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Ex-Dictator 'Baby Doc' Back in Haiti for First Time in 25 Years
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Ex-dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier returned to Haiti Sunday for the first time since 1986, raising speculation about his motives at a time of great political uncertainty.
Duvalier arrived in Port-au-Prince on an Air France flight into the political vacuum left by the wake of disputed presidential elections that are threatening further instability in the earthquake-ravaged country.
An AFP journalist saw the former dictator enter the passport control at Port-au-Prince airport wearing a blue suit and accompanied by his wife Veronique Roy shortly after their flight landed.
A delegation of former officials who had served as cabinet ministers under Duvalier awaited his arrival at the airport and a few dozen supporters were gathered outside the complex, the AFP reporter said.
The 59-year-old Duvalier was ousted by a popular revolt in the 1986 after his family and supporters were accused of plundering tens of millions of dollars of state funds during his 15-year reign.
He arrives just one year after a catastrophic earthquake flattened the western hemisphere's poorest country, killing nearly a quarter of a million people and leaving much of the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins.
Duvalier's unexpected return also came as the country wrestled with the results of a November 28 election that sparked deadly riots over allegations of vote-rigging by the current ruling party.
The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, was to arrive in Haiti Monday to discuss his regional group's report that evaluated the election results, his office said.
A draft of the report leaked last week said the international monitors would suggest that Jude Celestin, the hand-picked candidate of President Rene Preval, should step aside ahead of a second round run-off.
Violent protests flared in the Caribbean nation when December's first round results revealed popular singer Michel Martelly had failed to win a place in the run-off, falling slightly behind Celestin.
According to the contested first round results, former first lady Mirlande Manigat took first place with 31 percent, with Celestin winning 22 percent and Martelly winning 21 percent of the votes.
Duvalier, who has been living in exile in France for most of the last 25 years, had earlier told a Florida radio station he was not returning as a presidential candidate, saying: "This is not the order of the day."
In 2007, Duvalier called on Haitians to forgive him for the "mistakes" committed during his reign, but Preval dismissed his remarks at the time.
Haitian authorities have accused Duvalier of diverting more than 100 million dollars out of the desperately poor country under the guise of social work during his reign, which began after he succeeded his father Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in 1971. The older Duvalier had ruled since 1957.
France accepted Duvalier after he was ousted by massive anti-government demonstrations in which dozens of Haitians were killed.
Like Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power in 2004, Duvalier was urged to step down by the United States and left the country on a US Air Force plane.
Since then he has been involved in a long legal battle to keep millions of dollars held in Swiss bank accounts, as Haiti has sought to repatriate the funds with help from Swiss authorities.
In February the Swiss government said it would keep Duvalier's assets frozen after its bid to return some 4.6 million dollars of allegedly embezzled funds to Haiti was blocked by the Supreme Court.
40 Comments so far
Show All"Like Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power in 2004, Duvalier was urged to step down by the United States and left the country on a US Air Force plane."- APF -- NOT like Aristide!
The difference is the people revolted against Papa-Doc & Baby-Doc, (the thief) and the United States couldn't protect them any longer. Aristide, on the other hand, was liked by the people, but had a coup threatening his life; and the coup was funded by... well, BIG MONEY.
~~~~~~
So it took an earthquake and a year of "shock treatment" before Haiti was safe for the Baby-Doc to return, saying he is sorry for all the money he stole.
Just another dictator supported by this country.
There is NO accountability for the criminals who work for Corporate Interests, they have full immunity from prosecution.
Hey, did you hear; Luis is on trial in El Paso, TX! Yea Right!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles
"Like Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power in 2004, Duvalier was urged to step down by the United States and left the country on a US Air Force plane."
Yep. The reporter is hallucinating on history. Baby Doc the dictator was told by the U.S. that the popular revolt would kill him, and so he was flown first class out of Haiti to solve a problem for the U.S.
Contrast this with CIA agents forcibly securing the Haitian Presidential Palace in the middle of the night and telling twice-elected and popular president Aristide, a former Catholic priest, to come with them to the airport or else they would force a dose of tranquilizer up his butt (no needle marks that way). Then Aristide was loaded into our country's flying Black Maria and taken under armed guard to his least likely country of choice, a small African country. In the meantime, the CIA propped up the remnants of Baby Doc's old Tonton Macoute death squads, who now run the country and terrorize anyone who wants a democracy. No wonder the nation of Haiti is so happy to see the old tinhorn.
