Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier remained quietly hunkered down with advisers and close confidants Monday, one day after his unexpected return to the country after 25 years of exile in France. Those close to Duvalier had initially indicated that Baby Doc would hold a press conference Monday at the chic Hotel Karibe in Port-au-Prince – the site of many major political announcements over the last two months – addressing the reasons behind his surprise return. But as the New York Times and others report, that event was pushed back until Tuesday. “His silence,” the Times writes,” “left Haitians and the rest of the world to wonder what Mr. Duvalier was really up to.”
But Haiti, ever-filled with new rumors, was not short on speculation about how and why the a dictator had returned. Pooja Bhatia for the Economist says one theory passing quickly through the Haitian street has the French – or the perhaps the US – sending/allowing Baby Doc back to Haiti to pressure current President Rene Preval into accepting the recommendations of the OAS re: November 28’s fraudulent elections. The OAS’s Secretary General José Miguel Insulza arrived early Monday morning to meet with Haitian officials, including President Preval, about the inter-American body’s report which recommends the government’s candidate, Jude Celestin be dropped from a future second round vote against Mirlande Manigat in favor of singer Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly. The meeting with Insulza – scheduled before Duvalier’s return – has received little attention in the wake of Baby Doc’s reappearance, with Spain’s El País and the Miami Herald reporting that Insulza simply emphasized to Haitian officials that the OAS report was no more than a recommendation for the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).
For their parts, both the French and American governments denied any prior knowledge of Duvalier’s return. Ditto from the Haitian government, although reports indicate migration officials did allow Baby Doc back into the country on an expired passport. The US in particular has sought to clamp down on the latest rumor that has cropped up since Duvalier’s return – that former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide may too be planning a return to the country later this week. Unconfirmed speculation on Haitian radio Monday had Aristide passing through Cuba or perhaps Panama on his way back to Haiti. And as the AP notes, State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley felt so “compelled” to address the latter issue that he put up a Monday post on Twitter saying: “We are not aware of any plans for former President Aristide to travel to Haiti.”
Nevertheless, The Guardian reports this morning that the US has long viewed the possibility of both men’s return as a concern. In a Feb. 2006 cable (preceding 2006 elections) posted by Wikileaks, Lisa Kubiske, the US charge d’affaires in neighboring Dominican Republic wrote back to Washington that:
“If the election were inconclusive, a return of either one could certainly make things worse. We thought that neither should be allowed back into Haiti until a newly established, functioning democratic government could make a decision itself.”
Human Rights groups have been among those most vocal in their condemnation of Baby Doc’s return. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both say the Haitian government has an obligation to detain and prosecute the former strongman for human rights violations committed during his 15 years in power. According to Amnesty:
“Hundreds of people ‘disappeared’ or were executed. Members of Haiti’s armed forces and the militia National Security Volunteers – also known as the ‘tonton macoutes’ -- played a primary role in repressing pro-democracy and human rights activists.”
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director for Human Rights Watch, said Monday that Duvalier’s return should be for one reason and one reason only: “to face justice.” “His time to be held accountable is long overdue,” says Vivanco – and opinion echoed by the LA Times and Miami Herald in editorials this morning. However, it’s a demand which Haitian officials seem content to ignore. On Sunday evening, in fact, Duvalier’s Black Lexus was escorted from the Port-au-Prince airport to the Hotel Karibe by the Haitian National Police. The police continued to protect the former dictator until private security and the UN took over Monday. Haitian PM Jean-Max Bellerive with words which suggest no arrest will be coming anytime soon:
“We want to be a government that respects the law and to arrest somebody you have to have a judiciary process.”
UPDATE: A potentially new wrinkle in the Baby Doc saga. Haitian radio (Radio Caraibes) is apparently now reporting that Duvalier will be arrested today. The Hotel Karibe where he is staying is said to be on lock down. Again, it remains speculative, but I do see that some US journalists in the Haitian capital have at least confirmed the radio reports on Twitter.
