Batistti gets diplomatic passport.
Sorry, "Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier" gets diplomatic passport.
My mistake. So sue me.
...............................
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...042762,00.html
In the past 12 months, Haiti — already the western hemisphere's
economic basket case — has suffered an epic earthquake that according
to latest estimates killed more than 250,000 people and leveled the
country's infrastructure, a cholera epidemic that has claimed
thousands more lives and a powder-keg political crisis tied to the
fraud-tainted Nov. 28 presidential election.
All the country needed now was the return of a brutal exiled dictator.
This being Haiti, whose chronic tragedy is so often served with a
helping of banana-republic bizarreness, that's what it got Sunday
afternoon when Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier landed in
Port-au-Prince for the first time since being thrown out of the
country and packed off to France almost 25 years ago. "I came to help
my country," the 59-year-old former despot declared as some 2,000 of
his supporters met him at the airport. But it's hard to imagine how
Duvalier's reappearance, which Haitian officials insist took them by
surprise, could do anything more than throw Haiti into even deeper
turmoil as it tries to rebuild after last year's disaster.
And what's perhaps even harder to imagine is how the government of
French President Nicolas Sarkozy could have allowed Duvalier, who
arrived from Paris, to board an Air France flight bound for Haiti
under the current circumstances. "For the French to have even
permitted [Duvalier] to leave their territory amidst an electoral and
cholera crisis here shows they have not much interest in the welfare
of the Haitian people," says a high-ranking Haitian government
official.
French officials, who technically had no power to stop Duvalier,
weren't responding to that question on Sunday night. But
Port-au-Prince media were rife with conflicting conspiracy theories —
all of them focused on last week's election report by the Organization
of American States (OAS). It concluded that Jude Célestin, the
candidate of Haitian President René Préval's party, actually finished
third, not second, in the first-round balloting on Nov. 28, and that
Célestin should therefore not be eligible for a runoff vote — which,
ironically, was originally supposed to have been held Sunday but has
been postponed.
The less-than-credible Nov. 28 results, which many if not most
Haitians believe the government fixed to eke out a runoff spot for
Célestin, were met by violent street protests last month. Even before
last week's OAS report, the aloof and unpopular Préval was under ample
international pressure, including from the U.S., to recognize the
official third-place finisher, Michel Martelly, as the actual
runner-up. (He would then face first-place candidate Mirlande Manigat
in the runoff.) Last week, France's ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le
Bret, was frequently on Haitian radio calling on Préval to respect the
OAS recommendation. Préval in turn angrily charged France and the
international community with imperialist-style strong-arming.
The question now is, Who if anyone in this standoff benefits from the
sudden presence of Duvalier? Some Haitian pundits on Sunday said it
might be meant to compel Préval to acquiesce to international demands
to sacrifice Célestin. But it's hard to believe, even under Sarkozy,
that France and the international community would stoop so low
diplomatically as to encourage Duvalier to return to Haiti for that
purpose. Others suggested that Duvalier's return instead gives Préval
leverage by showing the international powers how much more turbulent
things can get if they keep messing with the Haitian President. But
again, could even Préval be cynical enough to open the door to one of
the 20th century's most notorious dictators for that kind of political
gain? Either way, sources close to Duvalier told reporters Sunday that
he'd entered Haiti on a diplomatic passport — but if so, it was
unclear which country had issued it to him.
What's worse, this drama could actually send many Haitians, albeit
with blinders on, to the side of Duvalier, whose stunning return might
make him seem a figure of stability and order amid their country's
nightmarish uncertainties. Baby Doc had already announced his desire
to return to Haiti in 2004, after the ouster of populist President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (whose supporters may now clamor more loudly
for his own return from exile in South Africa). Duvalier even said he
wanted to run for President himself in the 2006 elections. But Haitian
officials made it clear that if Duvalier did return, he'd face trial
on charges of corruption and brutality during his 15-year
dictatorship, which had succeeded the even harsher regime of his
father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who died in 1971.
Both Papa Doc and Baby Doc ruled through terror, relying on
bloodthirsty enforcers like the Tonton Macoutes, and each stole the
western hemisphere's poorest nation blind. After Baby Doc and his
infamously venal wife, Michèle Bennett, were whisked out of Haiti in
February of 1986 on a U.S. Air Force plane amid a seething uprising by
Haitians, they settled in the south of France and lived in one of the
world's most luxurious exiles. (They divorced in 1993; Duvalier
arrived in Port-au-Prince on Sunday with his new wife, Véronique Roy,
the granddaughter of a former Haitian President.)
Baby Doc apologized for his government's "errors" in 2004. But despite
the welcome he received at the Port-au-Prince airport, Haitian police
officials said they were "waiting for instructions from prosecutors"
as to whether they should arrest him. After stepping off his Air
France flight on Sunday, Duvalier declared, "I am here to see how the
situation is." Please. He already knew how bad the situation was. And
just as he and his monstrous father did when they ruled Haiti, he's
there to make it worse.
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