Today in Haitian History - July 3, 1951 -- Birth of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier
Son of the country doctor and later dictator François Duvalier and his wife Simone Ovide Duvalier, Jean-Claude Duvalier was born on July 3, 1951. Following his father’s death in April 1971, Duvalier became Haiti’s new head of state at the age of nineteen. As president, Duvalier announced that he would undertake an economic revolution just as his father, first elected in 1957, had brought about a political one. “Jeanclaudisme,” based on an alliance with the Haitian merchant sector and an increased reliance on U.S. capital, was a moderate success in the 1970s. Haiti, however, remained the poorest country of the region and well before the popular rebellion which forced his departure on February 7, 1986, Jean-Claude Duvalier had become particularly unpopular both within the duvalierist circle and the Haitian populace.
After his departure for France in 1986, Duvalier remained there until 2011 when he decided to come back to Haiti. Despite hopes that we would face the Haitian justice for the crimes he helped perpetuate, he died in Haiti on October 4, 2014, before any real progress could be made.
While many remember Jean-Claude Duvalier’s presidency as less violent than that of his father, it would be a mistake to assume that his regime constituted a complete break from the practices associated with duvalierism which included state-sponsored violence, disregard for the rule of law, financial corruption and lack of true interest in the well-being of the Haitians.
Jean-Claude Duvalier, 1972. Image Courtesy: Le Monde.