Former Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier Returns Home
Former Haitian president Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has returned to Haiti after nearly 25 years in exile.
The move is surprising and perplexing and comes as his country struggles with a political crisis and the stalled effort to recover from last year’s devastating earthquake.
Mr Duvalier, wearing a dark suit and tie, arrived on an Air France jet to hugs from supporters at the Port-au-Prince airport.
He was calm as he was led into the immigration office. He left the airport without making a statement to journalists, waving to a crowd of more than 200 supporters as he got into a car.
“He is happy to be back in this country, back in his home,” said Mona Beruaveau, a candidate for Senate in a Duvalierist party who spoke to the former dictator inside the immigration office. “He is tired after a long trip.”
In the autumn of 2007, President Rene Preval told reporters that Mr Duvalier could return to Haiti but would face justice for the deaths of thousands of people and the theft of millions of dollars.
It was not immediately clear why the former dictator chose this tumultuous moment to return to Haiti.
There were no immediate protests in reaction to his return and very few people were even aware that the former dictator had come back to Haiti, where more than one million people are living in crowded, squalid tent encampments after their homes were destroyed from the January 12, 2010, earthquake.
Haitians danced in the streets to celebrate the overthrow of Mr Duvalier back in 1986, heckling the tyrant as he was driven to the airport in a black limousine and flown into exile in France. Most Haitians hoped the rapacious strongman known had left for good, closing a dark chapter of terror and repression that began under his late father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.
But a handful of loyalists have been campaigning to bring Mr Duvalier home from exile in France, launching a foundation to improve the dictatorship’s image and reviving his political party in the hopes that one day he can return to power democratically.
April 5th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
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