted the Haïtian government.
But mystery surrounds the question of how Duvalier, with an out-of-date passport and a temporary, yearly-renewable permit of residence in France, could have slipped unnoticed past the embarkation controls of a French airport. "We have other things to be getting on with rather than losing time on this business of Duvalier,' concluded Le Bret, in an irritated reaction to the questions put to him on Tuesday.
Duvalier was arrested as he prepared to give a press conference on Tuesday at the Karibe Hotel, in Pétion-ville, a district in the upper hills of the capital, where he and his companion Véronique Roy have been staying since their arrival. He was taken under police escort to the capital's court buildings, where he underwent three hours of questioning before being charged. He was afterwards released without detention, conditional to remaining at the disposition of the judicial authorities.
The prosecution services appear to have had to urgently establish a file against Duvalier, because no procedure against him had previously been prepared. It is now for the examining magistrate to decide whether or not to pursue an investigation into the initial charges.
Baby Doc's return was loudly celebrated in the streets by hundreds of young Haïtians who had never known his ruthless regime. The group of Haïtian police officers who on Sunday gave Duvalier a triumphant escort from the airport have since been suspended from their duties. On Tuesday, his supporters began calling for the arrest of René Preval, reiterating accusations that he also pocketed millions of dollars of funds destined as aid to Haïti under the Venezuelan government's Petrocaribe programme.
"The judicial moves have been incomprehensible until now," protested Danielle Magloire, Haïtian head of the country's human rights organization Droits et Democratie, (Rights and Democracy), and a prominent Haïtian feminist. "I am a bit lost," shesaid. The country's Senate has called the ministers of justice and the interior, as well as the head of the Haïtian police to appear before it on Thursday to explain what they know of the circumstances surrounding Duvalier's arrival.
«Une provocation»
Jean-Claude Duvalier, like his father before him, held his grip on power through the ‘Tontons-macoutes', a vicious militia infamous for its widespread use of violence and intimidation, and Duvalier's sudden arrival has prompted terrifying memories among many older Haïtians who suffered at their hands.
"Have 25 years in a comfortable exile, in all impunity, been sufficient to forget the horrors, the suffering, the injustices and the human and economic cost of decades of Duavalier dictatorship?" asked Unesco's special envoy to Haïti, Michaëlle Jean. She was forced to flee Haïti for Canada in 1968, aged 11, as a result of the persecution against her family under the first Duvalier regime.
A naturalized Canadian, she became Goverrner General of her adopted country in 2005, a post she held until last year. "Has he not got things to answer for? How can he return to Haïti without being troubled, like an irreproachable citizen?" she continued.
Liliane Pierre Paul is a journalist and co-owner of Haïti's Radio Kiskeya. She was arrested and tortured under Baby Doc's regime, and forced into several years of exile in South America. She alleged that the Haïtian, French and US authorities were particularly involved in the return of Duvalier. "He is a dictator, as was his father, there is an eraser that is rubbing out all of this story," she said, adding that 30,000 people died under the regime in executions at Fort Dimanche, north-east of the capital.
Michèle Montas is a former spokeswoman for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and widow of the celebrated outspoken Haïtian journalist Jean Léopold Dominique,
who was shot dead in April, 2000 (during the rule of President René Préval, and shortly before the first, brief presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide). Montas and her late husband were twice forced to flee Haïti, first under Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime, and were the subject of numerous death threats.
She vividly recalled the "criminal acts" of Duvalier's government, and the murders on 28 November, 1980, of two of her colleagues at Radio Haïti-Inter, for which she is now preparing to file lawsuit. "Let the truth be known," she said. "Things must not be allowed to become forgotten as if they never happened. You cannot build a country on an empty slate."
President René Préval's political advisor Patrick Elie, who is also the popular presenter of a local TV programme, described Duvalier's return as "unexpected" and "a provocation" and called on the dictator's victims to file law suits against him.
Following a popular uprising against him, together with US pressure for his departure, Jean-Claude Duvalier was forced out of power by the military in February 1986 and fled Haïti to France aboard a US Air Force plane. He and his wife Michèle settled in the south of France, close to Grasse. The couple divorced in 1993, in a settlement that saw him lose much of his disposable wealth. Six million dollars he deposited in Swiss banks has remained frozen since 1986. Duvalier later set up home with Véronique Roy, who acts as his spokeswoman, and has for the past few years been living in a Paris apartment, apparently dependent upon financial help from his supporters.
Mediapart correspondent Victor Jean Junior is a staff journalist with Haïti's only daily newspapaer, the Nouvelliste.
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