Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, president of Haiti, in 1982 Photo: AFP/GETTY

Jean-Claude (‘Baby Doc’) Duvalier, who has died aged 63, was proclaimed Haiti’s president for life aged 19 on the death of his father, François (“Papa Doc”) Duvalier. Under pressure from the United States to moderate his corrupt and dictatorial regime, he made a show of introducing reforms, though little changed; in 1986, following anti-government demonstrations, he fled into exile in France.

Jean-Claude Duvalier was born in Port au Prince on July 3 1951, six years before his father came to power in a presidential election. François Duvalier’s leadership was hailed as a new beginning for Haiti. The ruling classes had always looked to Paris; and Duvalier, as a black descendant of slaves, seemed to offer a new sense of national identity and pride.

The honeymoon was short-lived. Recognising the popular appeal of voodoo brought by the slaves from Africa, he recruited a private army, the sinister Tontons Macoutes (Creole for “bogeymen”) to hold the population in submission through a combination of terror and magic. Protected by the Americans, who saw him as a buffer against Fidel Castro, Duvalier killed anyone who opposed him and established himself as a cult leader and president for life.

His son Jean-Claude had an early taste of Haitian political life in 1963, when there was an abortive attempt to kidnap him from his school. In reprisal, his father was reported to have ordered the execution of 100 people, including 65 army officers. Transferred to the St Louis de Gonzaque School, Jean-Claude was later sent to Europe for further education and finished off his studies at Haiti University. Though tubby and slow witted — one of his nicknames at school was “baskethead” — he miraculously passed all his examinations and even secured a diploma (the equivalent of an American junior college degree) at the age of 18.

As his father became ill with heart disease, diabetes and incipient insanity, the country was asked to endorse Jean-Claude as his heir, and in 1971 Haitians approved his selection with a vote of 2,391,916 to one. “The simple people of Haiti, the black peasants living in poverty, all needed someone to defend them,” he recalled later. “They needed a new Papa Doc. I had been chosen by Destiny for that role.” On April 22 1971, the day after his father’s death, Jean-Claude Duvalier took over as president for life.

^{‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier with his father, ‘Papa Doc’ (REX)}

He began by naming a cabinet chosen by his father which included his mother, Simone, and his imperious older sister Marie-Denise. For the next nine years Simone Duvalier, “Guardian of the Sacred Torch of the Revolution”, was the real ruler of the country, providing her clueless son with backbone as he resisted the harassment and humiliation meted out by Marie-Denise. On several occasions his mother had to intervene to prevent him from resigning and fleeing the presidential palace.

Under her influence, a semblance of normality returned. In response to American pressure, some of Papa Doc’s former cabinet ministers were replaced and a number of political prisoners freed. Debt repayments recommenced, tourism returned and foreign aid poured in from America, Canada and France. Substantively, though, Jean-Claude’s rule did not markedly differ from his father’s. Much of the foreign aid — some estimates suggest $500 million — found its way into the Duvaliers’ private coffers. Ordinary Haitians continued to live in the most abject poverty.

Towards the end of the 1970s, Duvalier fell under the spell of the tempestuous and sophisticated Michele Bennett, and when they married in 1980 Bennett had “Maman Simone” expelled from the presidential palace. From then on the corruption that characterised the Duvaliers’ rule became an open scandal. In 1981, with the country close to bankruptcy and the IMF withholding credit, a shipment of nine million tons of “rice” — in reality powder and dust — arrived in Port-au-Prince, where it was left rotting on the quayside. The rice, ordered from Burma, had been imported by Michele Bennett’s brother Ernest, who had raked off $3 million of the $6.5 million contract.

^{‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier and his wife Michele on their wedding day (AP)}

Discontent with the regime erupted in food riots in 1985, which were brutally suppressed by government forces and the reinvigorated Tontons Macoutes. In one weekend alone 400 people were believed to have died in the violence. Amid rumours that he had fled the country, Duvalier appeared on television promising to redress Haiti’s “unequal and shocking” distribution of wealth, and assuring Haitians that their president was still “strong, firm as a monkey’s tail”.

