Return
On 16 January 2011, Duvalier returned to Haiti after 25 years during the presidential election campaign. Duvalier, accompanied by Veronique Roy, flew in from Paris, indicating that he wanted to help: "I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the reconstruction of Haiti", he said. Many argued that Duvalier returned to Haiti to gain access to the $4 million frozen in the Swiss bank account, however. Haiti also claimed this money, arguing that the assets were of "criminal origin" and should not be returned to Duvalier. By virtue of Swiss law, however, states claiming money in Switzerland have to demonstrate that they’ve started criminal investigations against offenders holding money in the country. According to an article by Ginger Thompson in the New York Times, "if Mr. Duvalier had been able to slip into the country and then quietly leave without incident… he may have been able to argue that Haiti was no longer interested in prosecuting him — and that the money should be his." According to Mac McClelland of Mother Jones magazine:
The former dictator was greeted at the Port-au-Prince airport with cheering and celebratory chanting. . . . The word from Duvalier is that he's come to help his country. According to everyone on the street and on the radio, the Americans and the French conspired to bring him here to upset current president René Préval, who's been accused of fixing his country's recent elections.
On January 18, 2011, he was taken into custody at his hotel by Haitian authorities. He was charged with corruption, theft, and misappropriation of funds committed during his 15-year presidency. He was released but will be subject to recall by the court. One of his advisers is former U.S. congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Claude Duvalier
Famous quotes containing the word return:
“Research shows clearly that parents who have modeled nurturant, reassuring responses to infants’ fears and distress by soothing words and stroking gentleness have toddlers who already can stroke a crying child’s hair. Toddlers whose special adults model kindliness will even pick up a cookie dropped from a peer’s high chair and return it to the crying peer rather than eat it themselves!”
—Alice Sterling Honig (20th century)
“The emancipation of today displays itself mainly in cigarettes and shorts. There is even a reaction from the ideal of an intellectual and emancipated womanhood, for which the pioneers toiled and suffered, to be seen in painted lips and nails, and the return of trailing skirts and other absurdities of dress which betoken the slave-woman’s intelligent companionship.”
—Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)
“The house waited on your private beach
each day,
when you had the time to return to her.
And you so often had the time,
even when fury blew out her chimney,
even when love lifted the shingles....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)