HEADLINE: 'Baby Doc' Duvalier back in Haiti after long exile...
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| tonton macoutes patch |
I guess redefining "precocious" wasn't enough.
With a sense of timing inherent to all sons-of-bitches, Jean-Claude's come back to get his merit badge:
PORT AU PRINCE, Jan 16, 2011 (AFP) - Jean-Claude Duvalier, the boyish-looking tyrant nicknamed "Baby Doc," ruled as Haiti’s "president for life" like his father before him until his exile in disgrace 25 years ago.
Haitians cheered his departure in 1986 after a 15-year rule enforced by the feared Tonton Macoutes militia, but on Sunday Duvalier returned to find his native Haiti an even more broken country than when he left.
The 59-year-old came to power in 1971 at the precocious age of 19, succeeding his repressive father Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier at his death and inheriting his sunglasses-wearing paramilitary enforcers.
Baby Doc sought to similarly control the poverty-ridden country with an iron fist, clamping down on dissidents, rubber-stamping his own laws and pocketing government revenues.
The Tonton Macoutes — named for the mythological Creole bogeyman Tonton Macoute, "Uncle Gunnysack," who was said to kidnap bad children and eat them — terrorized Haitians, arresting, torturing and "disappearing" untold numbers of political opponents.
For a decade and a half, Duvalier ruled as Haiti’s self-proclaimed "president for life," until his exile following a popular uprising in 1986 when pro-democracy forces rallied in the streets amid international condemnation of the rampant human rights abuses during his regime.
Duvalier, who during an interview on Haitian radio in 2007 asked for "the pardon of the Haitian people" for errors committed during his regime, said upon his return Sunday that he said he had "come to help."
Incumbent President Rene Preval, whose term expires in three weeks, once vowed that the former dictator would be held accountable on corruption allegations dating to his years in power... [read the rest of this story from The Windsor Star HERE]
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| from Friendly Dicatators Trading Cards Art by Bill Sienkiewicz |
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