FOR HAITI, NO PAYBACK AFTER DUVALIER'S REIGN
(Miami Herald) - By Frances Robles
Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier took the proverbial ``blank check'' to heart.
As ``president for life,'' he and his then-wife had blank state treasury checkbooks at their disposal. When the couple wanted a little extra for jewels or cash, they'd fill in the account number and convert flour, lottery or electricity revenue from one of the world's poorest nations into overseas cash, according to affidavits filed in French courts.
Lawyers estimated that Haiti's former dictator embezzled at least a half-billion dollars through an elaborate scheme of false companies, phony charities and transfers in the name of friends and family. They spent it on a Ferrari, yachts, jewelry and Miami condos.
The portly former president, now 59, returned to Haiti unexpectedly last week and once again finds himself accused of massive theft. The former teen tyrant spent the past three decades dodging at least a dozen lawsuits in three countries.
He now finds himself in a hotel in the hills above the capital under police surveillance as Haitian prosecutors dust off decades-old ledgers and copies of canceled checks in a quest to get justice.
``If Duvalier wanted to get money, say from the education ministry, he'd take the checkbook, fill in the account number of the education ministry and get cash,'' said Gilles August, a Paris attorney hired by the Haitian government in the 1980s to recover looted funds.
``Duvalier should go to jail for the rest of his life.''
The night before he was run out of office, Duvalier wrote $169,000 in three checks made out to cash, according to canceled checks presented by the Haitian Justice Ministry in a 1987 lawsuit in France.
Duvalier was president of Haiti from 1971 until 1986, when a popular uprising forced him out of office. The year he left, lawyers and accountants in Port-au-Prince began deconstructing a massive fraud scheme that allegedly involved the president, his mother, wife, sisters and key aides.
Baby Doc even gave his bride -- now his ex -- $100,000 before they wed, Haiti's former justice minister said in an affidavit.
August said suits filed in France, the United States and Switzerland often fell apart because Haiti's government kept collapsing and new administrations failed to follow up.
Charges were first filed against him and 38 others in 1986, but a judge dismissed the complaint on a technicality.
In 2008, additional complaints for human rights abuse were added to that case.
Chief Prosecutor Harycidas Auguste said the government is still interested in pursuing charges against Duvalier.
``We are on the road to delivering justice -- no matter who the person is. We have to start somewhere,'' Auguste said.
Prosecutors presented corruption charges last week. A Haitian judge will decide whether the case can go to trial or if the statute of limitations has run out.
Reynolds Georges, a Duvalier defense attorney, declined to comment because he said he hadn't had a chance to review the evidence in the affidavit.
Duvalier told the French newspaper Le Figaro in a rare 1988 interview that the Haitian government cannot prove he spent public money on himself.
Calling the funds an ``inheritance,'' Duvalier insisted that the jewels were not for his bride, but for the wife of an unidentified high-ranking foreigner. The government exaggerated how much was transferred to overseas accounts. The funds were used by his ex on lobbying, he said.
Duvalier's former attorney told the paper that even a U.S. politician received $3 million.
``In our country,'' Duvalier told Le Figaro, ``we always had a dynastic, paternal, conception of power. Social, medical and educational expenses were not all budgeted. It was to the Duvaliers that people directly addressed themselves, and we responded to their needs. Each week we distributed thousands of envelopes. . . . In fact, 90 percent of social expenditures were financed by us.''
Attorneys involved in the paper chase say the Haitian government compiled convincing stacks of evidence, which may have been lost in last year's earthquake. There was an apartment in Miami and a yacht in the name of his former personal secretary. Checks made out to cash were endorsed by the president himself.
Sometimes money went straight from state accounts to New York jewelry stores. One such transaction, on Dec. 26, 1980, was for $414,324, according to a 1988 Miami Herald news account.
Over time, money traced back to Duvalier's ex-wife, Michele Bennett, totaled more than $94 million, according to an affidavit signed by former Haitian Justice Minister Francois St. Fleur.
According to St. Fleur's affidavit submitted for a failed 1987 lawsuit in Paris, the Duvaliers used revenue-generating government institutions to support a lavish lifestyle.
The state lottery, the electric company, the telecommunications office, National Bank of Credit and the Tobacco Directorate -- which controls prices of consumer goods -- were secretly issuing checks for the first family and friends.
``During a recent and short period, the Duvaliers rerouted a sum of almost $47.4 million,'' St. Fleur wrote. `
Lawyers documented $120 million in siphoned funds -- just in Duvalier's name.
``These actions by the Duvaliers and their accomplices are unique in the annals of the Third World,'' St. Fleur wrote. ``That pillaging, in giant proportions, has made the people of Haiti one of the poorest in the planet.''
Efforts to reach the former first lady were unsuccessful. Bennett was in Haiti two weeks ago for a commemoration ceremony at the Hotel Montana, which collapsed during last year's earthquake.
Her brother Rudy was one of the victims.
Those close to Bennett say she made friends promise not to reveal her contact information.
``I've been in exile for 24 years, and I've been very reserved about all the difficulties we have faced and all the bad things said about us,'' she told the London Daily Mail last year.
The couple divorced in 1993. By all accounts, Duvalier was left ruined, and spent the next two decades stiffing everybody, from landlords to hotels.
He drove a Ferrari and lived in rented villas, but is not known to have ever held a job.
The paper trail, August said, shows how the first couple raided a charity and pocketed $20 million donated by the Canadian government to build a hospital.
``They were stealing from everything,'' August said. ``There was no law in the criminal code they did not break, aside from maybe double parking.''
Miami Herald correspondent Jacqueline Charles and translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.
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