IT WAS not Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s arrest that surprised but his return to the scene of the crime 25 years after the event. Why on earth did he come back to Haiti? It was certainly not a crisis of conscience or a sudden willingness to face the music, to answer for his bloody 15 years of rule or for the looting of the Haitian treasury in a style that would put a Ben Ali in the halfpenny place. The Duvaliers don’t do conscience and his suggestion that he is home to assist in the reconstruction of his blighted country is laughable.
Following his surprise return from exile in Paris, the former dictator now faces charges of corruption, theft and abuses of power in respect of what are alleged to be hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds that Duvalier and his family fled with in 1986 during a popular uprising. The charges will be investigated by a judge who will decide whether a criminal case should proceed. Duvalier has been ordered not to leave the country in the interim.
There is pressure from human rights organisations also to make him face charges arising from the kidnaps, disappearances, torture and murders of up to 30,000 political opponents under both his reign and that of his father “Papa Doc” whom he succeeded in 1971 at the age of 19. Their infamous special security force, the Tonton Macoutes, were a byword for indiscriminate brutality and terror and its membership was hunted down and stoned to death by crowds as “Baby Doc” fled the country in 1986.
In exile Duvalier has fought ongoing court battles with the Swiss to retain control of what is left of his fortune, much of which he frittered away on a luxury lifestyle. A new Bill, due to come into force on February 1st, should allow the government in Berne finally to seize and then restore to the Haitian government accounts containing some €4 million. Duvalier’s trial, however, will be a real challenge to the Haitian state and judiciary, crippled by the earthquake and yet to recover. Conducting a fair, complex, highly politically-charged trial may well test its capacity to the limit.
The country is also on a political knife-edge following a disputed first round in its recent presidential elections. With the US and France controversially pressing for the disqualification from the second round of a candidate backed by the country’s president, local observers are worried by Duvalier’s connection to another candidate. The last thing this battered island needs is the political resurrection of this bloodthirsty family.