POOR LITTLE ANGEL, BABY DOC

Daya: The idea that he had hundreds of millions stashed abroad is absurd, a monstrous lie of people with an agenda.

This proposition is absurd. He took the money and ran. Just why are you trying to propagandize for this ex-Caribbean Pirate?

Why in heavens name would he formally request the Swiss government to return to him the $6M they sequestered. (As reported here two-days ago by LeMonde, a serious French newspaper.)

Stop obfuscating the facts by intimating that he’s a poor little angel, having been manipulated by others. That idiotic notion was discarded decades ago - and we are not fools.

OM: oh brother. 

No, Baby Doc Duvalier was an only son. But he does have three sisters.

Here’s an early photo of his sister, Marie-Denise.

I just read this little whopper: I was in the French Riviera when he showed up there from Haiti. One of the first things he did was to buy a red Ferrari so he could race up the highway between Cannes and Grass.

oh brother.

cl: My hyperbolic speculation is little more than expressed outrage at the fact that this man can show his face anywhere in the “free world” let alone Haiti and not be arrested for crimes against humanity.

You are right to sense indignation, as many of us do. Why France never took action against him is lost in the mist of time.

I was in the French Riviera when he showed up there from Haiti. One of the first things he did was to buy a red Ferrari so he could race up the highway between Cannes and Grass.

He put is children in the International School in Mougins and was quite a number in the various casinos from Cannes to Monaco. It is said that he lost most of his fortune in that manner.

All this is just rumour, however, which I could not substantiate if I had to do so. But the fact of the matter is that he is a sick man, suffering supposedly from Lupus (an ulcerative skin disease) and, given his other maladies as well, perhaps he fears dieing without medical attention.

For as long as he lives in France, health-care is not a problem for him. But if he ever goes back to Haiti, one wonders what he would do for his serious illnesses.

For this reason, perhaps out of desperation, he hoped that a round trip from France would convince the Swiss to return the sequestered funds there - such that he could live comfortably, in France, for the rest of his life.

But that release of funds to him aint gonna happin. Or so it seems ...

BL: Aristide, originally cheered on as a great, honest reformer, also turned out to be a major disappointment, a somewhat erratic despot himself.

Yes, indeed.

WikiP paints an extensive portrait of Aristide here. He’s a mixed bag of good and evil—amazing for an ex-priest.

But he too was an instrument of the American government, which is why Haiti remains an American client-state (aka “protectorate”). Read the bit about how Bill Clinton insisted that Haiti import only American foodstuffs. As regards cereal-products, such as flour, the American imports were a price against which Haitian farmers could not compete—thus exacerbating the shift of population into cities even worsening unemployment.

Why in heaven’s name did we not, after the earthquake, ship cheap temporary housing-units whilst residences were rebuilt—in stead of having these people live in the squalor of tents without sanitary facilities whilst a cholera epidemic kills people daily.

(We did build suitable accommodations for our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in good time, didn’t we.)

Haiti was and remains our bag-of-worms and Uncle Sam should be ashamed of himself for his lack of attention to the Haitian plight. For what reason?

Easy answer: Aside from our already heavily subsidized BigAggie cereal producers, there is no real profit to be made in Haiti, so we allow it to fester.

Just the facts, Ma’am,
Of course,we all just want the truth. My hyperbolic speculation is little more than
expressed outrage at the fact that this man can show his face anywhere in the
“free world” let alone Haiti and not be arrested for crimes against humanity. It
seems such an insult to us all.

@Barry Funny how anyone who takes on the status quo in a radical, serious way in Latin America is always slammed as a “despot” or “erratic dictator.” We of course have Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa as recent examples, but the pattern has been the same for decades.

For the general reader some excellent titles on recent Haitian history are:

“An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution To The Kidnapping Of A President” by Randall Robinson.

“Damming The Flood: Haiti And The Politics Of Containment” by Peter Hallward.

“1959: The Year That Inflamed The Caribbean” by Bernard Diederich.

The best film on the 2004 coup is “Aristide And The Endless Revolution,” fully available on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5U8zQ8x3hI

berniem, you ask a good question.

follow the money.
what’s in it for Washington, or the MIC, or Wall Street?

if it walks like a duck…..

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM

BL: Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, another corrupt and bloody former dictator who fled his country ignominiously almost 25 years ago, returned to Haiti—to jeers, yes, but also to the cheers of a mob of supporters.

Rather, perhaps Duvalier was hoping against hope that a quick-trip in and out of Haiti might convince the Swiss that the $5M of his money that they have sequestered will be released, because Haiti “evidently no longer is pursuing him”. According to the “Duvalier Law” passed by the Swiss for just such instances of Outlaw Funds, before the 31 of this month, when the law takes effect, he would have at least a chance to get his hands on the money.

