Duvalier’s Cronies Boldly Returning to Haitian Life

The word on the telediol, Haiti’s exuberant national grapevine, is that the Duvalieristes are reorganizing their forces to impose a new dictatorship.

While telediol information is not always accurate, the word-of-mouth network is usually a reliable indicator of what is foremost on Haitian minds. And these days in Haiti, Duvalieristes are a subject of widespread fascination, apprehension and even alarm.

“Duvalieriste” is the label for Haitians who supported the Duvalier family dictatorship, who took part in its corruption and other abuses. The dictatorship ended Feb. 7 when President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier fled the country for the French Riviera after a bloody series of anti-government protests.

Many Duvalieristes fled too, but many stayed. For a while, they kept quietly out of view while the military-led provisional government contended with continuing unrest.

But with the passage of time, the Duvalieristes have become bolder, drinking and dining in expensive night spots and moving about in luxury cars.

“They have come out of their rat holes,” said Robert Duval, president of the League of Former Political Prisoners , an association of activists who were jailed under the Duvalier regime.

Politician Leslie Manigat, who stays tuned to the telediol, which literally means “tele-mouth” in Haiti’s Creole dialect, said, “They realize that the change is superficial, that they have nothing to fear.”

Giving rise to the flood of fearful reports is word that some former Duvalier officials are preparing to take part in the nation’s political process, holding meetings and considering possible candidates in anticipation of the planned November, 1987, presidential elections.

Few Were Prosecuted

Further feeding the anxiety is the fact that few Duvalieristes have been prosecuted for crimes committed during the regime’s long tenure. There are also accusations by anti-Duvalier activists that some of the dictator’s supporters still hold key positions in the provisional government.

Two of the three members of the ruling National Government Council are military officers who served in senior positions under Duvalier.

Although the council has promised to turn over power to a democratically elected government on Feb. 7, 1988, the second anniversary of Duvalier’s departure, many Haitians fear that the Duvalieristes could use force or fraud to subvert the electoral process and re-establish a dictatorship without Duvalier.

“It is a threat to democracy. There is no doubt about it,” said Manigat, 56, who is among dozens of anti-Duvalier politicians who plan to run on the presidential ballot. He said he understands that Duvalieristes with money and weapons are in touch with former officers of the Tontons Macoutes, Duvalier’s ruthless political militia.

Tontons No Longer Hiding

“Some Tontons Macoutes went into temporary exile,” Manigat said. “Some were hiding in the countryside. They no longer are.”

A series of meetings at a large house in the village of Santo, north of Port-au-Prince, in the past few weeks has been a topic of special interest on the telediol. The house belongs to the family of retired Gen. Claude Raymond, 55, who is reputed to be a leading figure among staunch Duvalieristes.

Hubert de Ronceray, another presidential hopeful, said participants in the Santo meetings include many retired officers and former Tontons Macoutes.

“They talk about a coup d’etat and taking power,” De Ronceray said. “It is said that they have a lot of money and that they are ready to pay millions of dollars to the army to gain power.”

Raymond Calls It Nonsense

That is the word over the telediol. Claude Raymond says it is nonsense.

“If you listen to telediol, you will go home crazy,” Raymond told a reporter at his three-story home in the shady Debussy section of Port-au-Prince.

Raymond acknowledged that he has helped organize the meetings at Santo. It was announced last month that the meetings have led to the formation of a new political party called the Assembly of National Understanding.

Raymond said the goal of the group is to take part in democratic elections.

“Democracy has given me the right to hold any meeting I want with the respect of the law,” he said.

He said the group is growing rapidly, spreading through the capital and into the provinces.

“We have the impression that people are getting scared of the assembly because of its success, so they say all kinds of things about it,” he said.

Is it a Duvalieriste group?

‘Duvalierism Is Dead’

“You must not talk any more about Duvalieristes or Duvalierism,” Raymond said. “Duvalierism is dead.”

Nevertheless, a leader of the new party told a press conference late last month that the organization is especially dedicated to promoting the welfare of Haiti’s black majority--the same theme emphasized by Duvalier forces when they sought power in the 1950s. Before the Duvalier years, Haiti was traditionally dominated by an elite class of mixed race.

Following the announcement of the new party, Duval of the League of Former Political Prisoners, said, “It’s a clear provocation. All they’re trying to do is to re-establish the same kind of system here.”

On Friday, violent demonstrations were held in two of Haiti’s cities by crowds protesting the Duvalieristes’ plans to reenter politics, wire services reported. Government sources said that at one of the gatherings, in Port-au-Prince, a shot fired from the crowd killed a soldier, and several demonstrators were arrested.

At the other gathering, in Gonaives, club-swinging soldiers dispersed the crowd and 10 demonstrators were hospitalized with injuries. Protesters in both cities chanted slogans against the Duvalieristes and accused the provisional government headed by Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy of human rights abuses.

