How the mighty have fallen!

Two months earlier, I had watched the historic trial of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Thousands of ecstatic Egyptians converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square to celebrate. As I observed the startling domino effect of toppled dictators, felled by the so-called Arab Spring, I started reflecting on the phenomenon of dictatorship, my own life having been marred by one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century. The catharsis experienced by the Libyan and Egyptian people was a painful reminder to many Haitians of the galling impunity which still plagues Haiti and its judicial system.

On July 3, exactly one month before the trial of Hosni Mubarak and his two sons began, photos of a lavish, well-attended party for Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier's 60th birthday were making the Facebook rounds. Baby Doc, by the way, is officially under house arrest. On August 3, shocking images of Mubarak were broadcast on Egyptian television, as the Pharaoh was wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital bed, and held in a cage for the duration of the proceedings. By contrast, Baby Doc has been regularly spotted around Port-au-Prince, dining in fancy restaurants.

Jean-Claude Duvalier inherited his position from his father, François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, who was elected president in 1957, but would proclaim himself president-for-life. He tortured and killed his political opponents, ruling in an atmosphere of terror and repression ensured by the Tonton Macoutes, his ruthless secret police force. He died in 1971, but not before appointing his inept 19-year-old son president-for-life. Baby Doc's regime was largely an extension of his father's kleptocratic rule, based on violence, arbitrary detentions, and extrajudicial executions.

For 29 years, Haiti suffered an unparalleled and crippling brain drain, which robbed it of many of its most competent citizens. In 1959, my late father, Thomas Désulmé, OJ, left Haiti on a diplomatic mission, to attend Venezuelan President Betancourt's investiture. From there he went on to France. While in Paris, hearing of the rampages of the Duvalier administration back home, he was forced to take stock of the evolving political disaster. He concluded that life in Haiti had become intolerable. It was an extremely difficult decision to make.

youngest senator in the history of Haiti

In 1946, he had been the youngest senator in the history of Haiti. He was named President Estime's minister of the interior. He remained a senator in the 1950s, during Haiti's heyday under President Magloire, when Haitian art became world renowned, and Haiti, like Jamaica, was the playground of the international jet set. He had pioneered the industrialisation of Haiti by building the first plastics factory. He also built a hotel, and introduced television to the country. Self-imposed exile at the zenith of his social, political, and business career would require tremendous sacrifice. It would force him to abandon family, friends, lands, homes, and businesses.

In 1962, he visited some friends in Jamaica, which was on the verge of gaining Independence. He was impressed with its booming economy, and convinced by Robert Lightbourne, OJ, the then minister of trade, industry and tourism, to invest, and transfer his nation-building impetus from Haiti to Jamaica. My father was a rare breed of politician for whom the mantra 'jobs, jobs, jobs' was not empty political rhetoric.

Whether he was in politics or not, he always put his own money where his mouth was. He invested in manufacturing, introducing the PVC pipe, and plastic crates and wares, which would revolutionise the Jamaican industrial and construction sectors. He also invested in tourism, providing nearly 1,000 jobs, training, and local and international scholarships for young Jamaicans.

My dad would pay dearly for this spectacular rejection of the Duvalier regime. His two eldest sons had remained in Haiti. One morning in 1964 came the soul-crushing phone call every parent dreads: his sons had disappeared. I was a little girl, in school in Paris at the time. Having left Haiti at the age of three, I have only seen pictures of the brothers I never knew. They had also been educated in Paris, and remain frozen in time, in the black-and-white photographs, depicting two dapper young men dressed in their double-breasted 1960s suits, smiling broadly to the bright future which lay ahead of them. Stoic that he was, my father never spoke of his lost sons, but an unfathomable streak of sadness ran through my family's collective unconscious.

A 29-year Orwellian nightmare ended on February 7, 1986, with the fall of Baby Doc. As in Cairo and Tripoli, Haitians danced in the streets. Jean-Claude and his wife, Michele, settled into luxurious exile in the south of France, to enjoy the US$600 million they are accused of pilfering from public funds.

After 28 long years in exile, my father was finally able to return to Haiti. The dashing young senator, who had once made history, returned home with white hair. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he stepped off the plane, and embraced his long-lost friends and relatives. I, as an adult, tread for the first time upon the land of my ancestors, and of my parents' innocence.

euphoric year for exiles

The year 1987 was euphoric for Haiti. Exiles flocked home from all over the world. Some had lost relatives, some had lost friends, some had themselves suffered the degradation of jail and torture. Some had endured the slings and arrows of betrayal by friends who needed to survive inside the Gulag. Others had tested the limits of friendship through the stalwarts who had chosen prison and torture over the betrayal of a friend. Families had been shattered. Their children had been scattered among the nations. A generation was lost, which understood neither the homeland, nor their own parents' culture.

Homes, estates, and businesses had been lost. Parents had died while their exiled children were refused the right to hold their dying parents' hands. In such a cruel manner did my father lose his own parents. Yet others had been forced to watch the execution of their own children, their bodies left hanging in the street as a public warning.

Such was my father's genius, strength, and courage in the face of the gruelling test of exile, that it is not until I came home from Europe as a young woman, and Jamaica became home, sweet home, that I realised that my entire life had consisted of my parents' exile.

One brave morning, hand in hand with his closest friends, my father undertook the pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall of Fort Dimanche, the infamous dungeon, where so many, including my brothers, had vanished to, never to be seen again. There he bawled out his 30 years of pent-up grief.

On January 16 this year, after 25 years in exile, Duvalier made a startling return to Haiti. Ironically, Duvalier, who had exiled so many, benefited from the 1987 constitution drafted to forestall the evil of his reign. It was now illegal for a Haitian to be exiled from his homeland.

The same Human Rights Watch which had demanded an investigation into Gaddafi's execution called for the prosecution of Baby Doc. The organisation published a 47-page report, Haiti's Rendezvous With History: The Case of Jean-Claude Duvalier, which examines the legal and practical questions surrounding the case, and concludes that Haiti has an obligation under international law to investigate and prosecute the grave violations of human rights under Duvalier's rule. It deems that Duvalier's trial could be the most important criminal case in Haitian history, because it represents a landmark opportunity for the Haitian justice system to address some of the worst crimes in Haiti's past.

Two days after his arrival, Duvalier was arraigned before a Haitian court for corruption, embezzlement of public funds, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, killing of civilians, and crimes against humanity. He was placed under house arrest pending an investigation into the charges, but continues to enjoy life.

The scars of the Duvalier era still run deep. The truth-seeking process of a fair trial for Duvalier would allow the Haitian society to examine and come to grips with past crimes and atrocities, and prevent their future repetition. The focus on accountability could help to break the cycle of impunity, reveal the root causes for past and present conflicts, and construct historical narratives countering revisionism of the past.

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