CARREFOUR: HAITI UN AN APRES LA CHUTE DE BABY DOC {CROSSROADS: HAITI ONE YEAR AFTER THE FALL OF BABY DOC} {FRENCH} (RADIO)
Summary
One in this magazine series broadcast in several different languages on Radio France International. This installment airs a year after the fall of Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as "Baby Doc" because his father and predecessor (a physician) was called "Papa Doc." Most of the recording for the program took place immediately after Duvalier's departure from Haiti in February 1986. The program begins with a speech from General Henri Namphy, who succeeded Duvalier, announcing that he has seized the reins of power. Band music follows; it is February 7, 1986, the narrator informs listeners, and Namphy speaks from a palace in which the pictures of Duvalier and his wife Michele Bennett still hang on the walls. Outside on the street, Haitians rejoice. One woman says that Haiti will now prosper, and another explains that he lost two brothers, imprisoned and then killed, to the Duvalier regime. Asked what he will do on this historic day, he tells the interviewer that for once he will sleep well. The program then provides background on the Duvalier presidency, explaining that the "moon-faced" Jean-Claude succeeded to his father's position in 1971 at the age of nineteen. A brief portion of a vintage interview with the new President Duvalier follows, in which a dazed-sounding Baby Doc promises to work with advisers and young people. In a more recent conversation, an adviser recalls that the young Duvalier was more interested in playing than in governing. The program returns to 1986, interviewing members of a crowd in front of a prison, who yell for the release of political prisoners. Although a car is burning nearby, one bystander stresses the relative peacefulness of the revolt in Haiti. "We are civilized," he says. The narrator concurs, noting that after twenty-nine years of the two Duvaliers, the regime has been deposed in a revolution that killed only about fifty people and injured fewer than 100. He suggests that Haitians feel that they have had enough blood, explaining that it was the people's final rejection of state-sanctioned bloodshed that began the revolution in the beginning of November, when the army fired at a group of unarmed students who were demonstrating because of hunger. The program briefly describes the chaos in the days that followed, which included strikes and school closings; one father cries as he recalls the shooting of his eleven-year-old son by a military officer. The narrator interviews one of those who participated in the regime -- the chauffeur of Madame Max Adolphe, a voodoo priestess who helped to administer the national-security force of both Duvaliers. The driver defends his actions in the armed forces, explaining that he feels that he supported not the government but the Haitian people. He insists that he never profited from the looting of the Duvalier regime. "I am at ease," he says. "Even if I die today there is no stain on my soul." Nevertheless, the exhausted driver admits that his life has been threatened and ends the interview in tears. The program's microphone strays around town, picking up statements from the angry crowds outside the home of the former deputy of Port-au-Prince and at the tomb of the former president's father Franois Duvalier. It also muses on the life and plunder of Jean-Claude Duvalier's father-in-law, Ernest Bennett, a writer who considers himself "the Voltaire of the Caribbean." Finally, the program delivers an update on the fate of those in the Duvalier regime, noting that despite their departure the small nation is still unsettled and impoverished. Duvalier and his wife, listeners learn, are in the south of France, and Ernest Bennett splits his time between Paris and Florida. Madame Max Adolphe is in Brazil. Her chauffeur has now been reported missing. Today, the program concludes, "there are more than 150 political parties in Haiti. Still famine. Still misery."
(This program is in French.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by The New York Times Company Foundation, 2000/2001.
Details
- NETWORK: RFI (France)
- DATE: February 7, 1987
- RUNNING TIME: 0:37:44
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:22621
- GENRE: Radio - Magazine
- SUBJECT HEADING: Dictators; Haiti - Politics and government; International Collection - France
- SERIES RUN: RFI (Radio France Internationale) - Radio series
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Madame Max Adolphe
- Ernest Bennett
- Michele Bennett
- Francois Duvalier
- Jean-Claude Duvalier
- Henri Namphy
- Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de