Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has returned to Haiti, arriving in the capital of Port-au-Prince Sunday after nearly 25 years in exile. As the AP reports, Duvalier’s return was “as mysterious as it was unexpected” coming as the Caribbean country remains stuck in a political crisis following Nov. 28 elections whose results still hang in the balance. Indeed, Baby Doc’s weekend arrival corresponded with what was to have originally been a run-off vote Sunday –a vote which Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) suspended indefinitely over the weekend as the country’s leaders continue to determine who would even participate in such an election.
Upon his arrival in Port-au-Prince from Paris, via an Air France flight, Duvalier remained tight-lipped about the reason for his surprise return. The AP reports that his longtime partner Veronique Roy said, for now, Duvalier planned to stay in the country for just three days. Current President Rene Preval, who in 2007 said Duvalier would have to face justice for the murder of thousands under his rule and the theft of state funds, has made no comment on the dictator’s return. Current PM Jean-Max Bellerive told the AP Sunday that as a Haitian, Baby Doc was “free to return to home.” A similar reaction from Haitian Police Chief Mario Andresol who says there is no warrant for Baby Doc’s arrest. Duvalier himself told a Reuters correspondent the following Sunday:
“I wanted to show my solidarity, to tell [the Haitian people] that I am here [and] I am well disposed and determined to participate in the rebirth of Haiti.”
Appearing at the Hotel Karibe in Port-au-Prince late Sunday, Baby Doc said he would wait to address the specifics behind his visit in a press conference Monday.
The Miami Herald reports on the reaction of Haitians to the return of Jean-Claude Duvalier, writing that some 2000 people gathered outside the heavily guarded Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport Sunday awaiting Baby Doc’s return. The paper adds that upon his arrival at the Hotel Karibe some supporters of Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly also greeted the former dictator, nearly breaking down the hotels gates trying to gain access to the infamous figure in Haitian political history.
Hundreds of supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide were also reported to have gathered at the airport Sunday, protesting Duvalier’s return with shouts of “Aristide, Aristide” according to the Wall Street Journal. And while very little is yet known, some Haiti analysts say that, in the wake of Duvalier’s return, a possible visit from Aristide, ousted in 2004 and an opponent of the dictator, may have just become a possibility. “If Jean-Claude is back in the country I assume Aristide will be trying to get back as quickly as possible,” Robert Fatton, a Haitian-born history professor at the University of Virginia and author of "The Roots of Haitian Despotism,” tells the AP. Author Amy Wilentz, who in an LA Times op-ed this weekend (printed before news of Duvalier’s return) argued the principal problem in Haiti was the government’s use of its “limited energies” for “politicking” rather than recovery, offered this rhetorical question Sunday night:
“If Haitian authorities allow Duvalier to return, can they thwart exiled President Aristide's desire to come back to the country?"
Wilentz adds: “Haitians need a steady hand to guide them through the earthquake recovery, not the ministrations of a scion of dictatorship.” Sociologist Alex Dupuy suspects a deal with the current Haitian government has brought Duvalier back. Longtime Haiti analyst and Trinity College professor Robert Maguire, meanwhile, says there is simply to too little information at the moment to speculate about what Baby Doc’s return might bring. “It's such a critically important moment for Haiti and this guy to drop in from nowhere is very strange,” Maguire tells the Miami Herald. “What does he bring to Haiti, aside from a lot of confusion. Does he come back with political pretensions? We just don't know.”
More tomorrow.
UPDATE: Also arriving early Monday morning in Port-au-Prince: OAS Sec. General Jose Miguel Insulza. Initial reports from Haiti Libre and Telesur. Insulza's trip was scheduled before Duvalier's return and is expected to include a meeting with Rene Preval to discuss the inter-American organization's recommendations re: the current electoral crisis.
To other headlines this weekend:
· Across the way in Cuba, the AP reports on the Castro government’s reaction to the United States’ late Friday decision to ease travel restrictions to the Caribbean island for American students, academics, and religious groups. The Cubans, says the news services, are calling the move a “positive step” but “well-below” what should be expected. That opinion is largely echoed by US advocates of a new US Cuba policy. Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, calls the new authorization of “non-tourist travel” a “basic and positive” step forward, but adds that allowing freedom of travel to Cuba for all Americans must still occur. The full White House statement on changes made by President Barack Obama, entitled “Reaching Out to the Cuban People,” is available here and establishes new guidelines for “purposeful travel” to the island as well as a new framework on remittances and on the eligibility of US airports to offer US-Cuba flights. As the New York Times reports, the changes bring US policy back to the Clinton era – a time when such “people-to-people” provisions were first established. Moreover, the Times notes that such changes have been expected for months but were delayed because of Obama administration worries over November 2010 midterm elections. The Washington Post’s coverage notes that US changes come as Cuba prepares for its Communist Party Congress in April – a meeting which is “expected to intensify changes in the state-run economic model.” According to the Post, “supporters of the new regulations say they will allow Americans to help Cuba's nascent private sector.” Quickly – and unsurprisingly – rejecting the Obama administration’s Friday changes was new House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. “Loosening these regulations will not help foster a pro-democracy environment in Cuba,” says Ros-Lehtinen. Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) praised the announcement, calling it “an important step.”