After all, whatever the amount he took with him, he’s supposedly short of money presently. Thus his trip to Haiti was a desperate attempt to obtain the money and not to return to power in Haiti.

We shall see ... but the Haitian government has made a formal application to the Swiss government to recuperate the money, so there’s not a chance in hell that he’ll get his hands on it legally—regardless of whether a future Haitian government is a sham or not.

MAM had made an offer to the Ben Ali government during the height of the demonstrations to train the Tunisian police in the manner of controlling mobs in order to avoid deaths.

Obviously, it was a bit late and perhaps also misguided. But MAM insists however that her intentions were to avoid Tunisian blood being spilt.

Under the ruthless Duvalier regime, there was at least a semblance of order. The woefully impoverished people in Haiti today do not have even that.

This country has not had a semblance of order since colonial rule.

It is a shame, with all the American and international celebs who visited the country just after the earthquake, that more has not been done. But that is because though countries did make an initial pledge for reconstruction funds, very little money has indeed come through.

The US, most feel, is at fault. Haiti is Uncle Sam’s client-country and not France’s.

On the other hand, there are too many radical political groupings bubbling to the surface in Tunisia, too many foreign powers ready to interfere, and probably at least a few Tunisian generals ready to heed the call to save their nation.

This is an overstatement of fact.

The government has released all political prisoners including islamists. Islamists are also returning for exile. As are the Tunisian Communists.

Should we be worried? About the Islamists, no, because the Tunisian people have never harbored any warm feelings for that crowd.

There is also perhaps another, more subtle factor, at work. Bourgiba, Tunisia’s last elected and much respected President, who brought progressive change to Tunisia, also saw that Tunisian women were truly emancipated. The consequence has been that what women have to say actually matters in this country, quite unlike other Muslim nations. This could certainly affect the Tunisian people’s attitude toward Islamists (who hold typically repressive notions about the female sex).

Tunisia could be different, once it sorts out the present mess.

What are the odds that the “C” St. cabal of esteemed congressional leaders and their “Fellowship” counterparts in the corporatocracy have an “invisible” hand in the return of this Haitian Messiah?

THE TALE OF TWO DICTATORS IS HU AND OBAMA TWO
DICTATORS.
AS for Haiti Americans will not let an elected
president by the Haitian people Aristide, this is the
third time, the Americans remove a publicly elected
person, first with Bush Senior, Then Clinton, on His
watch 33,000 women raped , 8000 people killed, while
him and Monica goofing off, themn again with Bush JR,
who loves to torture what a buncxh of creeps who
continue to harass the Haitians, SHAME AMERICA is
still torturing Haiti. Duval an French American
puppet killed jailer thousands, What is that all
about, why the Americans can´t allow Haiti to make
their own way, always promoting the Dictators that
kill and not the public elected candidate. America is
the problem again you send the Clinton the pervert to
rape centers what is that all about, get out of
Haiti, go home America clean up your own toilets.

I thought we ( Obama) promised to never turn our backs on the people of Haiti
again. Its difficult to believe that our government would see the return of a
ruthless, murderous, corrupt Duvalier dictatorship as a legitimate way forward for
the country. Maybe the strategy is about concentrating the peoples hate and anger
in one place as a means to distract their attention from their own slow deaths.
Maybe we are just looking for a death house warden to manage things for awhile,
it shouldn’t take long. It will save us a lot of heartache and cash. Maybe that its.

Do not listen to American press reports about Aristide; you will not get an accurate picture. No one accused him of being corrupt, of murdering people. The problem here is not the Haitian people, it is the governments of the United States, Canada, and France. France apparently has never been able to get past the fact that its colony rose up and ousted the colonial government. Two hundred years later, it is doing its best to undermine any attempts by Haitians to improve their lot, and it is assisted by the criminals in our government and the Canadian government. It is so easy to see the U.S. government as despicable and horrific, but we learned our lessons at the feet of the masters in Europe. Who love nothing better than to portray themselves as international humanitarians!

The author speaks of irony, as if the suffering of the
deliberately impoverished was merely the subject of
some academic seminar.  The true irony is that the
nation that won its independence from an empire crushes
any and all others in their attempt to do the same, the
nation that endlessly talks of human rights and
democracy does all it can to violate human rights and
subvert democracy and the rule of law.

Barbarians in suits.

Another similarity is that both Ben Ali and Duvalier were for a while major US clients. Baby’s daddy, Papa Doc, was a major ally of the US, especially after the Cuban Revolution threatened to inspire uprisings in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The article also forgot to mention that while the US keeps pretty quiet over Duvalier coming back, it is refusing to allow Haiti’s only truly elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, return from exile in South Africa. Of course Duvalier was overthrown by his own people, Aristide was overthrown and kidnapped by Bush II in 2004.