Haiti – First Baby Doc Now Aristide Calls Next

Duvalier also applied for a new passport Wednesday and intends to leave the country when he gets it, a spokesman said, insisting that the once-reviled strongman can neither be forced to leave his homeland or compelled to stay and face a potential criminal trial on allegations of corruption and human-rights abuses.

He had been scheduled to leave Thursday but can’t because his passport has expired, said spokesman Yves Germain Joseph. He stunned the country Sunday with his sudden and mysterious return nearly 25 years after he was forced into exile by a popular uprising against a regime widely viewed as brutal and corrupt.

The spokesman said he did not know how long it would take to get a new passport but that the former dictator known as “Baby Doc” was in no rush to leave Haiti.

“He is home here. He is a Haitian,” Joseph said. “Nobody can ask Mr. Duvalier or any Haitian to leave his country at any time.”

Duvalier assumed power in 1971 at age 19 following the death of his notorious father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. The two leaders presided over one of the darkest chapters in modern Haitian history, a period when a secret police force known as the Tonton Macoute tortured and killed opponents. The private militia of sunglass-wearing thugs enforced the dynasty’s absolute power and lived off extortion.

He fell in 1986, followed by years of repressive rule by military officers who continued his style of rule.

Aristide rose to prominence as a critic of those regimes’ abuses and was elected in a 1990 landslide, then quickly ousted in a military coup. He was returned to power through U.S. military force in 1994 but especially after being re-elected in 2000 was also accused of corruption and abuses.

His former protegee, Rene Preval, was elected two years after his ouster, in 2006, largely thanks to the votes of Aristide’s supporters. But they now consider him a traitor for having failed to return their leader from exile.

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