Jonah Engle, February 5, 2010

Montreal – When Serge Bouchereau heard that former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier had returned to Haiti after 25 years in exile, he was filled with rage and disbelief. His feelings were widely shared in Montreal’s large Haitian community which was spawned by people fleeing the three decade rule of Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude. “After the initial shock we decided to call each other and ask if this was really true,” Bouchereau says.

The 70-year old former teacher was exiled in the late 1960s. Like thousands of his compatriots in the Haitian Diaspora, he still carries the memories of fear and abuse at the hands of the Duvaliers’ who plundered state coffers and through their henchmen, the Tontons Macoutes, killed and imprisoned tens of thousands.

In the early 1960s, Bouchereau says his father was stopped by police for walking on the sidewalk in front of the National Palace. A former boxer, he protested and fought back. After being tortured in the basement of the Palace, his father was sent away to Fort Dimanche, Haiti’s most notorious prison. When he came out 10 months later, he was unrecognizable.

“He was an old man, he was crazy,” says Bouchereau and he begins to cry. He says he’s never cried when telling this story before. “These are things I’d rather forget.”

But Jean-Claude Duvalier’s return is stirring up memories. And with the decision of a Haitian court to keep Duvalier in the country and investigate him for financial and human rights crimes – anger is giving way to guarded hope within the Haitian Diaspora that their buried stories can be brought to light and the Duvalier regime can finally be held accountable.

On a frigid Monday night in late January, Mario Joseph, Haiti’s best-known human rights lawyer, entered a community center in downtown Montreal clutching a manila envelope. In it was information he’d collected that week from Haitians in Montreal about friends and relatives killed by the Duvalier regime along with the dates of their deaths.

At the public forum he repeated the message he’s been delivering all week on the airwaves of Radio Canada, at press conferences and Haitian restaurants. “People need to go and testify because after 25 years, evidence has dissipated,” said Joseph, “but beyond that, Haitians need to mobilize in Haiti and overseas.” Joseph who leads the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Port-au-Prince, is putting together a case charging Duvalier with human rights abuses and he said he would take up the cases of those willing to testify.

His calls fell on receptive ears from the Haitians in the audience who fled the Duvalier regime. But that support is mixed with grave misgivings about the Haitian legal system which has never held the powerful accountable. This makes the possibility of a trial against Jean-Claude Duvalier so significant.

It would have tremendous political and symbolic value says political scientist Franz Voltaire. “Its not about vengeance, its about justice and this is very important in Haiti where impunity has reigned for so long.”

Mario Joseph knows firsthand how hard it is to prosecute human rights crimes in Haiti. He represented the families of the victims of the Raboteau massacre where paramilitaries gunned down between 26 and 50 supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994 in the town of Gonaives. Those charged included many high ranking members of the military, among them Raoul Cedras, the leader of the Junta that had ousted Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1991. 6 years after the massacre the court found the defendants guilty.

It was an unprecedented moment in Haiti’s history, but it was short-lived. The Supreme Court overturned the guilty convictions.

Whatever happens to Jean-Claude Duvalier – and much about the reasons for his return remains the subject of speculation – some believe simply trying him will have a significant impact on the country, regardless of what Haitian courts ultimately decide.

“Duvalier’s return has opened the door to a necessary debate on what Duvalierism was for Haitian society, says Voltaire who, as director of the International Center for Information and Documentation on Haiti, has worked for decades, through publications, exhibits and an oral history project with Concordia University, to raise awareness of the workings of the Duvalier regimes.

This is all the more important given that 40 percent of Haitians were born after the end of the dictatorship and don’t understand the impact of those years, according to Voltaire. He adds that a public trial would, like the trials of Adolf Eichmann in Israel or the generals who ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, help Haiti come to grips with its past and educate a new generation.

A truth and reconciliation commission was held in Haiti in the mid-90s but only looked into human rights violations committed between 1991 and 1994 when the country was ruled by a junta. Now the Montreal-based human rights organization Rights and Democracy is planning to launch a commission of its own to investigate human rights abuses committed by the Duvalier dictatorships. It would be modeled on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa which looked at human rights abuses committed during the apartheid regime, says Lauren Rayvon, Rights and Democracy’s regional officer for the Americas.

Meanwhile Amnesty International has handed over extensive files documenting abuses committed under Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier to the investigating magistrate in Port-au-Prince.

Nadine Dominique is the daughter of famous Haitian journalist Jean Dominique. He was exiled by Jean-Claude Duvalier before being assassinated in 2000 in Port-au-Prince. Dominique hopes a trial will help the country and Haitians everywhere move forward.

Dominique, whose family fled to Montreal in the 1960s, remembers having to meet clandestinely with other anti-Duvalier activists in Montreal because they feared retaliation. There were macoutes in Montreal, including one of its leaders Roger Lafontant. Even today Dominique says some Haitians are afraid to go back to Haiti to testify.

25 years after Haitians overthrew Jean-Claude Duvalier, Dominique says the country and its people remain deeply wounded. “The corruption that was engendered by the system 50 years ago has become normalized.” She believes Haiti has been presented with a historic opportunity to recover from its past; trying Duvalier “will help the Haitian people finally heal its soul and turn the page,” she says.

While a magistrate investigates Jean-Claude Duvalier to see if there is enough evidence to try him for financial and human rights crimes, others aren’t waiting. On January 19th, Jean Dominique’s widow, Michele Montas, and three other prominent former political prisoners filed a joint lawsuit against Jean-Claude Duvalier for violation of civil and political rights.