ARTICLE - HAITI'S MISSING MONEY

DUVALIER AND HAITI'S MISSING $120M
(Financial Times) - By Andrew Jack in London

Haitian investigators have details of more than $120m allegedly stolen from the government by former president Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his entourage, according to legal filings from 1986 that could be used in support of fresh charges of corruption and crimes against humanity brought against him last week.

Details of the transactions, which investigators described as part of a “gigantic fraud ... from one of the poorest populations on earth”, supported a ruling from the Swiss courts last year to maintain a SFr6m freezing order for money it judged to have been “illicit”.

Alongside descriptions of the intimidation, torture and death of political opponents, the filings submitted by the Haitian investigators for the Swiss case of Mr Duvalier’s “pillage” provide a reminder of the anger that triggered riots and his exile before most of today’s Haitians were even born.

Duvalier family members have unsuccessfully challenged the claims and the asset freezing in the Swiss courts. They have a final chance after February 1, when a new Swiss law permits restitution of the assets to Haiti on the recommendation of the country’s minister of finance.

One document seen by the Financial Times prepared by Francois St Fleur, Haiti’s minister of justice, in 1986, contends that ­during the Duvalier family’s “dictatorial” reign they “treated Haiti as though it were their private property”.

It describes the systematic “taxing” of revenue-generating government institutions including the tax service, the state Tobacco and Matches office, Haiti Cement, the Flour Mill, Lottery, Car Insurance Office, Gaming Commission, Retirement Fund, and telecoms, electricity and airports agencies.

Mr Duvalier placed his own people at the head of the finance and interior ministries and the central bank, while officials running other agencies were “neutralised by threats and blackmail”.

Cheques were written from the organisations to “social works” of Mr Duvalier, his former wife Michèle and his mother – called “the guardian of the revolution”. These bodies had no legal existence, but were then endorsed for cashing, often directly to his bank account numbered 6251-3522 at the Banque Nationale de Crédit. Others went via the Michèle Duvalier Foundation and the Bon Repos hospital.

Funds were channelled to Mr Duvalier and his extended family, as well as through other intermediaries. Some were telexed to banks in Miami, Paris, London and Switzerland, and other monies transferred to companies such as Fincal, registered in Panama.

But the Haitian investigators said Mr Duvalier also would periodically collect dollars from the commercial branch of the central bank. From the year in which he became president in 1971, investigators said he created a system of “pillage”, right up until withdrawing a cheque for $169,000 on the night, before his departure on Febrary 6, 1986.