29265: Severe (pub) Luckner Cambronne Duvalier's henchman dead (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Constantin Severe <csevere@hotmail.com>

Mr. Cambronne died last weekend in Miami according to this Radio Kiskeya Obit 
http://www.radiokiskeya.com/article.php3?id_article=2582 . The following 
subheading from the article says it all about him, "Symbole de la répression, 
de la peur et des pratiques mafieuses pendant deux décennies en Haïti."    The 
following is a Time Magazine article from Dec. 4, 1972 about Cambronne getting 
the sack after the infamous blood bank scandal. The last paragraph is breath 
taking in it's naivete.



The Fall of a Shark

As chief thug and extortionist for the late François ("Papa Doc") Duvalier, 
Luckner Cambronne used to be the second most feared man in Haiti. After Papa 
Doc's death in April last year, Cambronne appeared to be on the verge of 
becoming No. 1. Though Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier, 21, succeeded his 
father as President for Life, it sometimes seemed in the early stages of his 
rule that the cunning Cambronne was actually pulling the strings of power. But 
last week Cambronne was headed into exile, a puppeteer apparently cut adrift by 
his puppet.
In the boldest move since he took office, Baby Doc dismissed Cambronne from his 
post as Minister of Interior and National Defense. No official reasons were 
given, but it seemed clear that Jean-Claude (undoubtedly encouraged by his 
strong-willed sister Marie-Denise) had finally decided that Cambronne, 42, had 
become too openly ambitious. For one thing, Cambronne had recently been 
pressing to be formally named Prime Minister; for another, his avarice was 
hindering Haiti's attempts to improve its international image and thereby its 
chances of getting aid from the U.S. Before news of the firing was broadcast, 
Jean-Claude guaranteed his former éminence grise safety if he remained in 
Haiti. But Cambronne, long accustomed to breaking such promises himself, took 
refuge instead in the Colombian embassy at Port-au-Prince. He was expected to 
fly later to Colombia, and then perhaps on to the U.S.
Wherever he ends up, Cambronne will not need welfare assistance. In more than a 
decade of plundering public funds, intimidating businessmen into making 
"donations" and building his own considerable business empire, he has amassed a 
fortune estimated as high as $10 million, an amount equal to one-third of the 
national budget of Haiti, and has probably secreted much of it abroad. 
Cambronne's commercial interests included monopoly control of Haiti's fruit 
exports and lumber production, a large coffee exporting firm and Ibo Tours (a 
travel agency that dominated Haiti's lucrative quickie-divorce market for 
Americans). He has also trafficked in narcotics and was the silent partner in a 
firm that paid poor Haitians a pittance for their blood and then resold it at a 
huge profit in the U.S. Last week Baby Doc terminated the blood business and 
moved toward nationalizing Cambronne's other enterprises.
Flaunted Wealth. The son of a poor preacher, Cambronne was a bank teller before 
he met Papa Doc in 1957, the year that Duvalier came to power. At first 
Cambronne was little more than a messenger for the cruel dictator. But within 
two years he was one of his favorite aides. Cambronne helped establish his 
credentials by setting up the National Renovation Movement, which was 
essentially a front for extortion. Funds would be collected from businessmen 
ostensibly to rebuild a slum or pave a road, but most of the money would end up 
in the pockets of Duvalier and his sly henchman. Soon Cambronne was flaunting 
his new-found wealth: he became an habitué of the most popular brothels and a 
high-stakes poker player. He also developed a fondness for expensive sharkskin 
suits, which he usually wore with welder-black sunglasses.
After Papa Doc died, it soon became clear that there was not enough room behind 
the throne for both Cambronne and Marie-Denise. Cambronne first managed to get 
Marie-Denise and her husband Max Dominique ordered out of the country. A few 
months later, while the Dominiques were vacationing in Acapulco, he had Max 
fired from his post as Haitian ambassador to Paris. After living in exile in 
Paris and Washington, D.C., for several months, the persistent Marie-Denise 
turned up in Haiti again last September. Haitian exiles in the U.S. soon 
speculated that there would be another showdown and this time Marie-Denise 
would win. It was not long after she returned to Washington that Baby Doc 
announced Cambronne's dismissal.
The fall of the shark in the sharkskin suits will not automatically turn Haiti 
into a model democracy. But it may serve as a warning to other rapacious 
Duvalierists to curb their excesses; it may also encourage more foreign 
investment and loans for the long-undernourished Haitian economy. Now that Baby 
Doc seems to be firmly in power and amenable to reform, he may even release the 
unknown number of political prisoners ruthlessly rounded up by his father and 
still rotting in notorious Fort Dimanche prison.





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