Former Haitian Dictator Taken Away by Police
Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press
Former Hatian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as “Baby Doc,” gestured to supporters as police took him from his hotel on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian police officers on Tuesday took away Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator who abruptly returned to this country nearly 25 years after being forced from power, leading him out of the high-end hotel where he has been huddled since his arrival.
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“We are with you,” some supporters shouted as police officers led Mr. Duvalier out of the back of the hotel. With United Nations peacekeepers standing by, police officers put him and several of his associates into a waiting vehicle and drove off. Small clusters of his supporters outside the hotel cried “revolution.” Hunks of concrete were thrown into the convoy’s path.
The police did not indicate where Mr. Duvalier was being taken, and it remained unclear whether Mr. Duvalier would be arrested or simply questioned. He has faced threats of prosecution in the past for the many human rights abuses committed during his rule, and for the hundreds of millions of dollars government officials have said he looted from the country.
But one of Mr. Duvalier’s lawyers at the hotel said that Mr. Duvalier was merely being brought to a meeting with prosecutors for questioning. A Haitian official said separately that Mr. Duvalier could be released by the end of the day.
Still, in a country with a long history of impunity, where leaders rarely face prosecution, it was a striking scene, underscoring the political volatility that has gripped Haiti since a contested presidential election late last year.
One year after the nation was hit by a devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, the country has been grappling to absorb the potentially destabilizing blow of Mr. Duvalier’s surprise return this week, which drew condemnations from around the world and ignited new fears of conflict.
Mr. Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, returned to Haiti 24 years and 11 months after he was forced to flee the country by a tide of social upheaval driven by severe poverty and his regime’s brutal political repression. In a brief radio interview, Mr. Duvalier said he had returned only to help his country, not to get involved in politics. He spent the rest of his first day back in Haiti out of the public eye, huddled with his advisers and relatives at a high-end hotel in the mountains overlooking Port-au-Prince, the capital.
His silence left Haitians and the rest of the world to wonder what Mr. Duvalier was really up to.
Neither France, which had granted Mr. Duvalier asylum, nor the United States, Haiti’s largest benefactor, said they had anything to do with his return. In fact, both governments said they had been unaware that Mr. Duvalier had left Paris until his flight was close to landing in Port-au-Prince.
The Haitian government — in disarray since the earthquake — seemed to respond in fits and starts, initially dismissing Mr. Duvalier’s arrival as well within his rights as a Haitian citizen, and later suggesting that the Justice Ministry had begun an investigation into his return.
Angry reactions poured in from around the world, with human rights groups demanding that the Haitian government charge Mr. Duvalier with crimes against humanity — including the kidnapping, torture and murder of thousands of his opponents — and with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the nation, the poorest in the hemisphere.
“Duvalier’s return to Haiti should be for one purpose only: to face justice,” José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said in a statement.
On the streets here, however, there were signs that Mr. Duvalier’s arrival had started a new cycle of the polarization that has crippled this country for decades. Some decried Mr. Duvalier as a vestige of one of the darkest chapters in the country’s history, while others waxed nostalgic about him as the only hope for change in Haiti.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Bobby Duval, a former soccer star, said he had been starved and tortured for 17 months while being held without charges under Mr. Duvalier’s government.
Calling Mr. Duvalier a “murderous thief,” Mr. Duval said, “A country that has no memory will repeat its same mistakes.”
But there were different opinions in some of the tent camps that have become home to one million people displaced by the earthquake, where many have become so desperate that they are willing to pin their hopes on just about anyone.
“Haiti has never had the perfect leader,” said Bernadette Brudet. “Many of them were corrupt. Many of them have blood on their hands. But with Duvalier, we were safe, and our stomachs were full.”
History records things a bit differently. The country to which Mr. Duvalier returned on Sunday seems woefully similar to the one he fled in 1986 — a place plagued by violent crime and corrupt politicians, where people live in crushing poverty and die from preventable diseases.
Mr. Duvalier ruled Haiti beginning in 1971, when he was just 19, following the death of his father, François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc. In all, the Duvalier dynasty lasted about three decades and was marked by the family’s brutal repression of its opponents, with the help of a special police unit called the Tontons Macoute.
Following the younger Mr. Duvalier’s ouster, the country turned on his security forces, slaughtering them by the dozens and even desecrating François Duvalier’s mausoleum.
The devastating earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, stretched this nation to its limits once again, making Mr. Duvalier’s stunning return a potential breaking point.
So far, however, people in Port-au-Prince have remained calm. After landing in the capital on Sunday, Mr. Duvalier was treated by some like a visiting dignitary, according to the Web site of the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste.
“I came to put myself at the service of my country,” he was quoted as saying as he left the plane.
Crowds lined his route from the airport and, referring to the nation’s dismal conditions, chanted, “If Jean-Claude had been here, we would never be like this,” the newspaper reported.
Mr. Duvalier and his companion, Véronique Roy, were driven to the Karibe Hotel in a four-wheel-drive vehicle that was escorted by members of the Haitian national police and followed by a “procession,” the newspaper said.
Reporters camped outside the Karibe all day on Monday, while a steady stream of friends and relatives dropped in to visit.
A Duvalier aide, Henry Robert Sterlin, said he did not know how long Mr. Duvalier planned to stay in Haiti, or if he planned to meet with Haiti’s president, René Préval. A friend of the former dictator, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because he was not an official representative, said that Mr. Duvalier would stay for three or four days, but that he would like eventually to resettle in Haiti.
Desir Gérard, an elderly cousin, who was one of the visitors at the hotel, told reporters that Mr. Duvalier “is happy to be here,” adding, “He was homesick.”
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