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<span style="font-weight: bold">News Source: OTGNR - </span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"> Confirmed : ' Baby Doc ' Duvalier ...iti ( BBC )...</span>
The former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has dismissed claims he was a tyrant and claimed he introduced democracy to the island."I was the first person to start a process as such in Haiti, a democratic process, it was me who started it," Duvalier said in a TV interview yesterday on the Spanish-language Univision network.Duvalier, 59, returned unexpectedly to Haiti last month after 25 years of exile in France. He now faces charges of corruption and crimes against humanity for the killings and torture that occurred during his 15-year rule.He assumed power in 1971 upon the death of his widely feared father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled Haiti with an iron fist and the help of a secret police force known as the Tonton Macoutes. Duvalier fled to France amid a popular uprising in 1986.He offered a startlingly different version of events during the interview, which was conducted in French."When they talk of me as a tyrant, they make me laugh. It gives me the impression that people suffer from amnesia, they've forgotten the way in which I left Haiti, how I left voluntarily," Duvalier said. "There was no revolution at that time."Duvalier said his father was "an excellent teacher" who had trained him well to become the world's youngest head of state at the age of 19. "He taught me a lot, I learned a great deal from him and, on his death, he left me excellent aides," he said.He said he had returned to Haiti last month to help his compatriots with the reconstruction effort following the January 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people.Asked whether he had since met with former members of the Tonton Macoutes - whose name translates loosely as "bogeymen" - he replied that it seemed normal to meet with his former supporters.In his first public statement last month, Duvalier offered sympathy for those who had suffered abuses under his rule, but stopped short of apologising. In this latest interview he declined to discuss the human rights charges against him."Justice will do what it has to do to respond to those accusations. So I'll leave that to justice," he said.Duvalier's homecoming has increased tension in Haiti, which was dealing with the consequences of a disputed presidential election and a deadly cholera outbreak as well as the catastrophic aftermath of the earthquake.Haitians and international observers have speculated that he returned in an attempt to release millions of dollars frozen in a Swiss bank account, money he is suspected of looting from Haiti's treasury.Duvalier said that money would be used for post-earthquake reconstruction.The UN human rights office in Geneva has offered to assist Haiti's courts in prosecuting Duvalier."Haiti has an obligation to investigate the well-documented serious human rights violations that occurred during the rule of Mr Duvalier and to prosecute those responsible for them," the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said yesterday. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...75248675851695
<span style="font-weight: bold"> Confirmed : ' Baby Doc ' Duvalier ...iti ( BBC )...</span>
The former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has dismissed claims he was a tyrant and claimed he introduced democracy to the island."I was the first person to start a process as such in Haiti, a democratic process, it was me who started it," Duvalier said in a TV interview yesterday on the Spanish-language Univision network.Duvalier, 59, returned unexpectedly to Haiti last month after 25 years of exile in France. He now faces charges of corruption and crimes against humanity for the killings and torture that occurred during his 15-year rule.He assumed power in 1971 upon the death of his widely feared father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled Haiti with an iron fist and the help of a secret police force known as the Tonton Macoutes. Duvalier fled to France amid a popular uprising in 1986.He offered a startlingly different version of events during the interview, which was conducted in French."When they talk of me as a tyrant, they make me laugh. It gives me the impression that people suffer from amnesia, they've forgotten the way in which I left Haiti, how I left voluntarily," Duvalier said. "There was no revolution at that time."Duvalier said his father was "an excellent teacher" who had trained him well to become the world's youngest head of state at the age of 19. "He taught me a lot, I learned a great deal from him and, on his death, he left me excellent aides," he said.He said he had returned to Haiti last month to help his compatriots with the reconstruction effort following the January 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people.Asked whether he had since met with former members of the Tonton Macoutes - whose name translates loosely as "bogeymen" - he replied that it seemed normal to meet with his former supporters.In his first public statement last month, Duvalier offered sympathy for those who had suffered abuses under his rule, but stopped short of apologising. In this latest interview he declined to discuss the human rights charges against him."Justice will do what it has to do to respond to those accusations. So I'll leave that to justice," he said.Duvalier's homecoming has increased tension in Haiti, which was dealing with the consequences of a disputed presidential election and a deadly cholera outbreak as well as the catastrophic aftermath of the earthquake.Haitians and international observers have speculated that he returned in an attempt to release millions of dollars frozen in a Swiss bank account, money he is suspected of looting from Haiti's treasury.Duvalier said that money would be used for post-earthquake reconstruction.The UN human rights office in Geneva has offered to assist Haiti's courts in prosecuting Duvalier."Haiti has an obligation to investigate the well-documented serious human rights violations that occurred during the rule of Mr Duvalier and to prosecute those responsible for them," the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said yesterday. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...75248675851695