· In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez sought conciliation with his opposition this weekend, addressing the country’s new National Assembly for the first time in a 7+ hour speech Saturday. As Reuters reports, the highlight of Chavez’s Saturday speech in the national parliament was his surprise offer to give up special decree powers in May, should post-flood emergency measures be enacted rapidly. The outgoing National Assembly had granted the president decree powers for 18 months in December. Venezuela’s El Universal and Tal Cual with more details, writing that housing construction appears to be the president’s principal concern in 2011. On Saturday he demanded 150,000 new housing units be built this year, helping to re-house the nearly 120,000 Venezuelans, who Chavez says, remain homeless after last month’s floods. Chavez also rejected new talk about dictatorship in Venezuela that has followed the passage of the controversial “Enabling Law” last month – this following recent discussions between the Venezuelan opposition and the OAS over the measures, as well as US State Dept. criticisms of the president’s new decree powers. This morning the AP suggests many Venezuelan opposition members were left unconvinced about the sincerity of Chavez’s conciliatory speech Saturday. Opposition lawmaker Julio Borges: “We have a president who spends 365 days a year lashing out at the media, the church, NGOs, fighting with everyone and then he tells us one day that he wants dialogue…Dialogue is necessary for the country, we been asking for it for twelve years.”
· Less discussed but of significance for Latin American regional integration President Chavez’s annual report to the legislature which accompanied his Saturday speech says the region may be close to agreeing on a new UNASUR secretary general. According to Venezuela’s Ultimas Noticias, Chavez says his former Energy Minister (and former PDVSA chief) Ali Rodriguez has the backing of “a significant number of South American nations” to take over for the late Nestor Kirchner as UNASUR secretary general. According to Chavez, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay have indicated their support for Rodriguez’s candidacy. Earlier reports say the right-leaning government of Alan Garcia in Peru also supports Rodriguez. Consensus is required in selecting a new secretary general. More about Rodriguez’s views on integration in a recent interview he gave to TeleSur before Venezuela’s Sept. 26 parliamentary elections.
· In other regional news, the AP reports on last week’s designation of former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as a Special Envoy for the OAS. Richardson held a similar post in 2006 before launching a presidential bid one year later. According to Sec. General José Miguel Insulza, the former governor will be used primarily as a “goodwill ambassador.” Specific missions dealing with immigration and economic development are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
· The AP reports on the arrest of an alleged Zeta operative, Gloria Rojas Valencia, in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas over the weekend. Rojas is the partner of Colombian trafficking suspect Luis Frank Tello who was captured in Venezuela earlier this year and deported to the US. Similarly, in Colombia last week, police arrested a man considered to be an important link between cocaine producers in Colombia and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Julio Enrique Ayala Munoz, the AP writes, was arrested in Cali, with the apparent assistance of US counternarcotics agents.
· The Guardian has launched an interactive map of crime in Mexico following the release of new government statistics on drug war violence last week. According to the paper, “the database is the most detailed official picture of the drug wars yet made public, showing the geographical distribution of the violence down to the municipal level.” More reporting on the matter from the BBC, which highlights how the new data demonstrates the geographic unevenness of Mexico’s violence. Also, Diego Valle on some of the major problems with the new Mexican government data.
· Honduras’s El Heraldo reports this weekend on lingering uncertainties surrounding the possible passage of constitutional reforms, discussed in detail here last week. La Tribuna with more on President Pepe Lobo’s views on the reforms.
· AFP says the Mexican government is asking its Central American neighbors to begin assuming more responsibility for intra-regional migration problems. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico continue joint meetings about migration this week. Meanwhile in Oaxaca, the site of the most recent mass abduction of migrants, Honduras’s La Tribuna reports on the Oaxacan state government’s formation of a Mobile Migrant Attention Unit intended to provide medical aid and services to Central American migrants. The project includes the operation of a government-run, free migrant shelter in Ciudad Ixtepec which was inaugurated over the weekend.
· The Wall Street Journal this weekend looks at the number of Cuban doctors, stationed internationally, who have sought asylum in the US over the last four years. Data released to the paper under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, through Dec. 16, 1,574 visas have been issued by U.S. consulates in 65 countries under the little known Cuban Medical Professional Parole immigration program. That program, begun in 2006, “allows Cuban doctors and some other health workers who are serving their government overseas to enter the U.S. immediately as refugees,” the paper writes.
· The AP and New York Times on Brazil’s devastating floods north of Rio de Janeiro. The death toll, the Times says, has now topped 600.
· And finally, the New York Times on Saturday with a set of recommendations for Haiti to help get beyond the current political crisis. Needless to say, the political scene may have just been turned upside down with the arrival of Jean-Claude Duvalier on Haitian soil late Sunday.
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