But by February 7 1986, amid further rioting, it was clear that the game was up. The last thing Duvalier did before his abdication was to throw a champagne party at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince to bid farewell to friends. At 3am he fled into exile on board an American military aircraft, pausing on the way to dig up his father’s remains in an eerie voodoo ceremony and, it is alleged, remove several hundred million dollars in cash from the central bank.

In Paris, Duvalier was greeted by angry Haitian protesters and by an embarrassed French government which told him that he could stay for no more than six days. For many years the French government said Duvalier’s stay was only temporary, and it blamed Washington for landing them with him. Eventually they opted to forget about him, both the French Foreign Ministry and the Haitian embassy claiming to have no idea where he was.

At first Duvalier lived in regal style with his wife, his two children and his mother at a luxurious villa on the French Riviera, next door to Graham Greene’s. While successive Haitian governments tried without success to retrieve the looted millions, Duvalier and his family bought a chateau outside Paris and two apartments in the city, drove BMWs and Ferraris and shopped at expensive boutiques.

When, as part of an investigation into the Duvaliers’ finances, the authorities raided the Riviera villa, they caught Michele Duvalier trying to flush a notebook down the lavatory. The notebook contained details of her recent spending: $168,780 for clothes at Givenchy; $270,200 for jewellery at Boucheron; $9,752 for two children’s horse saddles at Hermes; $68,500 for a clock; and $13,000 for a week in a Paris hotel.

Duvalier, meanwhile, was to be seen in Riviera nightclubs with a succession of glamorous escorts, one of whom complained that “even though Baby Doc had arthritis and high blood pressure, he wouldn’t leave me alone… I’ve never been so tired in my life.” His penchant for passion and pornographic videos did little for his marriage, and in 1990 Michele, having spent much of the money, left him for a local businessman. When they divorced in 1991 she won custody of the children and most of the remaining cash.

Duvalier clung on at the villa, with his mother, until 1994, when he was evicted after failing to pay the rent. His mother died in 1997 and he later lived with a girlfriend in a borrowed two-room apartment in one of the grimmer suburbs of Paris. He was said to have discovered a new interest in solar panels.

^{Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier on his return to Haiti in 2011 (GETTY)}

In January 2011, with his companion Veronique Roy, he returned to Haiti, saying that he wished to assist in the reconstruction of his country following the devastating earthquake of 2010. He lived quietly in the hills above Port-au-Prince. Since his return, attempts to bring him to justice for human rights abuses and corruption had made little progress.

A chain-smoker of Dunhill cigarettes, Duvalier died of a heart attack in Port-au-Prince. He often claimed that Haiti had been better off under his rule, and when asked what mistakes he had made, observed: “Perhaps I was too tolerant.”

Jean-Claude Duvalier, born July 3 1951, died October 4 2014

Instead of exhorting Wales to “wake up” as a would-be nation-state, Simon Jenkins (Journal, 30 September) should himself wake up to the fact that Wales is not some homogenous Celtic region; nor is it especially distinctive from large parts of England. Here in north-east Wales, for example, the cultural and economic links with north-west England are much stronger than the ones we have with south Wales. From Wrexham, we can be in Manchester and Liverpool within an hour (which is why so many north Walians work there). By contrast, a journey from Wrexham to Cardiff takes at least three hours, while the road journey to Pembrokeshire is comparable, in travel time, to a flight across the Atlantic.

