Duvalier leaves hotel with police escort
Update: Baby Doc Duvalier, as Haii’s former dictator is popularly known, was escorted by police from his hotel in Port-au-Prince Tuesday evening 18 January, Swiss time, after meeting with some of the country’s top judicial officials. Several hours of questioning later, charges were pressed against him. They include financial corruption and possibly human rights charges, CNN says, citing its own sources.
Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had been urging Haitian authorities to detain and charge Jean-Claude Duvalier, who unexpectedly arrived in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince 17 January claiming he wanted to help Haiti one year after the earthquake that devastated the country. Haitians still do not know who is to be their next president after last year’s contested elections.
Duvalier’s arrival has taken the US and French governments by surprise, with the USA denouncing his return and French officials saying they had no prior knowledge of his trip. The French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret was quoted in the Miami Herald as saying: “He’s a simple French citizen, he’s allowed to do what he wants to do.”
French foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie has come under fire for France’s timid reaction to the riots that toppled long-time French ally, former Tunisian President Ben Ali.
Duvalier was president-for-life from 1971 to 1986, when he was ousted in a popular uprising against the excess of corruption and severe repression of his government. He has since lived in exile in France.
Switzerland has kept frozen some CHF6 million in assets claimed by the Duvalier clan since Baby Doc fled the island, despite several legal challenges over the years. Several court decisions in 2010 will result in the money being returned to Haiti to improve its infrastructure, at some point in 2011.
Jean-Claude Duvalier has returned to Haiti after a 25-year absence, prompting the United Nations to restrict the movements of its sizable workforce there for fear of outbreaks of violence, reports CNN. Duvalier, popularly known as Baby Doc during and after the 15 year dictatorship he led, in the footsteps of his father Papa Doc’s 14-year tenure, is said by an assistant to have returned because he is homesick and he wants to commemorate the first anniversary of the earthquake that tore apart the island nation in January 2010.
Swiss high court ruling on Haitian ex-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier’s money will lead to new law
Talloires, France, near Geneva, where the Duvaliers fled after leaving Haiti in 1986 (photo: Talloires Tourisme)
Update (links added) 23:30 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government Wednesday morning 3 February took the unusual step of freezing funds in a bank account once held by Haiti’s former dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, based on a special cases clause in the Swiss constitution. At the same time the Swiss supreme court published its ruling on the frozen assets, saying that they cannot be returned to the Haitian people as mandated by the Swiss Office of Justice in 2009. The court decision has prompted the Swiss Federal Council to freeze the funds long enough to pass a law that will help it avoid releasing the assets “for the benefit of the Duvalier clan, which the Federal Criminal Court deems to be a criminal organization.”
A new law would allow the Swiss parliament input on how to best return the money to Haiti.
The ruling Federal Council is asking the Foreign Affairs Department to “complete by the end of the month its work on drafting a federal law that would ultimately allow such assets to be confiscated, and to submit the draft law for consultation.” A spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Affairs Office told GenevaLunch that the law is likely to be passed in 2010. It will cover similar situations of confiscated assets, several of which have come up in recent years.
Switzerland is the only country in the past 20 years to have returned stolen “potentates” funds to the countries previously ruled by the dictators: more than CHF1.6 billion has been returned to Peru, the Philippines and Nigeria among others.
The Duvalier family has been fighting to obtain access to $5.7 million sitting in Swiss bank accounts since they were frozen in 1986, when the Haitian government made a first request for assistance to obtain what it said were stolen funds. Jean-Claude Duvalier, popularly known as Baby Doc, ruled Haiti starting in 1971, when at age 19 he became the world’s then-youngest ruler. His father, known as Papa Doc, had ruled it for the previous 13 year.