To other stories:
· In Guatemala, President Alvaro Colom said Monday he will be evaluating whether or not to extend a state of siege in the northern department of Alta Verapaz. The one-month militarization of the department began Dec. 19 and is set to expire Wednesday. It was intended to target drug trafficking organizations in the region, specifically the Zetas. According to EFE 18 alleged Zeta operatives were detained along with over $850,000 worth in cash, weapons, airplanes, and autos over the last month. In an interview with Spain’s El País marking the fourth and final year of his presidential term, Colom maintained that continuing the fight against the narcos would be his number one priority. To do so, the Guatemalan president suggested closer collaboration with both his immediate neighbors – namely Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras – as well as with the United States. “I’ve keep in close contact with Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and can confirm,” says Colom, “that the administration of President Barack Obama is conscious of its shared responsibility as the principal consumer [of drugs].” New poll numbers in Guatemala put Colom’s popular approval at 58%. Some 78% of Guatemalans say “insecurity” is their number one concern.
· Also on Colom and Guatemala, Central American Politics on a new Wiki-leaked cable revealing Colom’s unease toward some ALBA member states, as well as a certain level of disdain for the prominent Guatemalan human rights activist, Rigoberta Menchú. According to the July 2008 cable, Colom refers to Menchú as a “fabrication” and blames her for inciting protest against the construction of a cement plant in the indigenous community of San Juan Sacatepequez.
· Close to the Guatemala-Mexico border, the AP examines growing levels of violence in Mexico’s south. According to the wire service, the Zetas are primarily responsible for an unchallenged “reign of terror” that has reached the Guatemalan border – and beyond. The AP’s wrap-up, which includes the December abduction of dozens of Central American migrants in Oaxaca:
“Four years ago they started preying on the south, Mexico's poorest region. They moved into Oaxaca, Chiapas and other southern states and then northern Guatemala, where attacks on townspeople became so commonplace that the government last month sent in 300 troops to regain control of the border province of Alta Verapaz. In towns on the Oaxacan isthmus and the center of Oaxaca city, the capital, the wealthy as well as street vendors and migrants have been kidnapped and subjected to extortion. Then last month, the gang blamed for massacring 72 migrants in the summer in the northern state of Tamaulipas became suspects in the disappearance of more than 40 Central American migrants in Oaxaca. The abduction drew international attention when the El Salvadoran foreign ministry reported the crime, but the Mexican government initially denied it happened.”
· AFP says Nicaragua and Costa Rica will begin talks this week -- to be mediated by Guatemala and Mexico – over their on-going border dispute at the San Juan River.
· BBC Mundo and El Universal with new reports on the referendum process being advanced by President Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The former report, in particular, looks at Correa’s desires to reform the country’s justice system through a national vote.
· Colombia’s El Tiempo reports on deepening relations and signs of goodwill between Colombia and its neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador. Security has become the principal axis around which the Colombia-Ecuador bilateral relationship turns, the paper says, while bilateral trade and development has revolutionized Colombia-Venezuela relations. A new Venezuelan ambassador, Ivan Rincón, received his credentials in Bogotá this week and, according to El Tiempo, was praised by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos who said the designation of the “prestigious jurist” was an indication of the “strategic importance” the Chavez government places on its relations with Colombia.
· The Economist posts a video interview with Mercedes Doretti, co-founder of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team which continues to investigate rights violations around the region.
· Mercopress reports that UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya is demanding the Chilean government halt evictions of indigenous groups from lands on Easter Island.
· At Foreign Policy in Focus, Coletta Youngers criticizes the role of US officials in promoting the maintenance of an “out-dated provision in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which attempts to abolish the centuries-old indigenous practice of chewing coca leaves.” According to Youngers, the 1961 Convention also mistakenly classified coca as a narcotic, along with cocaine – a classification which led Bolivia’s Evo Morales to demand an amendment to the Convention in 2009.
· And finally, at the Havana Note, the New America Foundation’s Anya Landau French with thoughts on the significance of last week’s easing of US travel restrictions to Cuba:
“With these new rules, Obama has finally dispelled the notion that he would only act on Cuba for political gain in Florida – which is smart, given that Cuban Americans are no longer single issue voters anymore (and those that are would never consider voting for Mr. Obama anyway). Many influential Miami moderates supported and even pressed for broader people-to-people engagement with Cuba, but a far larger constituency of interests across the country, including travel and agriculture sector businesses, human rights and religious organizations, academic institutions and foreign policy and national security advocates, dogged Congress and the administration for progress on Cuba. As long as this isn’t the end of the road but a new beginning – as President Obama promised in April 2009 – these new travel rules offer hope for that elusive progress in U.S.-Cuban relations.”
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