His return had to be cleared with the US and Europe. He's probably cleared for a coup. Otherwise, he'd be too scared of prosecution to return. Only months ago, Switzerland said he could collect his frozen millions. He obviously really impressed his puppet-masters.
Interesting how leaders of many countries we try and control come from outside the countries (e.g., have residency or businesses in the US, schooled in the US) and when they finish their terms or are kicked out of power they leave the countries they were leading.
The reason that all 'civilized' countries hate Haiti...Haiti's unpardonable sin for which it must be made to suffer at the hands of every 'civilized' country, and suffer all the more at every opportunity, is that it is the only country founded by the poor having prevailed over the rich.
No matter how poor they are, no matter how much they suffer, they still stand there, an example to all the world that by God, it is too possible for the poor to win. But they will be allowed no peace, no happiness, no chance to determine their own destiny because they stand as a monument to the ultimate powerlessness of privilege---and the limitless cruelty of its revenge.
Yes, NMBill, I too was struck by that obnoxious sentence:
"Like Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power in 2004, Duvalier was urged to step down by the United States and left the country on a US Air Force plane." DRIVEN FROM POWER?? Driven to the airport by his US kidnappers,yes.
To equate Aristide's forced kidnapping and exile to that of Duvalier is extremely misleading. Please correct this publicly, AGENCE FRANCE (oh, that explains it, written in FRance - tho' I usually respect their reports)
So, the USA & FRANCE okays the return of the repressive, violent embezzler Duvalier, but keeps Aristide and his popular party completely OUT. Poor Haiti is OCCUPIED.
I think we should all email Bill Clinton and tell him we see through this game and want Haiti freed from our occupation and control. Email Bill Clinton: info@hillaryclinton.com --or perhaps someone has a better one.
The next phrase that jumped out was about the Supreme Court blocking the return of 4.6 MILLION dollars to Haiti!
"In February the Swiss government said it would keep Duvalier's assets frozen after its bid to return some 4.6 million dollars of allegedly embezzled funds to Haiti was blocked by the Supreme Court."
Hands OFF Haiti!!
As MLK proclaimed: " Anger at injustice is the political expression of love." Let's speak out.
It looks like Mr. Change You Can Believe In has given the go ahead for the next dictator we are going to install in Haiti.
As for you victims (forgive me, I meant to say as for you Haitians): "Say hello to your new boss ... he actually was your old boss."
Good news for the American economy though. Due to his change in puppets, Obama will be able to create thousands of new jobs here in the US. Our factories will be manufacturing machetes for the Tonton Macoute.
Along with the machetes, Obama will also be sending the Haitian people several crates of Hope. The Haitians should use it quickly. It turns out that the Obama brand of Hope has only a short shelf life.
Cheers.
double entry for some reason
It was a USA COUP that forced Aristide from his legally elected Presidency.......
Baby Doc comes back and Aristide is still sitting in exile in S Africa!
Thank God for the forces of Democracy that "saved" Haiti -
Actually nothing has changed in the 200+ years since haiti became the 1st country of freed slaves to gain their Independence.......
The forces of Fascism are much stronger than the Forces of Freedom at this point in the history of humans....
I'd bet Baby Doc returns with millions in loot stolen from his time as Dictator in Haiti - and I'll bet he's not living in a tent city - or subjected to dirty cholera laced drinking water.....
Who wants to bet that what remains of the Tonton Mauctes re-emerges?
They have to finish training at the "School of the Americas" first.
They probably have just now graduated, and will return to Haiti along with Baby Doc.
Bill Clinton needs to come clean as to his role in the exile of Aristide and the darker motives for his role in doing so. My sources tell me it is because Aristide had the audacity of wanting to raise the nations mimimum wage from 25 cents an hour to 60 cents an hour. Admittedly, a gigantic jump of that amount would very quickly neutralize any plans for another yacht or vacation home for the oligarchs. How dare those people to want a life above the poverty line!
