Plunging into Haiti: Clinton, Aristide, and the Defeat of Diplomacy

CHAPTER 9. The Fall of Baby Doc

107 The Fall of Baby Doc “Let the flood descend. . . .” —Father J E A N - B E RT R A N D A R I ST I D E , 1990 Ask a Haitian to explain the turbulent political climate in his or her country and chances are he or she will tell you that the country is still emerging from the creepy graveyard of Papa Doc Duvalier. “Think of us as a whole society suffering from battered-wife syndrome,” said the daughter of an army colonel who fled the country in the early sixties.1 By the time Papa Doc’s moon-faced son inherited power in 1971 at least half a million Haitians were living in exile. Jean-Claude (or Baskethead, as he was called by his schoolmates) was the youngest president in the world when he became President-for-Life at nineteen. Initially regarded as a lazy affable playboy with no stomach for turning Haiti into a nation of zombies, he seemed content to play with his expensive cars, chase young girls, and party. He left the details of running the country to his domineering mother, Simone (known inside Haiti as “Mama Doc”), his beloved sister Marie-Denise, and a circle of ex-ministers and other Duvalierist “dinosaurs.” Prominent among them was Simone’s longtime lover and Papa Doc’s trusted advisor and bagman Luckner Cambronne. All this was done with the repressive state CHAPTER 9 108 THE FALL OF BABY DOC apparatus, represented by the mirrored sunglassed faces of the Tonton Macoutes, firmly in place. After thirteen brutal years of Papa Doc, the outside world responded warmly to the less repressive and friendlier façade of the Jean-Claude regime. Thousand of exiles, including light-skinned businessmen from the old elite, began to drift back after years in exile. With them came tourists, mainly from the United States. By the end of the seventies luxury cruise ships regularly called at Haitian ports and a Club Méditerrané was welcoming visitors to secluded beaches at Montrouis. By 1977 an estimated 167,260 foreigners had visited Haiti. Hoping to encourage political and economic reform, U.S. aid grew consistently from $4.3 million in 1971, to $9.3 million in 1974, to $35.5 million in 1975. With U.S. support, Jean-Claude created the Léopards, an elite counterinsurgency unit, to respond to internal threats. Also, in 1972, the Military Academy, which had been closed since 1961, was reopened and a politically well-connected class graduated in 1973. At the head of the class was Raoul Cédras. Graduating below him were Phillipe Biamby and Himmler Rebú—all personally selected by President JeanClaude Duvalier. Whetheroutofindifferenceoragenuinefeelingofopenness,Presidentfor -Life Jean Claude let other independent power centers that his father had undermined regain some of their strength. As the seventies progressed , mulatto elites, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, and urban intellectuals all felt their influence grow. In the meantime, old-guard Duvalierists took advantage of Baby Doc’s lax control to enrich themselves. The venality of their schemes was often astounding. But for sheer originality nothing matched the Audubon stamp scandal of 1975. Hatched by Jean-Claude’s sister, Nicole, his ambassador to Spain, General Claude Raymond, and other insiders, the scam involved producing fake Haitian stamps and selling them to international collectors. Meanwhile, a short, soft-spoken seminary student, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was studying at the Salesian Seminary in Cap Haitien. Only a year younger than the dictator, he had impressed the elders in the Catholic Church with his quick mastery of French, Latin, Greek, English, and Spanish. Born in the southwestern town of Port-Salut, where his 10 9 THE FALL OF BABY DOC father managed a modest farm, the young Aristide had moved to Portau -Prince with his older sister and mother after his father died at an early age. “We had no fixed residence and I have no shortage of memories of moving,” he explained.2 His mother was one of the informal traders and sellers of goods Haitians call a Madam Sara. While at the seminary, the eighteen-year-old Aristide expressed objections to the use of Latin, which he felt disrupted communion. At the same time, he was reading the works of modern Haitian and South American writers and of liberation theologians Gabriel Marcel and Leonardo Buff. The themes of active engagement against social and political injustice resonated deeply in the young...