"Baby Doc" Duvalier is back in Haiti

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks. Note how they also 'just happen to drop into' the cable a mention [oh, so delicately - well they are, after all, diplomats (sic)] that:

"agreed that Duvalier's (and Aristide's) presence could be unhelpful

(my emphasis - they make them sound like to peas in a pod - they couldn't be more opposite to one another in philosophy and deeds!) The only commonality would be 'unhelpful' to the USA's and France's current plans for misdeeds.....more misdeeds....centuries of them.......never have any People suffered as much as the Haitians.

My parents volunteered many months [at their own expense] at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschappelle, Haiti. And they always came and left via 'the' hotel all foreigners were obliged to stay. [The BBC just did a story on this hotel]. When they were there it was run by a CIA man playing the role of Mr. Faulty. The Hospital at which they worked is still there and still going strong. It is amazing for many reasons...I had explained all this on the EF...but it, along with all else I placed there is now in hyperspace. It was built entirely with the money of the ONLY Mellon family 'black-sheep', Larry Mellon and his wife Gwen. Hats off to him. He took his fortune, used a tiny bit to train as a physician then used every last drop of the rest to buy the land and build the hospital! The family hates him, for setting such a 'bad example'. :mexican: Every patient is treated free of charge...most walk days on dirt tracks to get there. There is but one rough dirt and rock trail there for jeeps only and none of the locals have cars. It is now self-sustaining on grants and ALL the physicians from all over the world [every one!!!!] volunteer their time, get NO pay, and have to pay their own way there and back!...only the local nursing staff and cleaners, etc. who are Hatian get paid. Both Larry and Gwen died in the last few years. My parents thought the world of both of them. That's how my parents spent part of their retirement....and Larry Mellen spent his entire adult life; coming back to Pittsburgh once every year for only a few days - to do fund-raisers for his hospital.

In 1947, Larry and Gwen Mellon were living in Arizona, operating a large cattle ranch with their blended family of four children. Inspired by an article in Life Magazine about Dr. Albert Schweitzer's humanitarian work in Africa and ethic of "Reverence for Life," they started a correspondence with Dr. Schweitzer which endured until his death in 1969. The immediate impact of their communication was a decision by the Mellons to follow in Dr. Schweitzer's footsteps and establish a hospital to care for those in need.

Larry Mellon had to complete his medical studies. He applied to Tulane University, which was, at that time, known for Tropical Medicine. Despite his age (37), Larry was accepted and the family moved to New Orleans.

During the summer of 1949, Larry and Gwen met Dr. and Mrs. Schweitzer at the Schweitzers' "home away from home" in Gunsbach, Alsace. They had a plan, they had a mentor, but they did not yet know where they would build their hospital.

While still in medical school in 1951, Larry met a Haitian physician, Dr. Adrien, who was visiting New Orleans. With his encouragement, Larry took the family to Haiti for the summer where he gathered material for his senior thesis in tropical yaws. It was then that they realized that Haiti, the abandoned Standard Fruit Banana plantation in the heart of the Artibonite River Valley, with existing homes and enough land to build a hospital, would be the perfect setting for their life's work.

Gwen oversaw the planning and construction of the hospital while Larry completed his medical studies, and on June 26, 1956, the doors to the hospital were opened. With Dr. Schweitzer's permission they named the hospital Hôpital Albert Schweitzer. At the entrance to the hospital, the words were inscribed, Reverence Pour la Vie (Reverence for Life), the philosophical foundation for Schweitzer's thoughts and actions. This precept guided Dr. and Mrs. Mellon as they worked together to support the needs of the people of the Artibonite Valley. Larry died in 1989, and Gwen guided the hospital with wisdom and grace until her death in 2000.

The CIA's hotel survived the quake.....

[Jan Klimkowski]

From the 2006 US diplomatic cable found and posted by Peter:

3. © Kubiske expressed USG concern over a return to Haiti of either Duvalier or Aristide. Both potentially were provocative and could complicate the ability of any new government to establish itself.

4. © Morales Troncoso agreed that Aristide and Duvalier supporters would get upset if their opponents returned to the scene. Anti-Duvalier Haitians might seek revenge, even after 20 years, he noted.

Oh that's just world class diplomatic nonsense.

Note that the deathsquad leader Baby Doc was allowed to leave Haiti and settle in Paris.

Whilst democratically elected Aristide, who sent nurses and teachers into the slums of Port-au-Prince, was forcibly removed (kidnapped at gunpoint) by US Marines during George W Bush's presidency, and exiled in Mandela's South Africa.