Aristide was forcibly removed from Haiti by the US CIA in 2004. George Bush was in office in 2004, not Bill Clinton. Clinton's hands are not clean, however. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA which finished off Haiti's once agrarian economy.
NAFTA finshed Haiti's economy through competition. The Haitians once raised wonderful rice--enough extra for export. They were poor, but not as totally destitute as today. They could not compete on the world market and today they purchase their rice from the US and the rice fields have now been abandoned. Those rice farmers became workers for the corporations Bill Clinton had a hand in bringing into Haiti.
Government subsidies to US agribusiness (our tax dollars) facilitate the unfair competition that permits the dumping of cheap corn on Mexico and cheap rice on Haiti, driving the local farmers out of business.
Baby Doc back in Haiti? Just when you think it can't get any weirder, it does. Given the demographics in Haiti most of the population doesn't know who he is, aside from word of mouth stories passed down through the generations. The 8 to 10 families in Haiti who really control things had to be onboard with this as well. This oh so poor nation just got poorer.....
The elite in Haiti speak French while the native population are forbidden to learn the language and must speak their own tongue. This keeps the classes separate and the masses powerless and ignorant of what goes on.
The elite in Haiti speak French while the native population are forbidden to learn the language and must speak their own tongue. This keeps the classes separate and the masses powerless and ignorant of what goes on.
The elite in Haiti speak French while the native population are forbidden to learn the language and must speak their own tongue. This keeps the classes separate and the masses powerless and ignorant of what goes on.
Is there a chance, ever it be so slight, that the slimy hands of CIA/Department of State of the U.S. are involved in this chicanery? Put an old dictator in charge of this impoverished (by virtue of France and 100 years of U.S. control) country?
You bet there's a chance! Is it possible for any event like this, especially if it involves a U.S. client state, to take place without the approval of the White House? No, not at all.
As some letters say, watch for the Tontons Macoutes, with the assistance of the U.S. School of Assassins at Fort Benning, Georgia, to be training there soon. The TM's may have forgotten some of their torture techniques.
The Haitians require a firm hand, controlled by Washington, to keep those desperate people under the boot of Haiti's Washington-approved dictator. Or else they might do something desperate.
Is there a chance, ever it be so slight, that the slimy hands of CIA/Department of State of the U.S. are involved in this chicanery? Put an old dictator in charge of this impoverished (by virtue of France and 100 years of U.S. control) country?
You bet there's a chance! Is it possible for any event like this, especially if it involves a U.S. client state, to take place without the approval of the White House? No, not at all.
As some letters say, watch for the Tontons Macoutes, with the assistance of the U.S. School of Assassins at Fort Benning, Georgia, to be training there soon. The TM's may have forgotten some of their torture techniques.
The Haitians require a firm hand, controlled by Washington, to keep those desperate people under the boot of Haiti's Washington-approved dictator. Or else they might do something desperate.
2 wars, sudan, pakistan,the coup in honduras and now haiti -
Change we can bereave in........
and all that progressive energy down the blackhole of the democratic party.....
there used to be a LEFT that was separate from the Democratic Party - even ML King was not a democratic party apologist -
but the democrats have been successful in swallowing whole any lefty negating their message and their power into a wholly owned corporate entity...
FDR had Huey Long and others pushing him to the left..... the 60's had MANY lefty's not a part of the dem party.....
But not any more - for the most part the left is dead - there are a few out there on the left NOT a part of the Dem party but they are ignored and marginalized......
Food Not Bombs!
No Peace without Justice!
Elvis Got It, Why Can't We?
Maybe one reason the "Left" is dead is because at the time it was alive it wasn't calling itself the "Left".
You said, "FDR had Huey Long and others pushing him to the left..... the 60's had MANY lefty's not a part of the dem party."
I have been trying to find if Huey Long or FDR ever bragged about going "Left".
I doubt it because it is a pejorative word.
I think they really went big in pinning the Left label on us in the 60's so we willingly became "Leftists" and we bought it with glee and that is how the War Machine won so damn easily.
If I am wrong I could easily be disproved here.
You would think that you would find the term "Left" in the old speeches of the famous Liberals and Radicals "when the Left was alive". but I can't find it and I don't think MLK used the term the "Left" for Freedom Riders either.
