Iron-Fisted 'Papa-Doc' Duvalier:
KALBE, A.
Haitian dictator's re-election strengthens his corrupt rule over impoverished island Iron-Fisted Papa-Doc' Duvalier By A. Kalbe Port-au-Prince Dr. Francois Duvalier's recent election to a...
...Voters were handed ballots preinscribed with both the President's name and the name of an unopposed, official candidate for each of the electoral districts...
...Francois Duvalier's recent election to a second six years as President of Haiti, after serving only four years of his initial term, was one of the most fraudulent events in the history of Caribbean politics...
...for them, there is no road to progress but that of "militant socialism...
...These are the prerequisites of disassociation as seen from Haiti...
...Both these groups take orders directly from Duvalier, to whom they have sworn an oath of fealty...
...But Duvalier has precious little to show for all this...
...The job of the secret police and the now disbanded ?ontons-Macoutes has been to root out and expose all dissidents...
...and Haiti have been correct, if not cordial...
...A first step would be the recall of the U.S...
...What can Washington do...
...should immediately begin to disassociate itself from the Haitian dictator...
...It has the lowest per capita income (about $70 a year) and the highest population density in the Western Hemisphere...
...They were given rada drums, trumpets, voodoo flags and placards suitably inscribed with testimonials to "Papa-Doc...
...In addition to $40.6 million in grants from the United States since 1950 (at least $21.4 million given directly to Duvalier since 1957), Haiti has received $4.3 million from the UN and borrowed $8 million from UN-affiliated agencies...
...The intellectuals point out, with some justification, that 40 years of putative democracy has brought them only chaos and a succession of politicians whose major concern was to enrich themselves in office...
...By inaugural day an estimated 50,000 peasants roamed the streets of the capital...
...The blue-denimed Haitian militia corralled them into schools, warehouses and canopied market places, where they were housed as guests of the Government...
...Without their own Castro, however, Haiti's young intellectuals fuss, fret and look anxiously toward Washington for some sign of change...
...Almost everyone outside the cities suffers from intestinal worms that cause a variety of debilitating ailments, and tuberculosis and malaria spread unchecked...
...A. Kalbe is an American journalist now based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti...
...Highly flattered by Duvalier's attention, the Pentagon (ostensibly with the State Department's blessing) promptly dispatched a 35-man mission, top-heavy with colonels...
...It is hardly surprising that there was little reaction to the illegality of the election and the callousness and brutality of the inauguration...
...Few opportunities for pointing up American friendship are overlooked by the Government...
...Duvalier has made much political capital out of his professed friendship with Washington...
...After the ceremonies, the black jacquerie was duly carted away, stuffed into improvised trucks and dumped in the hinterlands...
...to be a diplomatic snub...
...They have beaten, maimed, imprisoned, exiled and sometimes assassinated the more vocal and potentially dangerous segments of the opposition...
...In keeping with Haitian political custom, police and militiamen rounded up all the available citizens and invited them to the voting bee...
...Three days later, when the ballots were counted, Duvalier could boast unanimous re-election by a whopping 1.3 million votes—more than the total polled by all three candidates in the Presidential elections of 1957...
...Ambassador and withdrawal of the Marine Corps mission...
...endorsement of the regime...
...By this, they do not mean a ruthless, monolithic Communism, but rather a moderately authoritarian statism that would guarantee basic freedom and initiate, with U.S...
...The President immediately decreed three days of festivities and announced grandiose plans for carting 250,000 backwoods peasants to the capital to participate in the celebrations...
...Twice in the past two years the Government has levied extra excise taxes on gasoline, ostensibly to finance road construction and repair...
...The American Ambassador, Robert Newbegin, had been recalled for "consultations" and deliberately stayed away from the ceremonies of investiture, but the unloading of American arms on May 22 was interpreted by many Haitians as evidence of U.S...
...In the confusion, families were separated or delivered to the wrong village...
...Every candidate, of course, campaigned on a pro-Duvalier platform...
...In Duvalier's place, they would like to install a blackfaced Haitian version of Fidel Castro...
...The Government of Haiti operates on an annual budget of about $28 million, plus a privately administered fund—not open to audit—of an undisclosed amount believed to· be in the neighborhood of $15 million...
...The Duvalier Administration has few apologists...
