[News] Prosecuting Duvalier

[Anti-Imperialist News]

January 11, 2012
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/11/prosecuting-duvalier/

U.S. and Latin America Should Support Prosecution 
of Haiti’s "President-for-Life"


Prosecuting Duvalier

by JEENA SHAH

Nunca Mas. Never again.

 From Argentina to Guatemala, nunca más served as 
the clarion call for justice for the victims of 
the mass atrocities and systemic political 
repression that plagued Latin America and the 
Caribbean for decades. On January 16, 2011, the 
hope that the call would someday be universally 
heeded rose again when one of the last century’s 
most notorious despots, Jean-Claude Duvalier, 
returned to Haiti after 25 years in exile.

Also known as “Baby Doc”, Duvalier terrorized 
Haiti from 1971 to 1986, picking up where his 
father François “Papa Doc” Duvalier had left off. 
Duvalier’s army and the dreaded Tonton Macoutes 
death squad systematically beat, imprisoned, 
tortured, and killed the regime’s political 
opponents. Nearly 50,000 Haitians were killed 
under the combined reign of father and son. 
Duvalier and his profligate wife, Michèle 
Bennett, looted hundreds of millions of dollars 
while the Haitian people starved, forcing Haiti 
to become dependent on foreign aid.

As the target of several government 
investigations and prosecutions, Duvalier was 
immediately arrested upon his return and charged 
with both financial and political crimes. Human 
rights groups presented extensive evidence of his 
regime’s abuses to the Haitian government. A 
United States federal court had found Duvalier 
liable in 1988 for over a half a billion dollars 
for stealing public funds, and a partial forensic 
investigation of Duvalier’s corruption, conducted 
by American law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan at 
the behest of the Haitian government, established 
the theft of over $300 million. Following their 
investigation, Stroock concluded that the 
Duvaliers had “behaved as if Haiti was their 
feudal kingdom and the coffers and revenues of 
the state their private property.” Boxes of 
documents establishing Duvalier’s criminal 
liability sat waiting for more than two decades 
in offices in Haiti and the United States.

Legal documentation was supplemented by an 
extensive public record of Duvalier’s human 
rights violations, maintained by watch groups 
like Amnesty International. As 
“President-for-Life”, Duvalier’s repertoire 
included the torture and disappearances of 
political dissidents at the infamous Fort 
Dimanche prison and other crimes committed by the 
Armed Forces of Haiti and the Tonton Macoutes 
acting under Duvalier’s control. While still in 
the seat of power, Duvalier was taken to task for 
his regime’s abuses through visits, 
investigations and communications of the 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, U.S. 
government officials, and rights watch groups. By 
pardoning select political prisoners following 
sporadic condemnation by international actors, 
Duvalier could not deny continuing his father’s legacy of political repression.

But as the victims of Chile’s Pinochet and other 
dictators of the 1970s and 1980s have found, 
facts are often not enough on the road to justice.

After highly flawed elections, right-wing 
candidate Michel Martelly became Haiti’s newest 
President this past May. President Martelly’s 
statements calling for amnesty for Duvalier, his 
historical (and current) ties with Duvalier 
loyalists, and his failed nomination for Prime 
Minister of Bernard Gousse–who has publicly 
argued against prosecuting Duvalier and as 
Haiti’s former justice minister directed 
political persecution under the 2004-2006 
dictatorial “Interim Government”– signal the lack 
of political will to bring Duvalier to justice.

Duvalier’s lawyers have used Haiti’s airwaves to 
inaccurately assert that his prosecution is 
time-barred. Under Haitian criminal law, the 
proceedings for Duvalier’s financial crimes can 
advance because of the ongoing prosecution of the 
case from 1986 to 2008. And political killings, 
disappearances, and torture constitute grave 
human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, 
none of which are extinguishable under the American Convention on Human Rights.

Offering support for Duvalier’s prosecution, the 
UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navanethem 
Pillay affirmed, “Haiti has an obligation to 
investigate the well-documented serious human 
rights violations that occurred during the rule 
of Mr. Duvalier, and to prosecute those 
responsible for them.” Similarly, the 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 
reminded the Haitian government of its duty to 
investigate and prosecute Duvalier’s crimes in a 
statement it released in May 2011.

Despite such compelling facts and law, foreign 
powers like the United States and Haiti’s former 
colonizer, France, have been silent. More than 
that, the U.S. State Department has yet to 
declassify files documenting Duvalier’s knowledge 
of his regime’s abuses, which could prove 
integral to establishing his criminal liability 
at trial. While it was comfortable playing a 
decisive role in Haiti’s recent elections by 
forcing the electoral council to reverse the 
first round results, the State Department 
declined to even remind Haiti of its obligation 
under international law to prosecute Duvalier, 
calling justice for Duvalier “a matter for the 
people of Haiti.” However, former U.S. 
Congressman Bob Barr’s assistance to Duvalier is 
seen as a signal of support from the U.S. 
Intelligence Community, which has supported 
impunity for right-wing dictators in Latin 
America and the Caribbean for decades.

Some in the international aid community 
mistakenly believe that the Duvalier prosecution 
would detract from Haiti’s reconstruction efforts 
following its devastating earthquake of January 
12, 2010. To the contrary, Duvalier’s prosecution 
would strengthen respect for rule of law by those 
overseeing Haiti’s reconstruction. Prosecution 
would serve as an impetus to much-needed 
investment in the Haitian judicial system, which 
could build a stronger system that deters 
political violence and financial crimes while 
providing an effective venue for victims of human 
rights violations and the business community alike to enforce their rights.

Countries that have contributed troops to the 
Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping operation in Haiti, 
MINUSTAH, have done so ostensibly with the 
intention of providing stability to the country 
and, following the earthquake, assisting in 
humanitarian relief. (In Latin America, these 
countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, 
Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and 
Uruguay.) The calls amongst Haitian civil society 
have been loud and clear that MINUSTAH serves as 
a threat to Haiti’s sovereignty and must be held 
accountable for its spread of cholera and 
widespread sexual abuse of Haitian women and children.

The more effective way for the 
MINUSTAH-contributing countries of Latin America 
to help Haiti would be to provide the support it 
needs to hold accountable those who flagrantly 
and violently abuse power at the great expense of 
the Haitian population. Haiti’s true allies 
should call on the Martelly administration to 
ensure fair and effective prosecution of Duvalier 
for his crimes, and Latin American governments 
that have prosecuted crimes by dictators from 
this same era should provide technical support to the Haitian judiciary.

Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano recently 
observed how Latin America remains indebted to 
Haiti to this day for opening “the doors of 
freedom” for the region by launching the world’s 
first successful black slave revolution. What 
better way to help repay the great debt owed to 
Haiti than to heed the call for nunca más?

Jeena Shah, a human rights lawyer, was a 
2010-2011 Lawyers Earthquake Response Fellow with 
the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti, 
where she worked on the case against Jean-Claude 
Duvalier. She is a contributor to the Americas Program.




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