If the liberal-left is serious about a more federal UK, it should examine the case for devolution within, as well as for, Wales – and ask whether parts of eastern Wales would fit more naturally into regional assemblies based in western England. Or does Welsh devolution rest ultimately on emotion rather than any rational, secular case for regional governance?
Richard Kelly
Buckley, Flintshire

• I would argue that much of the upturn of speaking Welsh in Cardiff and other “anglicised” areas of south Wales is not because of any “discrimination in favour of Welsh-speakers in government jobs”, but rather, because of, in particular, the excellent education available through Welsh-medium schools in the capital and beyond. Having worked considerably with Welsh government civil servants across a number of departments, I’ve yet to come across anyone who has seemingly attained their position through an ability to speak Welsh. Indeed, in my experience, many senior civil servants have actually hailed from outside Wales.

Equally importantly, over the last 25 years since I returned to live here, I have noticed a greater acceptance of Welsh among the majority Anglophone population and, moreover, an enhanced desire among many of them to understand and learn more of the language and its related rich culture, which has again contributed to the upturn.

Yn eiddoch yn gywir.
David Llewellyn
Cardiff

• The Scottish referendum has given Welsh leaders their chance for parity of representation for both England and Wales if they press for an English assembly, elected on proportional representation, with the same powers as the Welsh assembly in health, education and planning, to replace the House of Lords, leaving the House of Commons, with control over taxation, as the real upper house.

As Simon Jenkins points out, the long border with England is permeable, and parts of mid and north Wales are  more closely linked to large English conurbations than they are to Cardiff. The total population of this “nearly nation” is similar to larger Birmingham, Liverpool or Manchester, which each have one chief executive and one director of education, compared with 22 of each in Wales. This Tory legacy of a disastrously top-heavy system of local government means that, after the austerity cuts devolved from Westminster, there is no money left for vital services, despite council taxes being rebanded to make the top rate higher than Westminster. Wales remains dependent on an annual subvention of £15bn from the UK Treasury that makes independence a financial non-starter.

Failure to reband council taxes in England has reduced local government to implementing Tory cuts, euphemistically called “localism”, but Wales could lead the way for England through a reform of local government that elected two AMs per constituency, one to be in charge of directly elected mayors for each borough, serving a maximum of two terms so that it does not become a job for life.

The union with Wales is almost two centuries older than the union with Scotland, but an English assembly would provide the federal structure required for all the constituent parts of the UK to go forward together in harmony of equal representation.
Margaret Phelps
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan

• Simon Jenkins touches on the bleak attitudes of many Welsh people towards their culture, language, English incomers and domination from England, stating that “Where the nationalist will is strong, nothing is impossible” regarding the possibility of Wales becoming an “autonomous unit”. This lack of self-belief is the crux of the current situation, where the Welsh language is so often mocked and its speakers derided and scorned, the rich cultural heritage is scoffed at or ignored and its illustrious forefathers and current ambassadors in all fields are played down as an embarrassment. English incomers are indeed often more worthy of being called Welsh than those who perceive their roots to be Welsh as they embrace the language, explore the beautiful landscapes and acknowledge and engage in the wealth of literary and cultural opportunities. The apathy and indifference of so many to the richness of this wonderful country could well be the greatest potential downfall of Wales. If we are to survive and prosper as a nation we urgently need to cast aside the self-inflicted shame and start to value ourselves as richly diverse Welshmen and women who can offer so much to ourselves and the world.
Cathey Owen Cousins
Aberhonddu, Powys

• So, according to Simon Jenkins we need to get rid of those lower-class caravans spoiling the view and get more Michelin stars in order to keep Wales safe for middle-class tourists and wealthy metropolitans wanting to buy bijou cottages in pretty little villages (if we are lucky perhaps some of them will marry our daughters!). Meanwhile we should shut up about the low-skilled, low-paid, part-time jobs in the tourist industry and stop complaining about the distribution of government cash.

Even for a professional controversialist this is low stuff. Pointing out that whole industries were deliberately destroyed (coal) and run down (steel) by fiat in Westminster, without being replaced, is not “whingeing”; it is setting out some hard economic realities. Never mind the Depression, Wales has never recovered from the depredations of the 80s and never will until it rebuilds a higher-skilled and higher-paid economy. We have no oil but UK and other governments were happy to fuel their navies with Welsh steam coal at the height of the imperial project; Welsh steel was used to make rails for the trains that carried British goods from Russia to South America; migrants from around the world flocked to work in Wales, which had the densest railway network in the world, per head of population.

