Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti’s ‘Baby Doc,’ Dies at 63

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Sat Oct 4, 2014, 03:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: New York Times

Jean-Claude Duvalier, a former dictator of Haiti, has died, the president of Haiti, Michel J. Martelly, said on Saturday.
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Mr. Martelly announced the death in a post on Twitter.

Mr. Duvalier, 63, known as Baby Doc, ruled the country for nearly 15 years. Along with his father, Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, he dominated the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere through a combination of brutality, intimidation and guile.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/world/americas/jean-claude-duvalier-haitis-baby-doc-dies-at-63.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=21165967&pgtype=Topic&_r=0

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This is all they have at the time of posting but I expect more will come. So much to say about him, his father, and their legacy.

Edit to add that the story has since been updated and this was a particularly poignant addition -

“On Duvalier’s death, I’m thinking of the look in my mother’s eyes when she talks about her brother Joel, who was disappeared by that dictator,” Patrick Gaspard, the American ambassador to South Africa, who is Haitian-American, posted on Twitter on Saturday. “News of the passing of Duvalier makes me honor my father and generations of Haitians who resisted that vicious dictatorship.”

[shenmue]

1. Whew

[Cirque du So-What]

2. That creaking noise

is from the rusty hinges on hell's VIP gate as it swings wide to receive such a 'distinguished' individual.

[Archae]

4. That's what we want to think, because of this.

This "Baby Doc" died at the age of 63, living in luxury, in one of the poorest and most corrupt Caribbean countries.

Pol Pot died, fairly comfortable in his old age.

Idi Amin died in luxury.

So now we want to believe they are actually being punished in some mythological place of eternal punishment.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Hey, it's all we got

as it's infuriating to reflect on the lives of leisure enjoyed by despots until they - at long last - croak, providing the smallest measure of vindication for those who cheer their demise.

[Archae]

6. I know. Even Hitler died under his own terms.

You can obviously guess what the Russians would have done to Hitler and Eva Braun.

That's why they killed themselves.

I was reading a couple days ago, about a Serbian war criminal who was hiding in plain sight, he grew a big bushy beard and pretended to be some kind of "health guru."
AFAIK, he's in the Hague right now.
So we can HOPE he'll spend the rest of his life in jail.

But just look at most of the dictators and vicious butchers from history, they live out their lives in comfort and most often, in luxury.

Ceaucescu in Romania was a rare exception.

[christx30]

8. There was also Muammar Gaddafi.

I wouldn't call his death anywhere near peaceful. But, yes, too many of these horrible butchers live very well unti their deaths. Unlike their victims.

[LeftishBrit]

13. Rather than hell, I would dream of his being reincarnated as an average citizen of Haiti...

Not very different, especially after his destructive influence.

[littlemissmartypants]

19. Agreed. nt

[UpInArms]

3. how nice that RayGun helped him leave with his loot

By the time he and his family boarded a U.S. Air Force cargo plane and flew to exile in 1986, with truckloads of Louis Vuitton luggage and millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts, Duvalier had cemented his country’s status as the basket case of the Americas

Hopefully, they are now playing cards together in hell.

[PeoViejo]

7. A lot of Hatians will be pleased to hear this.

They were terrified of the Duvaliers.

[christx30]

9. But the Duvaliers

wouldn't have been able to do it without willing bureaucrats, police and military officers and troops. It's not like the Duvaliers went out themselves to torture people. Why aren't any of them in prison?

[Ken Burch]

11. Because they're all tied in to the Kreyol elite

And that elite has never really lost power...even under Aristede(whom Bill Clinton helped overthrow because the guy committed the horrible crime of trying to raise the minimum wage.)

[Reter]

18. Not all of them

I recently sold a gym to a Haitian man. Took us three hours to disassemble (huge gym) and somehow Baby Doc came up. I said "I bet you hated him" and he said "no, he kept the crime down" and then when on to say "Haitians don't know how to handle democracy because we aren't used to it." I couldn't believe my ears.

[Ken Burch]

10. The line SHOULD have read:

"he dominated the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere-AND MADE DAMN SURE IT STAYED THAT WAY".

He lost it all in the divorce from Mrs. Baby Doc...and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.

[LeftishBrit]

12. I know one shouldn't grave-dance, but in his case I'll make an exception!

A truly horrible man, who kept his own country in abject poverty.

[geomon666]

14. The world is a better place today. n/t

[onwardsand upwards]

21. I wish I could believe that!

But, the truth is that he was just another corporate puppet, and there are thousands of others ready, willing, and able to take his place.

Until we change that system, the world is no better at all.

[geomon666]

23. Well I didn't say it was much better.

But it'll get there.

[TygrBright]

15. Bonfires and music in the streets of Port-au-Prince, I bet... n/t

[brett_jv]

16. Good Riddance to Bad Garbage ...

May Papa & Baby Doc rot in hell, along with the Ton-Ton Macout in their entirety.

[jmowreader]

17. Duvalier isn't in hell

Neither are Reagan, Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Prescott Bush, Nixon, Lee Atwater, Ferdinand Marcos, the guy who invented the infomercial, or Nathan Bedford Forrest.

As an atheist I do not believe there is either a heaven or a hell, hence I cannot believe they started one to stuff those people's nonexistent immortal souls into.

I can, however, thoroughly believe - and take great pleasure in knowing - that from now until the end of time, the good people of the world will spit upon the ground whenever they speak their names. And so it is with Baby Doc. All most of us leave behind us is the memory of our deeds; Duvalier not only leaves behind him a prodigious body count but the history of having been run off by the Reagan Administration, who until 1986 never met a thug it didn't like.

[onwardsand upwards]

20. It would be nice to get a statement from the French government ...

... explaining why they gave him refuge for so long, when his crimes against humanity were so clear and obvious.

A statement from the US government, too, to explain why they provided him safe and luxurious passage to his French villa, would be appropriate at this time.

[MADem]

22. His father died at age 64. Longevity doesn't run in that family. nt

[NBachers]

24. Good