Haiti: Coming to a Boil

Haiti has not been treated kindly by its black voodoo gods — or by its dicta tor, Francois (“Papa Doc”) Duvalier.

The pudgy medicine man has steadily tightened his reign of terror. And ever since last April, when two bombs rocked downtown Port-au-Prince during a na tional party celebrating his 60th birthday and his tenth year in power, Papa Doc has been exercising his authority with a vengeance. In four brutal months, he has:

> Fired five of the ten ministers in his Cabinet.

> Imprisoned Clemard Charles, his chief bagman and president of one of Haiti’s biggest banks.

> Reshuffled part of his military leadership, arrested dozens of army officers, and, in a grisly ceremony at Port-au-Prince’s Fort Dimanche, personally presided over the execution of 19 of his prisoners.

>Driven a total of 108 Haitians into foreign embassies, including Jean Tassy, his security chief and one of his top thugs.

>Pushed a resolution through his rubber-stamp National Assembly, effective July 1968, renouncing the international convention honoring political asylum.

> Blared his emergency siren in the presidential palace one day last month, then decreed a 10 p.m. curfew, a rare measure even for Papa Doc; anyone caught on the streets after the witching hour took his life in his hands.

A Family Affair. Duvalier has even clamped down on his own family. Army Colonel Max Dominique, military commander of Port-au-Prince and the hus band of Duvalier’s 26-year-old daughter, was sent packing off to Madrid as Haiti’s Ambassador to Spain. As Dominique’s plane taxied down the strip, Duvalier’s private Gestapo or Tonton Macoutes (Creole for bogeymen), jumped Dominique’s two bodyguards and chauffeur, then hustled the three men off to jail. Last month Duvalier dismissed Dominique from the army “for the good of the service,” and ordered his son-in-law to return to Haiti to stand trial for “desertion, mutiny and treason.” Dominique is not likely to obey, for his father-in-law is convinced that he was the man behind the April bombings and the ringleader of a planned insurrection.

Haiti’s troubles can only get worse. Graft and corruption have sucked the economy dry, the government is two years behind in some of its bills, and there are strong fears in Port-au-Prince that the International Monetary Fund, which has been loaning Duvalier as much as $4,000,000 a year, may cut off his credit. Last week the only Haitians without a complaint were the voodoo priests, who have been doing a thriving business casting spells and consulting the spirits for nervous clients. Temple altars in Port-au-Prince were bright with new candles, Christmas lights and eerie black-magic charms; sacrificial goats and doves were led to the slaughter. Like a witch’s caldron, Haiti was once again coming to a boil, and no one wanted to be on the wrong side of the gods—or Papa Doc.