As soon as these things could be got cheaper elsewhere, there was no further use for them – or for the people who worked there, leaving Wales (still) with higher rates of unemployment, industrial disease and disability than anywhere in the UK, with the possible exception of north-east England. That is why we need a proportionately higher level of expenditure on health and benefits than England; that is why the Barnett formula is unfair. This is not the “politics of grievance” – it is the politics of survival, literally for some, and this is before the cost of rebuilding a social and economic infrastructure, ravaged by Thatcherism, is taken into account.
Martin Barclay
Cardiff

• I am surprised Jenkins made no mention, of the “black hole” of economic imbalance created by the resident Tafia of Cardiff, and relocation of services and culture (eg BBC and S4C studios from Swansea and Llanelli) to the administrative centre. Perhaps Scotland is fortunate in that Edinburgh and Glasgow are connected by an excellent road and rail link of a mere 40 miles, and political diversity is healthily dispersed between these two vibrant centres.
Brian Thomas
Edinburgh

• After many years of professional life in England a return to my native south Wales coincided with the birth of Welsh devolution and while there is little with Simon Jenkins’ piece with which I would take issue, it is important to see the “slumbering dragon” in an historical context. To do so is to perhaps appreciate both the psychological and economic mountain which the dragon has been obliged to climb.

The so-called Act of Union of 1536 between Wales and England openly spoke of the annexation of the former by the latter and for 500 years the clear intention of government in England has been to treat Wales in every respect as a part of England, completely ignoring crucial differences in culture and in the Welsh pattern of historical development. This is reflected in the dramatically different devolution settlements afforded to Wales and Scotland respectively. For the Scots it was a question of “if it’s not out, it’s in” with Scottish government and parliament operating from the outset in all areas except those specifically reserved to the UK government and Westminster. In Wales, we were obliged to operate on a basis of “if it’s not in, it’s out” and have been playing catch-up ever since.

I’m not sure that the reasons for such devolutionary disparity between the two mainland Celtic nations have ever been given: was it the very slender initial Welsh majority vote or an innate reluctance on the part of the colonial power to release one of its “colonies”?

When the Welsh assembly was only four years old, it received what amounted to a vote of confidence by the Richard commission, compounded in 2011 by a substantial majority who voted in favour of primary law-making powers.

I do not belong to a political party but feel that the corollary of Simon Jenkins’s essay may be conjoined with the explicit message afforded us by an outstanding Scottish referendum campaign, namely, if you want successfully devolved government – don’t elect a unionist party to govern you.
Howard Jeans
Thomastown, Rhondda Cynon Taf

• So the Welsh language is a key factor in keeping the Welsh people trapped in poverty and backwardness? It is only through fully embracing the English language with its attendant entrepreneurial spirit that they can be saved from their self-imposed chains argues the writer.

I seem to have heard this “line” somewhere before. It was in fact the analysis adopted by Victorian governments of Wales and its language in the aftermath of the Merthyr rising, Chartist insurrection, Rebecca riots etc.

This government-imposed attitude would in time lead to the brittle pride and fierce self- loathing exhibited in Simon Jenkins’s father’s views on his home country, its culture and language.

Who exactly is forcing what down someone’s throat here? It looks like more of the same old cultural imperialism on offer. Let us rather look at the massive exploitation that capitalism inflicted on Wales – and other industrial parts of these islands – for explanations as to our current crises.

