Baby Doc Duvalier Didn't Show Up At The Wedding... I Don't Think

Baby Doc & Papa Doc-- there may be a chicken or pig left to steal

You may have guessed that I don't spend a lot of time with rightists; not my cup of tea-- and I have so little self-control that I just fight with them. But... my friend Jean-Michel was different from the rest. My old boss has homes around the world, always fabulous places sitting in exactly the best place in every city. That's what happens when you're the guy who signs Madonna. Problem with all these fabulous homes is that he's a pig beyond belief. Every home was uninhabitable. It isn't only because he doesn't like having strangers coming in to clean, it's because strangers refuse to! He's an "art" collector-- one of the world's most notorious... and "art" is very much stretched to cover a lot of ground even beyond one of the world's most complete homoerotic collections and so much art deco furniture that he could turn his mansions into warehouses-- which, of course, he has. But he's not the rightist I'm talking about.

When I worked for him I used to have to travel to our affiliated companies around the world. He suggested I could save a lot of money on my expenses if I stayed at his places instead of hotels. But his places turned out to be gross. I tried hiring someone to clean one of his 3 London flats but I wound up having to hire a whole crew-- for three solid days. However, a block and a half from l'Étoile, oui, oui, the Arc de Triomphe he had a place that needed no cleaning. That's because Jean-Michel lived there full time. We became good friends and just avoided talking about politics, not always easy since he had been a paratrooper for Kataeb, the Lebanese Phalangist Party (oui, oui, fascists-- the real thing)-- led by the Maronite Christian Amin Gemayel and funded by Israel-- in the 1980s.

He was my boss' most handsome and cultivated boyfriend but he eventually got married (to a woman) and invited me to the wedding. It was spectacular. The lovely bride's papa had been the Minister of Finance in Baby Doc Duvalier's Haitian kleptocracy until they fled the country in 1986-- with the national treasury. Mon. Minister bought a lush park with gently rolling green hills just outside of Paris with a château that you'd expect to see Marie Antoinette's ghost running around looking for her head. The park was big enough to build his daughter and Jean-Michel a classic-looking château of their own a couple kilometers away. What a nice place for a wedding.

The most fundamental problems of the Haitian economy, however, were economic mismanagement and corruption. More avaricious than his father, Jean-Claude Duvalier overstepped even the traditionally accepted boundaries of Haitian corruption. Duvalierists under Jean-Claude engaged in, among other activities, drug trafficking, pilferage of development and food aid, illegal resale and export of subsidized oil, fraudulent lotteries, export of cadavers and blood plasma, manipulation of government contracts, tampering with pension funds, and skimming of budgeted funds. As a result, the president for life and his wife lived luxuriously, in stark contrast to the absolute poverty of most Haitians. Allegations of official corruption surfaced when Duvalier appointed a former World Bank official, Marc Bazin, to the post of finance minister in 1982. Bazin sought to investigate corruption and to reform fiscal accounting practices in connection with a 1981 International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic stabilization agreement. More zealous than Duvalier had anticipated, Bazin documented case after case of corruption, determined that at least 36 percent of government revenue was embezzled, and declared the country the "most mismanaged in the region." Although quickly replaced, Bazin gave credence to foreign complaints of corruption, such as that contained in a 1982 report by the Canadian government that deemed Duvalier's Haiti a kleptocracy.

Jean-Michel's more amenable father-in-law followed a quickly dispatched Bazin. I can't say I've kept up with any of them-- except my old boss, and it is through him I found out that Jean-Michel split up with Baby Doc's Finance Minister fille. Jean-Michel is no doubt still in France, in all likelihood supporting the rise of Marine Le Pen. But what about Jean-Michel's ex-wife (and child)? As you no doubt know by now, Baby Doc's back in Haiti, broke... but did he bring the pillager of the national treasury (and his family)? And will there be trials? A wikileaks document from 5 years ago indicates that the U.S. was worried Baby Doc might try to come back. Duvalier says he's back to help, not for politics, but no one believes that.

Coming against the backdrop of an earthquake that killed 250,000 and reduced sections of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to dust, paralysis in the efforts to rebuild, a fatal cholera epidemic, a presidential election crisis and crippling social conditions, the playboy president's re-emergence put one more bizarre twist in Haiti's chaotic landscape.

However, after stepping off an Air France flight from Paris and kissing the ground, the 59-year-old insisted that his intentions were pure. "I am not here for politics," he claimed. "I am here for the reconstruction of Haiti."

It had been an "emotional return," said his second wife, Veronique Roy, who was asked at the airport why they had come. "Why not?" she replied, claiming that they planned to stay for only three days.

...Duvalier presided over a dark chapter in Haiti's history, becoming the world's youngest head of state in 1971 when he assumed the title of "president for life" at the age of 19, following the death of his father, Francis "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who had ruled since 1957.

Their successive dictatorships brought decades of savagery, corruption and the wholesale theft of state funds while the population cowered in fear, poverty and starvation.

Both executed a campaign of bloody oppression, torturing and killing political opponents in their tens of thousands and handing free rein to a bloodthirsty militia known as the Tonton Macoute-- Creole for "bogeyman"-- to silence detractors. Trade unionism and independent media were crushed. Those who spoke out or agitated for democracy disappeared, sometimes assassinated in broad daylight, their corpses often strung from trees as a warning.

Up to 30,000 people were murdered and hundreds of thousands more driven into exile.

"It is the destiny of the people of Haiti to suffer," Baby Doc once declared, as his people scratched for survival.

By the time a series of popular uprisings finally destabilised his dictatorship in 1986, the international community was ready to help show him the door.

President Ronald Reagan's administration provided a US air force jet to spirit him out of the country under cover of darkness and France, Haiti's former colonial ruler, granted him and his 20-strong entourage asylum-- an arrangement that it intended to be temporary, until realising that no other country would take him off its hands thereafter.

UPDATE: Baby Doc In Custody-- Where All Tyrants And Sociopaths Should Be

Jean-Claude Duvalier has been charged with corruption. How could it be otherwise? Well, the Tunisian president and his family got away with $20 billion (+ a last minute ton and a half of gold). And just like morons in our country protest that Congress passed a health care bill, idiots in Haiti are protesting that Duvalier may have to face the consequences of his 15 year kleptocracy, not to mention an abysmal record of human rights abuses.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have urged the authorities to prosecute the former dictator for jailing, torturing and murdering thousands of people during his time in power. His longtime companion, Veronique Roy, when asked whether Duvalier was being arrested, simply laughed and said nothing.

The scene evoked memories of 7 February 1986 when crowds danced in the streets after widespread revolts and international pressure led to his departure.

His Swiss-banked fortune long used up in divorce and tax disputes, Duvalier returned to Haiti without warning on Sunday on a flight from Paris, saying he wanted to help. "I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the reconstruction of Haiti."

A spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights said it should be easier to prosecute Duvalier in Haiti because it was where atrocities took place but that the judicial system was fragile.

It remained unclear why he returned and what impact it would have on the year-long post-quake crisis which has left a leadership vacuum and a country in ferment, with near daily street demonstrations by rival factions.