21686: Vedrine: RE: 21672: (Chamberlain) Duvalier wants to return (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: E Vedrine <evedrine@hotmail.com>


>By Joseph Contreras
>

>Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not the first Haitian leader to fly into exile
>aboard a U.S.-supplied plane under intense pressure from a Republican
>administration in Washington. The same fate befell Jean-Claude Duvalier,
>the self-proclaimed president for life and son of the notorious dictator
>Francois Duvalier, in 1986.


SOME CORRECTIONS for Joseph Contreras:

Jean-Claude Duvalier was not forced to leave the country under international
pressure but instead, under the People’s pressure. The roots of that problem
came from the concentration of his repressive regime to securing power for
life by keep on violating human rights [the last ones: the killing of the 3
school boys in Gonaives dropped oil on the flame] instead of doing ECONOMIC
REFORM (which was what he promised when first rose to power and to quote him
as he said in one of his early speeches: “Mon père avait fait la révolution
Duvalieriste. Moi, je vais faire la révolution économique” [My dad had done
the duvalierist revolution. Me, I am going to do the économic one]). His
departure was arranged in advance (with the help of the U.S [to transport
him across the Atlantic] and France [to host him, temporarily – as it was
pretended]) and it was clear that the regime was going to collapsed when
some KEY people in his administration started leaving the country (e.g.,
Roger Lafontant [“Dr Mengele”] left for Canada in December 1985). A US
military plane came to get the whole family  (even their mades, some body
guard were on board). Baby Doc had time to make his resignation speech at
the white house to address the nation (different from Aristide) and left
early in the morning with a heavy armed convoy (Macoutes and military
accompanied them to the Airport). Baby Doc looked relax driving his black
Mercedes Benz. That was quite different from Aristide departure if Contreras
has been following both events.

E.W.Vedrine

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