It is the City of London – and subsequently a myriad of tax havens – that reaped and still reap the benefits wrested from these lands.
Meic Birtwistle
Trefenter, Ceredigion

• “Wake up, Wales” read your front page banner for Simon Jenkins’s excellent essay. As an Englishman who is more than happy to live in Wales, I would say in return, “Wake up, Guardian”, for it is English institutions such as yourselves that treat Wales as a “nearly nation”. You never report on Welsh politics, rarely report on Welsh news and events, and you downgrade your coverage of Welsh sport. Look at how much space you give when England plays – pages of it; and compare it with your coverage when Wales play – it is so small, you’ve got to look hard for it. You cover English rugby union in full; you give no space at all to the Guinness Pro12. It is no wonder that there is a narrative of grievance and resentment. For yourselves, you need to become a truly British and not just an English newspaper.

It is true that the railway to Cardiff is not electrified, but it is still only two hours away from London. So come, and come a little more often than even Simon Jenkins does.
Paul Tench
Retired senior lecturer, Centre for Language and communication research, Cardiff University

Gaby Hinsliff is correct that it’s no good blinkering ourselves to the likelihood that no single party will command a majority after next year’s election, and that thought is needed now about credible coalition partners (Opinion, 3 October). But we should not underestimate just how difficult that will be. As a possibly typical Labour supporter, I find the idea of hitching up with the Liberal Democrats fills me with deep revulsion. It’s hard to get past their broken promises and numerous betrayals of their own finest principles in propping up the Tory-led coalition, with its self-defeating austerity measures and demonising attacks on the poorest and most vulnerable in society, not to mention the un-mandated restructuring of the NHS.

If we are truly entering an era when no party can win a working majority, there is an alarming possibility that we’ll end up with the Lib Dems perpetually in office, backing the Tories one year and Labour the next, repeatedly abandoning whatever ideals they are supposed to represent, just to stay in power. If that happens, it will surely increase the numbers of people who despair of “Westminster” and party politics in general because they are all the same. Let’s at least have the debate about coalition partners before the election, not afterwards, as happened in with 2010’s undemocratic stitch-up.
Giles Oakley
London

• Gaby Hinsliff mentions Australia’s Julia Gillard and Canada’s Stephen Harper as leaders who have run minority governments. Closer to home, Alex Salmond and the SNP ran a minority government while holding under 40% of the seats in the Scottish parliament between 2007 and 2011. If David Cameron or Ed Miliband find that they have to consider minority government, I’m sure Alex Salmond would be delighted to offer his advice and guidance now he’s at a loose end.
Dr Jim MacRitchie
Paisley

I wonder what would happen to a John Lewis store employee if, like their managing director, they engaged in an ignorant rant about the French while on duty (Je m’excuse: John Lewis boss forced to say sorry as anti-French tirade causes outrage, 4 October)? I suspect they wouldn’t have to wait long before being charged with gross misconduct and probably getting the sack. I also doubt that saying je m’excuse would do them much good in a company which demands that the actions of employees be “powered by our principles”.
Richard Lynch
GMB Union rep, London

• Shame on you for promoting cheap, climate-changing flights (Travel, 4 October) when one can get to Beziers and Girona in a day from York by train. If it costs more, instead of promoting such expensive “bed and breakfast” establishments, why not tell us about the really cheap and clean budget hotels that exist all over Europe. Many of us simply want somewhere to have a good night’s sleep and a shower before moving on or sightseeing. We are not looking for endless pampering and fancy toiletries.
Janice Gupta Gwilliam
Malton, North Yorkshire

• I’ve been re-reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and came across “purred” (Higgins telling his daughter how he would fight Boucher), a word currently causing some mirth (Report, 1 October). From the notes I discover the meaning of this word (in northern dialect) to be “clog fighting”. David Cameron please note.
Maureen Evershed
Dorridge, West Midlands

• What happens when Grace Gelder gets fed up and wants a divorce (I married myself, Family, 4 October)? She’s going to have one hell of a fight with herself.
Deborah Scott-Paul
Aberdeen