...aid, a series of five-year plans aimed at the economic and social reconstruction of the nation...
...Yet the roads are neglected, there is no cash to repay United Nations' loans, and the salaries of local repair and maintenance crews are unpaid or in arrears...
...They are impressed by the fact that Castro's revolution took only two years to reorient Cuba's economy and restore national dignity to its people...
...He is protected by a palace guard and an armed militia, which together number about 2,000...
...Though Duvalier has few public critics in Haiti, there does exist a small but influential group of thoroughly disgruntled young students and intellectuals...
...to intervene, physically if need be, to rid the country of its pro-American oppressor...
...To enforce acceptance of a Presidential "father image"—projected by a group of professional hagiographers —the dictator has adopted a policy of intimidation and gangsterism the like of which even Haiti has seldom experienced...
...Duvalier's foes believe the U.S...
...Even so, Washington would have succeeded in conveying the sense of its displeasure had not the chiefs of the Marine Corps mission, attired in full-dress uniform, attended the inaugural and the te deum that followed...
...Men and women were loaded into open trucks like herrings in a barrel...
...On May 22, the masses were shepherded into Place Colon, site of the Legislative Palace and the investiture...
...In 1958, to prove his sincerity, he asked the U.S...
...Nineteen people perished during the festivities...
...1961, national election day to choose a chief executive and a new 58-seat chamber...
...The army, militia, secret police and other groups contributing directly or indirectly to the security of the regime take up an estimated 60 per cent of the two budgets, while only 2 per cent of the official budget is devoted to rural education, about which Duvalier has often expressed concern...
...Duvalier's window-dressing of proAmericanism is designed to keep the political peace at home by advertising his graft-ridden regime as endorsed by the Yankee "Colossus of the North...
...All the trappings of the venal police state are openly visible: One cannot miss the oppression, the total absence of civil liberties, the rudeness and hostility of administrators, the cynicism, the inefficiency, the corruption and the very smell of fear...
...The final cost totalled nearly $2 million...
...They want the U.S...
...Under the circumstances, many politically minded Haitians concluded that if the Department of State was not in favor of Duvalier's second term, the Pentagon felt otherwise...
...In addition to guarding the President, they keep a close eye on the activities of the 5,000-man regular army...
...DURING THE PAST four years, diplomatic relations between the U.S...
...Once the richest of France's colonial holdings, Haiti is now one of the world's poorest nations...
...Although most Haitian peasants own their tiny farm tract, the land is eroded and unproductive, and there is no cooperation in the planting of large crops that could create a viable economy...
...arms and ammunition from a merchant vessel at anchor in the bay of Port-au-Prince...
...His greatest achievement was paving Port-au-Prince's main street, completed last year...
...In many such cases, property was confiscated and given to Duvalier's friends...
...Le Leader Spirituel du Peuple, as Duvalier is officially known, has recruited a large secret police force and, until recently, maintained a mysterious "private" society of informers and terrorists, known as the Tontons-Macoules...
...Fed up with the indifference and cupidity of their politicians, Haiti's young intellectuals have great sympathy for the Castro and Chè Guevera brand of statism...
...Democracy, they say, has not provided the nation with schools, roads, hospitals, nor has it brought health or sanitation to the majority of Haiti's three million people...
...According to Haiti's "young Turks," their country can never be a true democracy...
...Economic and social conditions under Duvalier are just as oppressive as political conditions...
...for a Marine Corps mission to help train his rag-tag Army...
...Duvalier runs his little island in the same tight manner as did the late General Rafael Trujillo in the neighboring Dominican Republic...
...Duvalier was thus able to cushion the impact of what was intended by the U.S...
...assistance programs...
...Experts estimated that it should have cost $750,000...
...This might be followed by an arms embargo and a general curtailment of U.S...
...Duvalier's repeated promises to solve the national illiteracy problem —only 10 per cent of the people can read at all—have so far not been fulfilled...
...The Haitian dictator did not even pretend to observe democratic proprieties: Under provisions of the new Constitution—which he himself drew up shortly after coming to power in 1957—Duvalier abolished the bicameral legislature and proclaimed April 30...
...It was no accident that Duvalier chose his inauguration day to unload a cargo of U.S...
Vol. 44 • August 1961 • No. 30
