But Haiti Seeks Funds : For Duvalier, It’s a Golden Life in Exile

Two years and eight months after he was forced to flee Haiti in disgrace, deposed dictator Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier and his family enjoy a life of golden exile here in the sun-drenched Cote d’Azur.

According to neighbors and associates, a typical day chez Duvalier includes:

-- A leisurely late-morning awakening at the Provencal-style villa nestled in a grove of cypress and olive trees.

-- Tennis with a private pro at the Mougins Country Club.

-- A spirited drive through the Maritime Alps in the family Ferrari Testarossa or BMW 535.

-- Shopping at the expensive boutiques in Cannes.

-- Dinner at the nearby Moulin de Mougins restaurant, where the basic menu starts at $95 a head.

A ‘Passion for the Table’

“President Duvalier likes to eat well,” said Moulin de Mougins master chef Roger Verge. “He has a passion for the table that for me is a high form of civilization.”

To others, Duvalier’s passion for the table might be considered a little excessive. Dinner bills for Duvalier and his entourage of relatives and former government ministers are known to top $2,000.

When not here in the sunny south, the Duvaliers can usually be found in Paris at the luxurious Bristol Hotel near the upscale shops on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. According to French court records obtained by The Times, the Duvaliers have spent several hundred thousand dollars on jewelry at various Paris shops during the past two years.

One of the documents contained in the court records, a notebook-ledger belonging to Michele Duvalier, wife of the former Haitian president and mother of his two children, lists purchases from the Paris jeweler Boucheron, dated December, 1987, totaling $455,000, including a $200,000 pair of earrings and a $75,000 emerald broach.

A bill for a Christmas shopping trip for the family’s various doctors and dentists in Paris and Cannes detailed several thousand dollars worth of gifts, including Lalique crystal ashtrays and a $500 clock. Another notation in the court records listed the purchase of two children’s saddles from Hermes, a famous Paris store, for $9,000.

A weeklong trip to Paris from Oct. 30 to Nov. 6, 1987, produced a notation of a $13,000 bill at the Bristol Hotel, another $10,000 in restaurant tabs and a $700 tip to chauffeurs.

“The problem with the Duvaliers is that they have large needs,” said Gilles August, an attorney in the Paris law firm that represents Haiti in a lawsuit against the Duvaliers. “They are incapable of living discreetly. They simply need to spend a lot of money.”

Where they get the money to maintain their life style is still something of a mystery. Michele Duvalier asserted at the time of their departure: “We have left behind practically everything that we had.”

But Haitian government officials say the Duvaliers left the island with more than $120 million in funds stolen from the state. Haiti is an impoverished land where the annual per capita income of its 6 million citizens is less than $350.

Since Duvalier’s departure for France on a U.S. Air Force aircraft, Haiti has been rocked by a series of bloody episodes and coups. The latest military figure to rule the island nation is Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, a former Duvalier protege. Attorneys involved in the case here say that Haiti’s chronic instability has hampered attempts to recover the Duvalier fortune for the Haitian treasury.

On the basis of the lawsuit filed by Haiti to recover the money, French courts have given attorneys representing the Port-au-Prince regime the right to seize property and freeze any bank accounts they find in the Duvalier name.

So far they have been able to recover a $3-million castle owned by the Duvalier family in the Val-d’Oise outside Paris, two equally expensive apartments in Paris, a yacht and a few other valuable odds and ends.

Cash Access a Puzzle

But until very recently, they were unable to solve the big puzzle of the Duvalier fortune: how the family has managed to stay awash in vast amounts of cash without access to bank accounts or credit cards in France.

However, a surprise police raid here in February on the villa (“loaned” to the Duvaliers by a son of Saudi Arabian arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi) turned up a personal account book kept by Michele Duvalier and an address book kept by her husband that have provided some clues. According to witnesses, Duvalier tried to flush the address book down a toilet when the police came.

The French investigating judge -- the equivalent to an American district attorney--who conducted the raid noticed the account book sticking from the pocket of Michele Duvalier’s housecoat.

Using the books as leads, attorneys were able to trace several huge purchases by Michele Duvalier at the well-known Paris fashion house, Givenchy, to a lawyer’s office in London. Purchases valued at several hundred thousand dollars had been made by the London lawyer using an account at the London-based Barclay’s Bank.

Emptied of $21 Million

In June, British attorneys acting on behalf of the French law firm obtained a court order to freeze the account, only to find that it had been emptied of $21 million a few days before. The attorneys discovered that the money had been transferred to a bank in Luxembourg. Again they acted to freeze that account.

As of last week, the French attorneys still did not know how much of the money they may have captured in Luxembourg, where laws permit the freezing of accounts but not the divulging of the amounts they contain. But they feel they have the Duvaliers on the run.

“For the first time, we were able to discern where they put their money,” said Yann Colin, another attorney in the Paris commercial law firm representing Haiti. “When we started investigating Duvalier we were three years behind. Now we are one week. It is only a matter of time now.”

If pursuit by the French lawyers has the Duvaliers worried, it was not apparent on a recent visit to Mougins, a hillside village north of Cannes made famous by Pablo Picasso, whose last home was here.

Turned Away by Armed Guard

Repeated attempts to talk with the Duvaliers failed. Each time a reporter went to the front gate of the driveway leading into the villa, he was turned away by a security guard with a shotgun. A German shepherd guard dog also roams the premises.

Interviews with neighbors, including several lettuce farmers, produced details of a consistent routine for the Duvalier family that included a daily trip to the nearby Mougins Country Club for tennis and afternoon drives to Cannes or the surrounding countryside. The Duvaliers attend occasional concerts, including a recent appearance by singer Julio Iglesias. Jean-Claude drove to Nice for a recent sports car exhibition of late-model Ferraris.

Except for the nuisance caused by journalists trying to peer into the Duvalier property and trampling on valuable lettuce in the process, local residents said that the Duvaliers are good, quiet neighbors who keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone.

The Duvaliers have shied away from reporters since their arrival. But in one of the few interviews Jean-Claude has given, he told Le Figaro reporter Catherine Delsol that he was tired of all the accusations about stealing money from Haiti.

“There is no document that can establish I used money for my personal needs,” he said. “Every time a head of state leaves Haiti, even Toussaint L’Ouverture, there are charges that he has taken the public funds.”

Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture, the heroic rebel slave considered the founder of Haiti, was the first and most famous Haitian leader to be exiled in France. After fighting with the French in the war that led to the abolition of slavery on the island and the creation of the first black republic in the world, he was ordered arrested by Napoleon early in the 19th Century.

But he never saw the inside of a fancy Paris shop, nor did he ever taste the glories of haute cuisine. He died, riddled with disease, in a frigid French jail cell in the Jura Mountains.