The term was invented by the Ruling Class and since they were in the powerful minority, they got to be Right and left us... Like Elvis sings "I'm left your right, she's gone."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIxisYPhwps
They probably didn't use the term "Left" or " Right" - they used "Poor" and Rich though.....
and that was during the time that the Poor got to fight back against the greedy rich.....
Now no one ever says the word 'Poor" they always talk of "helping the middle class"
no word on helping the "poor"............
Today if you use "rich" and "poor" then you are called a class warfare proponent.....
The rich can use class warfare all they want and it's called "free enterprise" or "economic development" when it is actually always raping the poor or the environment or conducting their dirty illegal wars, or bankrupting the economy and government thru laws or the Federal Reserve - always at the expense of the Poor....
True, and I would add for the purpose of change, "poor" is a word that I don't believe FDR used as much as Jesus did, but You are right, FDR did not shy away from and even invited the hatred of the Wall Street Gang Class War even if he was in the Ruling Class himself and Huey Long preached about "Every Man a King".
It seems logical that the Majority does not want to be called "poor". They want to be well off enough and many want to be rich. I wonder if poor Folks even want to be called "poor"... I doubt it except maybe on Income tax day.
I think the majority does not want to be labeled at all and want to move up not being tied down to any ideology or doctrine.
How can we choose the right words to help ourselves and the majority along with the poor and homeless?
Not much thought has gone into the importance of the language we use to try and change the direction the USA is going and that direction looks "Down" to me.
Haiti is under the thumb of the War Machine too and needs a revolution more than most countries.
But I feel the old word like "The Left" does not help and most likely hurts this challenge.
I grew up in the FDR days. I don't remember the terms of "right" or "left" being used. I can't recall that President Roosevelt ever "bragged" about anything he did. It wasn't in his nature. He was castigated by his own class for his concern about the problems of ordinary citizens throughout the entire depression years, but he moved farther to the left as he gained an understanding of the depths of the problems people were facing. His wife Eleanor prodded him to action as she had first-hand knowledge of what was going on. She traveled the country extensively, meeting people in their own homes and sitting at family kitchen tables in mining towns, in farmhouses and in factory towns to listen to their problems. FDR called her his eyes and ears and she wrote a daily newspaper columm called "My Day.". It must be hard for later generations inclined to cynicism about government figures to understand that a president can be loved and trusted by the people who kept him in power all those years. My first vote at 21 was for Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt has been my lifelong ideal of a truly great woman.
I once attended a meeting in a public school where Eleanor Roosevelt spoke. There was a bomb scare about half-way through the lecture and we all went into a side room where I stood close enough to Mrs. Roosevlt to have touched her. She never Flinched thoughout the whole affair, was calm and unruffled and spoke quietly to the people around her as we waited. What struck me was that, although she was not at all photogenic, she had beautiful skin and the most radiant smile.
Thanks, my Grandma told me the troubles began, the cold war, right after Roosevelt died.
They were targets of assassination too.
You are lucky and thanks for your story.
The USA is still fucking with Haiti.
G.H.W.Bush must be happy because, even though Duvalier was out Bush thought Aristide would be his puppet, and when Aristide didn't play along, Bush helped create the coup to have him forced out. Clinton enters and reinsates Aristide, Cuba helped him build medical centers and schools. Then when Bush Jr. come to office, has Aristide kiddnapped by the CIA and taken to Africa. So the finger points again to the Bushes, because Bush Sr. runs the show,--- no matter whom the main actor may be. At the present time it's Obama.
Gone are the days of colonial governments, plantations and slaves. Now there are just prison islands. This one produces sugar and bananas, two of the world's slave crops.
Apparently the U.S. has decided to restore the Baby Doc regime.
What is most outrageous is that the dictator is allowed back into the country while the democratically-elected Aristide (who the US Gov't kidnapped) is banned from entry because of such reasons that he tried to raise the minimum wage from 25 cents to 60 cents. I guess that would have forced Walmart to raise it pices on underwear and pajamas.
And for the first time in 25 years 'baby doc' IS arrested upon his return the Haiti.
Show him the same mercy he showed his victims! What a spectacle. Shame on France and the US.