Raymond emphasized that although some of the members of the new organization are former Duvalier officials, most are not and “anybody of good faith can be a member.”

But Edouard Francisque, a longtime official in the Duvalier regime, said he will have nothing to do with Raymond’s group.

“The Raymond group is a group of pure Duvalieristes, in its ideology and its way of thinking,” Francisque said scornfully.

Merely a Public Servant

Francisque, 59, worked for the Duvalier regime from 1964 to 1985 in posts that included finance minister and foreign minister. But in an interview under a bower of bougainvillea on his patio, he insisted that he never was a Duvalieriste--never actively supported the regime--and was merely a public servant doing his job. He said he is forming a political party and plans to run for the presidency, something he was unable to do under the dictatorship.

“Under the former government it was quite impossible to have a party,” he said. “We were under a very bloody dictatorship, you know.”

That dictatorship, which began in 1957 under Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, Jean-Claude’s father, lasted nearly three decades. The son inherited the regime when Francois died in 1971.

It was notorious for corruption and brutality, rewards and punishment. Those who collaborated with it might share its plunder, and those who defied it might die. Nine months after the dictatorship ended, few Duvalieristes have been brought to justice for abuses.

Duvalier Aide Convicted

Samuel Jeremie, a retired army colonel and former aide to Jean-Claude Duvalier, was convicted by a court-martial in May and sentenced to 15 years in prison for murder, cruelty and military misconduct.

Luc Desyr, former chief of security for Francois Duvalier, was sentenced to death in July on murder and torture charges. His appeal is pending. Edouard Paul, a former civilian official, was sentenced in July to three years in prison for complicity in murder.

Four other Duvalier government officials, including Paul Vericain, former chief of the Tontons Macoutes in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville, are expected to be tried during this month and next for criminal abuses of power.

But asked in an interview whether any other Duvalieristes are scheduled for trial, Francois Latortue, minister of justice, said, “I don’t think there are any more for the time being.”

He said 10 or 15 people wanted for criminal abuses have not been found.

“Many people have escaped,” he said. “We don’t know exactly how many.”

2 Sentenced in Absentia

Two former police officials who escaped, Elois Maitre and Jean Tassy, were sentenced to death in absentia for murder, torture and assassination.

Although hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds were stolen during the dictatorship, only one Duvalieriste has been officially charged with corruption. The government has started procedures to extradite Jean-Claude Sanson, former director of the central bank, from the United States.

Latortue said other corruption charges are awaiting a final report by a special commission of inquiry.

The commission’s work is going slowly. One informed source said that for the past month the seven-member commission has been meeting only two hours a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The source said the president of the commission, Elie Legagneur, was a friend of Francois Duvalier and shows little interest in the investigation.

“He has no idea of what is going on in the commission,” the source said.

Legagneur did not keep an appointment for an interview recently.

Guilty Reportedly Protected

Many anti-Duvalieristes say that because Duvalier officials still hold sway in the government, it is protecting people guilty of abuses under the dictatorship.

Justice Minister Latortue disagreed. He said: “It is possible that there is still one that they might say, ‘Oh, this man was with Duvalier,’ and he is still there, but that would be an exceptional case. In the public administration in general, all high officials were taken out.”

He said he removed more than 200 officials from the Justice Ministry, mostly provincial judges and prosecutors.

Lafontant Joseph, secretary-general of the Haitian League for Human Rights, insisted that Duvalieristes continue to occupy high positions.

Name by name, Joseph read aloud from a list of Haitian diplomats abroad who were not removed after the dictatorship fell, and he gave examples of other former Duvalier officials in the administration who are still in place. Some of them are in the Finance Ministry and the Treasury.

Officials ‘Took Their Share’

“They are the ones who made Jean-Claude Duvalier rich,” Joseph said. “He needed officials to draw the money from the treasury for him, and they didn’t do it without taking their share.”

Joseph complained that no Duvalieriste officers have been removed from the army. Jean-Claude Bajeux, director of the Ecumenical Center for Human Rights, said army officers still in place include former commanders of Ft. Dimanche, a barracks in Port-au-Prince where many political prisoners are believed to have been executed.

“Thousands have been exterminated in Ft. Dimanche,” Bajeux said. “It is like being commander of a Nazi concentration camp--you can’t say they were not involved in the killings.”

The National Coalition for Haitian Refugees in the United States and Americas Watch, a U.S. human rights organization, issued a report in October charging that Duvalierism persists in the Haitian government.

“The colonels who dominate the current provisional government are in the majority Duvalier loyalists and represent no change from the past,” the report said. “By and large, those who engaged in gross abuses of human rights in the past are not being investigated and prosecuted.”

Father Jean-Bertrand Aristides, a leftist Catholic priest who was active in the protest movement that forced Duvalier out, predicted that a new protest movement will oust the provisional government.

“It is the same Duvalier system, the same government,” he said.

William R. Long reported this story while on assignment recently in Haiti.