And here we have US Charge d'Affaires Lisa Kubiske and Morales Troncoso (co-founder of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic and SMOM member) speaking of Baby Doc Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide as if they are two sides of the same coin.

"Anti-Duvalier Haitians might seek revenge, even after 20 years, he noted".

Uh - it was the Duvalier's Tonton Macoutes who murdered, by a common estimate, a minimum of 60,000 Haitians.

[Peter Lemkin]

The very fact he was only read a list of possible 'crimes' and NOT ARRESTED tells me, they are only going through the motions and will not try him. After being released [though not under arrest], he returned to his hotel and received former members of the Tonton Macoutes and other secret police units in Haiti....rather says it all...... He might have come back to pick up some stashed monetary assets and once he gets 'em will depart....having further robbed the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere further.

...but Aristide...should he sneak in - would be arrested, tried and deported.....on trumped-up charges, if not murdered by US Jackels. IMO

Trivia: all American baseballs are made in Haiti at slave-wage level of pay.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.gmanews.tv/story/211119/duval...ivate-home

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier slipped out the back of his hotel Thursday and was driven to a private home on a mountain above Haiti's capital, in the latest unexpected twist in his surprise return to the country that kicked him out nearly 25 years ago.

Duvalier, who faces a court investigation in Haiti, had a plane ticket to leave the country in the morning along with his entourage. But as the day wore on it became clear the ex-"president for life," who is 59 and showing signs of ailing health, wasn't going anywhere.

The reasons for his prolonged stay remain as murky as his motivation for coming back in the first place, but advisers and confidants cite two primary motivations: the lack of a valid passport and the ongoing court investigation against him on allegations of corruption and human-rights abuses from his reign.

[Ed Jewett]

Reuters


Duvalier calls for reconciliation

BBC News - ‎1 hour ago‎
The former Haitian leader Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has called for national reconciliation - almost a week after returning from 25 years in exile.
Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier: I came back to Haiti to help with reconstruction New York Daily News

Former US lawmaker assisting Duvalier CNN International

[Peter Lemkin]

Reuters


Duvalier calls for reconciliation

BBC News - ‎1 hour ago‎
The former Haitian leader Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has called for national reconciliation - almost a week after returning from 25 years in exile.
Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier: I came back to Haiti to help with reconstruction New York Daily News

Former US lawmaker assisting Duvalier CNN International

One man's 'reconstruction' is another's 'destruction'.....I think we and Haitians have had more than enough of the destruction, theft, mistreatment, and torture/deaths that both Papa and Baby 'Doc' dealt out for their real masters [and sadistic selves]; instead of for the People of Haiti.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From Ed's CNN link above:

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- A former U.S. congressman was among a group of American attorneys accompanying former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier as he spoke in the country's capital Friday.

Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr said he is not serving as Duvalier's attorney, but is in Port-au-Prince to consult, assist and be Duvalier's voice to the international community.

Barr represented Georgia's 7th District in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, and was the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee in 2008. He currently practices law and runs a consulting firm based in Atlanta.

"We have been asked by the former president and his family to assist him in his efforts," Barr told reporters in Port-au-Prince.

He is representing Duvalier along with two other Georgia attorneys -- Ed Marger and Mike Puglise -- according to a statement on Barr's website.

"This is really more of a personal trip helping Duvalier and his family," Barr told CNN affiliate WXIA before leaving for Port-au-Prince.

(snip)

In his first public statement since his unexpected return, Duvalier told reporters Friday he wanted to be in Haiti to help with rebuilding the country after last year's devastating earthquake. He made no mention of any political ambition.

Baby Doc is a murderer and criminal whose family death squad, the Tontons Macoute, killed an estimated 60,000 Haitians, and tortured and terrorized tens of thousands more.

How can such a man help in "rebuilding his country"? And why is he receiving support from a Republican Congressman?

This is so blatant.

[Peter Lemkin]

Son of Haitian Coup Plotter Slain in Honduras
6th February 2011

Latin American Herald-Tribune | February 6, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA The son of a former Haitian police chief living in exile in Honduras after taking part in coup plots in his homeland was killed in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, authorities said Friday.

Law student Jean-Michel François was hurled from a moving vehicle Thursday night in the city's Medina neighborhood and died hours later at a nearby hospital, prosecutor's office spokesman Elvis Guzman told Efe.

The young man died of injuries received during a beating, Guzman said.

His father, former Port-au-Prince police chief Joseph Michel François, runs an appliance business in San Pedro Sula, where he arrived in 1996 after being expelled from the Dominican Republic Haiti's neighbor for plotting against the Haitian government.

