#2402: On Dr. Francois Duvalier : a comment

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:HYSEKA@aol.com

It's pathetic that we are even having that discussion about Duvalier. It is 
sad!!

Duvalier did not help the masses because he wanted to be good to them, help 
and protect them. He did it simply because he was trying to get votes. He 
knew that, this would be an effective way for him to gain their trust and 
affection.

Duvalier's only dream was to grab power, and stay in power until he dies. His 
next goal was to pass that power along to his son. He succeeded in both 
cases. But, his success was Haiti's nightmare.

We have to stop that revisionist mentality and learn to deal with the truth. 
Duvalier was first and foremost a criminal. He had no vision for Haiti's 
economy, for the development of the provinces, or of our agriculture, etc. He 
just wanted to stay in power and unfortunately knew how to.

If he was so concerned about the poor, why then, did he close all our ports 
and left only that of Port-Au-Prince functionning? That destroyed our 
agricultural base. It's also the root cause of all those peasants leaving 
Haiti on those small boats (Canter), for Miami, Florida. This whole thing 
started in the early 70's. We should actually debate the economic 
consequences of Duvalier's policies (or non-policies). 

Due to Duvalier's "moron" policy, we have also lost most of our brightest 
minds to Europe, Africa and North America.

Why do you keep pounding on a dead horse? The Duvaliers -both father and Son- 
were horrible, horrible for Haiti. In fact, even his son said once, at the 
beginning of his reign, that "mon père a fait la révolution politique, moi je 
ferai la révolution économique". That in itself implied, that he knew his 
father did nothing, NOTHING for our country. He was no better by the way.

I am truly sorry if, you cannot deal with the facts as they are. No amount of 
twisting them will change the basic truth. Duvalier was an horror story, a 
nightmare for Haiti.

Hyppolite Pierre