Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean -Claude Duvalier ( born July 3, 1951 in Port-au -Prince ), known as Baby Doc, is a Haitian politician. He was from 1971 to 1986 dictatorship reigning president of his country.
Life
Youth
Duvalier was educated at the best schools in Haiti and moved to the successful completion of school at the University of Port -au -Prince, where he studied law. He showed little interest in politics or Haitian affairs.
President
Jean -Claude Duvalier succeeded his father, François Duvalier - known as Papa Doc - at the age of only 19 years in the office of head of state after. His father prevailed since 1957 in Haiti as a dictator.
After his father had died on 21 April 1971, Jean -Claude Duvalier was confirmed as president for life. He was the youngest president of a country. The affairs of state, he handed indirectly his older sister, Marie- Denise Duvalier, the ceremonial duties were for him often perceived by his mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier. Duvalier himself lived for the most part the life of a jet-setting playboy.
At first he brought Although some reforms on the way, such as a relaxation of press censorship, amnesty for political prisoners and legal reform, but ultimately did not change much compared to the dictatorship of his father. He, too, was based on the Tontons Macoutes, the Haitian militia.
His main income he received from the proceeds of the Régie du Tabac, tobacco administration, which controlled the tobacco monopoly of Haiti. Later came to these tax-free income or other revenues from public and companies controlled by him. His income was a year at over 100 million U.S. dollars.
Marriage
In May 1980, he married Michele Bennett, who came from the upscale Mulattenschicht Haiti. Her father has since been detained by François Duvalier because of various offenses, as well as her first husband because of this coup plans harbored. Duvalier focused after marriage to the strengthening of Haiti's mulatto minority. This policy was in contrast to that of his father, who used the black majority as power potential.
The cost of the opulent wedding of the president and his wife were about three million dollars. With his wife, he has two children, François Nicolas and Anya common.
End of the Presidency
With the Pope in March 1983, and whose public criticism of the Haitian state visit to the displeasure of the population began to rise. In October 1985, the unrest started in the largest cities of Haiti. Duvalier responded with a ten percent reduction in the maximum prices on staple foods, the closing of independent radio stations, police and military actions and a cabinet reshuffle. However, these initiatives have had no success and led to the aggravation of the general situation.
The U.S. government under Ronald Reagan practiced then on Duvalier pressure to leave the country. Even before you had wish to pursue with economic sanctions on Duvalier pressure to move it to greater democratization after U.S. governments had his father and supported him for decades, with economic aid. Duvalier made this call unheeded.
On February 7, 1986, Duvalier was deposed. He fled into exile in France. The twenty-seven rule of both Duvalier has cost the country about 30,000 lives.
Exile
France
The first time the couple lived Duvalier in luxury with two apartments in Paris, a villa in Cannes and a castle. Meanwhile, the French government made him temporarily under house arrest. Duvalier tried in vain to emigrate to a country that had granted him asylum, but the U.S. refused his entry as well as from Gabon, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Greece and the Seychelles.
Attempts Haitian activists and exiles to make Duvalier to trial, were suppressed by the French government as early as the 1990s. They referred to the fact that Duvalier enjoys no official status of asylum in France. After 2004, the Aristide government was overthrown, told Duvalier that he wanted to come back to Haiti to participate in the presidential election in 2005 as the candidate of the Parti National University. To this end, it did not come.
In 2007, he told a Haitian radio station that he now wanted to return to Haiti since the exile had " broken" him. The current president René Préval subsequently officially allowed entry Duvalier.
Duvalier lived until early 2011 in a one-bedroom apartment in Paris with his childhood friend, Véronique Roy together, whose grandfather, Paul Eugène Magloire, 1950-1956 President of Haiti was and was in the reign of Duvalier in exile. Meanwhile, she became his second wife.
Dispute over its assets
In 1993, he lost the bulk of his fortune when he divorced his wife. Until then, he had transferred between 300 and 800 million U.S. dollars from Haiti to foreign bank accounts. Of his in Switzerland are stored 7.6 million francs since 1986, a point of contention between the Haitian and the Swiss Government. His mother Simone had the money originally created there. In 2002, the Swiss government froze the account. The account holder of the suspended accounts were asked to prove the legal origin of the situated thereon funds until 2008. In February 2009, the Federal Department of Justice and Police decided that the funds must be returned to Haiti since the legal origin could not be proved. The sentence was on appeal to the Federal Criminal Court. In August 2009, this dismissed the appeal of a Liechtenstein foundation against the publication available since the Duvalier clan has been classified as a criminal organization.
A few days after the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, Duvalier announced about the British online magazine The Daily Beast to speak again. After his admission, he wanted to donate no more contentious million of his former Swiss bank account via the American Red Cross of the population of Haiti. Ironically, he was no longer the owner of the money since the appellate judgment of the Federal Penal Court; it would therefore also like without his assistance to the Haitian state. In France, made the donation announcement for violent indignation.
The decision of the Federal Criminal Court was further drawn by the Liechtenstein Foundation to the Federal Court as the final arbiter. The Federal Court ruled in a judgment published in early February January 12, 2010, unlike all previous instances and explained that the funds must be returned to the Duvalier family, as in related offenses were time-barred. The ruling came just hours before the earthquake in Haiti, with the decision of a request from the Haitian government was rejected. In response to the judgment of the Swiss Federal Council has decided by emergency legislation to block the Duvalier assets again. The Swiss government seeks to prevent that the financial center Switzerland applies as a haven for ill-gotten assets. According to reports, the Swiss news agency SDA, the government wants to change the law in force in order to seize the money and prevent payment to the Duvalier family members can.
Return to Haiti
On 16 January 2011, he returned to not quite 25 years in exile to Haiti back in his own words, " to help ". He was accompanied by his wife Veronique. In Haiti, both by former employees, supporters and journalists were expected at the airport. Two days later he was arrested by the police in the luxury hotel " Carib " in Port -au -Prince and taken for questioning to the prosecutor's office. However, he could leave the prosecutors as a free man, only the judiciary itself must be prepared and made available. According to one of his lawyers make an arrest Duvalier is not compatible with the Haitian Constitution.
The prosecutor's office opened an investigation against Duvalier for corruption, embezzlement and theft one at the expense of the Haitian treasury. Currently, he is still under house arrest.
The Journal News Pool Latin America eV is of the opinion that with regard to the prosecution Duvalier "a certain lethargy " is traced in a Haitian society. This inaction could force the victims to have to raise their complaints again. If the Haitian judiciary the " Duvalier case not normal " can negotiate, would the victims before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights CoIDH ( Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos ) pull. , The current President Michel Martelly announced that he and former President Aristide and Duvalier want to make calls to Haiti's reconstruction aid.