Most Duvalierists Barred From Vote by Haiti’s High Court

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Most former associates of deposed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier were finally barred Friday from running for president in Sunday’s general elections.

A complex supreme court decision ruled that Claude Raymond, Duvalier’s former military chief, and former financial adviser Clovis Desinor, as well as three other Duvalierist candidates, could not run because of their ties with the dictatorship.

The court let three other, lesser-known Duvalierists legally stand for office, but court aides explained to reporters that the three, in fact, would not now be able to run because it was too late.

The decision further confused Haitians and left the situation one of continued uneasiness on the threshold of the balloting. Whether or not violence might erupt over the weekend was widely linked in the public mind to whether or not the Duvalierists would be allowed to run. Some of the latter were known to have close ties to remnants of the Tontons Macoutes, the dreaded private militia of the Duvaliar dynasty.

In Washington, authorities said that a flotilla of American warships was steaming Friday toward Puerto Rico for a scheduled international exercise and that the warships would be near Haiti if Americans needed to be evacuated in the face of political violence.