Exiled dictator 'Baby Doc' Duvalier returns to Haiti: Why?

FRANÇOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER
Presidents-for-Life of Haiti 

In 1957 François "Papa Doc" Duvalier became Haiti's President-for-Life, establishing a strategic relationship with the U.S. that lasted into the 1970s, when he was succeeded by his son Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. During their 30 year rule, 60,000 Haitians were killed and countless more were tortured by the Duvaliers' Tonton Macoutes death squads, but in 1969, after 13 years of murderous rule by Papa Doc, U.S. Ambassador Clinton Knox shook hands with the dictator and called for increased aid to Haiti. PapaDoc made him an honorary Tonton Macoute. While Haiti became the poorest country in the Westem hemisphere, the Duvaliers enriched themselves by stealing foreign aid money. In 1980, for instance, the International Monetary Fund granted Haiti a $22 million budget supplement. Within weeks, $16 million was "unaccounted for," presumably in Baby Doc's bank account.

Papa Doc liked to compare himself to Christ and adapted the Lord's Prayer to read "Our Doc who art in the National Palace for life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations." Baby Doc, on the other hand, made Haiti into a trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine. He allegedly let his father-in-law use Haiti's national airline to ship drugs to the U.S., and his brother-in-law was convicted of cocaine trafficking by a Puerto Rican court. Nevertheless, as long as Papa and Baby Doc were anti-communists, they could do no wrong in the U.S. government's eyes. Their regime finally ended in 1986, when Baby Doc fled angry mobs of Haitians for the comfort of a Parisian villa, where he now resides.


From Russia Today: The former dictator of Haiti, Jean-Claude Duvalier, also known as 'Baby Doc', has returned to the country 26 years after he was overthrown. He greeted crowds of supporters, but did not say why he chose to return or what he would do. Duvalier inherited power from his father at 19 and presided over one of the darkest chapters in Haitian history. He is accused of torturing and killing political opponents, ruling in an atmosphere of fear and repression ensured by his feared secret police force.

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