The Honduran Supreme Court subsequently rejected requests to extradite François to the United States, where he was wanted on drug charges, and Haiti, which sought to try the erstwhile cop in connection with a 1994 massacre carried out by the regime of Gen. Raoul Cedras.

Joseph François took part in Cedras' 1991 coup against then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleI...ryId=23558

[Peter Lemkin]

Haiti Issues New Passport for Aristide
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: February 9, 2011

MEXICO CITY Haitian officials issued a diplomatic passport on Tuesday for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president and even after years in exile one of the country's most popular and divisive figures.
Enlarge This Image

Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

A protester rested near a portrait of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 2 at a pro-Aristide rally.

Mr. Aristide's American lawyer, Ira Kurzban, said he collected the document at dusk in the capital, Port-au-Prince. "It's a long time coming," Mr. Kurzban said. He added that Mr. Aristide, after seven years of exile, mostly in South Africa, "wants to come home as soon as he can."

His reappearance would represent a second stunning return for Haiti: Just three weeks ago, Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator known as Baby Doc, who was overthrown in 1986, arrived unexpectedly in Port-au-Prince.

Both Mr. Duvalier and Mr. Aristide claim that they are interested in national reconciliation; both are doubted by critics of their governments. Experts inside and outside Haiti fear that the presence of the two former leaders could further destabilize the country, which is already struggling with cholera, tent cities created by last year's earthquake and political instability before the delayed presidential runoff on March 20.

Once Mr. Duvalier entered Haiti, Mr. Aristide demanded that his exile end, too. "Once Duvalier was back, there could be no rationale for keeping Aristide out," said Jocelyn McCalla, a senior adviser to Haiti's special envoy to the United Nations.

Given the public's deep lack of faith in the nation's political class, many Haitians would welcome the shake-up Mr. Aristide might bring. But members of the international community have expressed concern that Mr. Aristide who was beloved by the poor but criticized by many for demagoguery, corruption and the suppression of political opponents could create widespread instability at a precarious moment.

José Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the Organization for American States, said Mr. Aristide's return should not be considered until after the next president is sworn in. But the two leading candidates are not Aristide supporters, possibly making it harder for him to return then.

Jon Piechowski, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Haiti, said that while Haiti's government had the right to decide on the timing, "what Haiti needs right now, coming out of a prolonged first round of elections, is a period of calm, not divisive actions that can only distract from the vital task of forming a legitimate and credible government."

Brian Dean Curran, the American ambassador to Haiti during Mr. Aristide's final years in office, offered a far more blunt assessment. "I think it's a colossal mistake," Mr. Curran said. "It's particularly bad at this moment when the political situation is so fragile."

Mr. Aristide has said little about his intentions. Over the last few weeks, he has been reluctant to speak with reporters in South Africa, where the government has paid for a home, a car and security for the past few years.

He explained his desire to return in a recent op-ed article in The Guardian, using pointed language: "What we have learned in one long year of mourning after Haiti's earthquake is that an exogenous plan of reconstruction one that is profit-driven, exclusionary, conceived of and implemented by non-Haitians cannot reconstruct Haiti. It is the solemn obligation of all Haitians to join in the reconstruction and to have a voice in the direction of the nation."

He went on to say that he planned to focus on education "the field I know best and love."

Mr. Curran said he doubted Mr. Aristide would limit himself to teaching. "No one should believe that for an instant," he said.

Indeed, a quiet academic life may not be likely for a populist like Mr. Aristide, whose popularity may surpass any other contemporary political figure. "His return would make very stark the real rouleau-compresseur, or bulldozer power, of the population," said Amy Wilentz, author of "The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier." "I believe they would rise en masse to greet him and that the airport scene would be like nothing anyone has witnessed in recent times in Haiti."

This popular support, Ms. Wilentz said, could protect him from the fate of Mr. Duvalier, who was quickly questioned and now faces charges of corruption and human rights abuses. United Nations officials have already raised the issue of Mr. Aristede's legal vulnerabilities, and other efforts to influence his decision are also likely to be employed, according to diplomats, though they may be counterbalanced by President René Préval. He was a protégé of Mr. Aristide, and even before the earthquake that further damaged his standing he had become concerned with being forced into exile, according to embassy cables published by WikiLeaks.

One theory advanced by some Haiti observers is that Mr. Préval believes that Mr. Aristide, with his large following, could help prevent that from happening.

Celia W. Dugger contributed reporting from Johannesburg, and Deborah Sontag from New York.