Sir, Young men and women are reported to be running away to join the caliphate (“Girl, 15, ran away ‘to join Isis fighters’ ”, Oct 1). We hurry to label them as jihadists and fear their return to the UK as potential terrorists. Yet young men, and sometimes women, have run away and joined an army or a movement throughout history. They went to fight in the Spanish civil war, join the Foreign Legion, and in India became Maoist rebels. We need to treat the runaways as a social problem which we have to solve. To cast them all as terrorists is to fail to understand that they are idealists. If we cannot share their idealism, let us at least learn how to find out what it was that led them to choose Islamism rather than other ideals. The Home Office should initiate serious research.
Lord Desai
House of Lords

Sir, The Muslim Council of Britain would like to make clear that we have opposed — and continue to oppose — extremism (“Ministers urged to work with Muslim ‘extremist’ groups”, Sept 22). We are a democratic, broad-based body, with affiliates belonging to most traditions of Islam: Sunni and Shia, Sufi and Salafi. We are all concerned about the extremism that is blighting our communities.
Nasima Begum
Muslim Council of Britain

Mushroom hunting should be a joy — but Britons need to be educated about the dangers, a top chef writes

Sir, The British may know their onions but they definitely don’t know their mushrooms. I have lived here for 40 years but have only ever read about the negative side of mushroom collecting, never the pleasure these jewels of nature bring (“Mushroom poisoning cases soar as clueless foodies answer call of wild”, News, Oct 3). For 26 years I prepared wild mushrooms and truffles in my Neal Street restaurant, which was the mecca of this delicacy.

Britain needs its schools, nature trusts, television companies and other establishments to bring clarity and expertise to the subject. Fungi, by their very nature, are one of the most important elements in the ecological chain — without them life literally would be impossible.

Why cannot Britain educate its population — as the rest of the world does — so that they can enjoy “the quiet hunt”, as Mikhail Gorbachev calls it?

Antonio Carluccio

London SW18

Sir, Richard Monkhouse of the Magistrates’ Association says: “On diversity, I don’t think we have a problem” (Law, Oct 2). He rightly points out that magistrates are more diverse than other parts of the system (such as senior judges) — but they should be representatives of the people and are not. They are less representative today than in 1989. Eighty-five per cent are over 50, and some areas have no magistrates under 40. Ethnic representation is way behind the population. Our research found that sitting magistrates were particularly concerned that working-class JPs were few and far between.

The system relies on public trust in judgment by peers. If magistrates become less representative, that trust may be undermined.
Penelope Gibbs
Director, Transform Justice

Mark Rylance as Shakespeare’s ‘bottled spider’ Richard III: yet the monarch’s reputation seems unwarranted  Photo: Geraint Lewis/Rex

SIR – I fear Karin Proudfoot (Letters, September 28) has indeed “missed something” when she dismisses Richard III’s abilities as king.

Had Richard not been betrayed at Bosworth, England would have enjoyed the thoughtful, firm and – for the times – enlightened rule of a monarch who had already demonstrated a great ability for just governance during his tenure as Lord of the North.

Philip Ashe
Garforth, West Yorkshire

SIR – Karin Proudfoot’s view of King Richard is at odds with that of Lord Campbell, Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice in the 19th century, who wrote, “We have no difficulty in pronouncing Richard’s Parliament the most meritorious national assembly for protecting the liberty of the subject … since the reign of Henry III.”

Under Richard, jurors were required to be holders of freehold or copyhold land of a certain value. This measure ensured they were less open to bribery or intimidation and led to fairer trials. Rules on bail were extended to include those not yet indicted: previously innocent suspects could be deprived of goods, property and tools, leaving them destitute.

The hated practice of benevolences – whereby the monarch could “ask” for money gifts – was ended. Custom duty on books from Europe was abolished, and with them came further education.

Richard’s Council of the North enabled northern problems to be addressed locally without recourse to London: an idea that is still being fought for to this day. These are just some examples of Richard’s support of the common man.

M J Dickinson
Bradford, West Yorkshire

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