After months of delay in which three prosecutors came and went, his case is now before Judge Jean Carves, who has promised lawyers that he will soon rule on whether the matter will proceed to trial.
Duvalier’s supporters think not.
For Boby Duval, a former prisoner at Fort Dimanche, the return of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier from exile in France is a leap backward as he tries to move past his imprisonment, when he watched 180 inmates die.
“He will be cleared of all charges. It is almost finished now; the judge is typing up the order to throw it all out,” said Duvalier’s attorney, Reynold Georges, who calls himself the Johnnie Cochran of Haiti, favors wide pinstripes, drives a cherry-red Mercedes and keeps an office decorated with painted nudes.
Georges said the events alleged — torture, disappearances — have exceeded the statute of limitations. “Plus, they have no proof of anything,” he said in an interview.
Asked whether the rumors are true that Duvalier, now 60, is planning a return to politics, Georges said, “If he decides to run for president, he will be eligible, and if he runs, he will win, and I will support him.”
“Was Jean-Claude Duvalier scary?” the lawyer asked. “Not Duvalier. But yes, the people around him, secret police, yes, some of them were very scary. But Jean-Claude is a nice guy, believe me.”
‘It is part of the past’
Reed Brody of the group Human Rights Watch said the statute of limitations does not apply in this case. “Haiti has ratified treaties that obligate it to investigate grave violations of human rights,” he said. “There are 30-year-old cases going forward in Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay.”
Brody said that, in the cases of the disappeared, the crimes continue, since no one knows what happened to the victims.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say that Duvalier should be held accountable for acts he either ordered or failed to stop, and that, as the commander in chief and supreme leader of Haiti, he was an accomplice to crimes committed by his government. They say Haiti must break with its history of impunity if true democracy is to flower.
“We have witnesses now from when my clients were beaten and tortured, witnesses who saw them being beaten and arrested, who saw what happened in the prisons,” said Mario Joseph, a lawyer who filed one of the cases.
But the lawyers pursuing Duvalier say that the international community, with the exception of Canada, has been mostly silent on the prosecution — and that the new government of Haiti is against it.
Asked about the Duvalier case, President Martelly told The Washington Post: “It is part of the past. We need to learn our lessons and move forward.
“It is time to unite the country, show tolerance, show compassion, show love for everyone,” Martelly said, “to reconcile the factions that have been at war, because the war we’ve been having in Haiti is among us.”
Ties to a dictator
Martelly’s government includes many officials with ties to Duvalier’s government, including Prime Minister Garry Conille, whose father, Serge, served as minister of sports and youth for the dictatorship. But in Haiti’s tiny political class, many families have a connection to the Duvaliers. Before becoming prime minister, Conille served with Bill Clinton on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission and worked as a development manager for the United Nations.
The U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, said the Duvalier case “is a matter for the Haitian courts and for the Haitian people who feel aggrieved.”
The Duvalier affair is also complicated by the recent return from exile of another former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Duvalier’s supporters say that if he is dragged into court to answer for past sins, so, too, should Aristide.
Bernard Diederich, an authority on the Duvalier regime and the author of “Papa Doc & the Tontons Macoutes,” said Duvalier “certainly should stand trial and let justice decide whether he is guilty of stealing hundreds of millions and for the killings during his reign, especially those who died in Fort Dimanche.”
“But as Haiti is the land of impunity,” Diederich said, “don’t expect justice.”
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