MICHELE

I am so annoyed that this project "La Negresse Volante" was canceled due to the incompetence of the organizers for a Miami (during basel-miami) show several years ago specifically in Little Haiti.  My choice was to shine a light and focus on the figure of Michele Benett Duvalier ( the former first-lady for life).



The event that broke the camels back:

1985 a shopping spree to Paris ($2,000,000.oo Spent!)
Escaped Haiti with $800,000,000.oo
(Leaving just $500,000.oo in the Government treasury)


January 19, 2011 7:36 PM (source from CBS TV 60Minutes)

The Real Power Behind Baby Doc
Exiled dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier made a spectacular return to Haiti, where he's facing charges. But no one seems to be talking about who the real culprit may be - his reviled wife Michele. Here's the stunning story of how a shopping spree caused a revolution.

When Jean-Claude Duvalier, the notorious Haitian dictator known as "Baby Doc," ended his 25-year exile this week, he made a surprise return to Haiti with an elegant woman on his arm. But it wasn't the same woman who was forced to flee alongside him a quarter century ago.

Anyone who saw Ed Bradley's fantastic 1986 piece on the ouster of Jean-Claude Duvalier, probably wondered: Is that Michele? The one who refrigerated a room of the presidential palace so she could comfortably wear her fur coats in tropical weather? The one who pilfered millions of dollars from Haitian coffers for shopping sprees and parties?
Michele Bennett was a divorcee and mother of two when she married the young dictator and became the first lady of Haiti. As you'll learn in this classic "60 Minutes" piece produced by the late George Crile, Michele enlisted the Haitian TV network to promote her efforts to alleviate the extreme poverty of the Haitian people. But behind palace walls, Michele's story took a very different turn, and with it, turned Haitian history.
Jean-Claude Duvalier, who took the title "President For Life" at the age of 19, ruled the country from 1971 until 1986, the year this piece was broadcast. After being chased from Haiti by angry mobs, Michele and Jean-Claude spent years living in luxury on the French Riviera. The couple has since divorced, and Veronique Roy , is the female companion who arrived in Haiti on his arm this week.

Duvaliers Interviewed By Walters (source)
June 12, 1986|By Liz Smith, Staff Writer
``Our hands are clean,`` says Michele Duvalier, former first lady of Haiti and the wife of Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc`` Duvalier.

Barbara Walters has done it again -- snagged the interview everybody else had been hoping for, and that includes even those deep-diggers and indefatigable go-getters on 60 Minutes. But it is Walters who is just back from the South of France, where she visited the Duvaliers in their small villa near Cannes. Two of their children live with them there, although Michele Duvalier has two other children who are at school in Switzerland.

The young Haitian dictator and his glamorous wife fled their country some months ago with the assistance of the Reagan administration and this is the first time they`ve ever really talked for television. Walters` segment will air on ABC`s 20/20 this Thursday. I`m telling you now not only what you may expect from the video but also some things that may not even be on the program.
The famous interviewer found Jean-Claude Duvalier much slimmer than she`d expected and his wife soigne and beautiful, with hair down to her waist, wearing diamond earrings in spite of the reproaches of a world that disapproves of their much-vaunted luxurious living. Michele Duvalier defended herself; of the diamonds, she said, ``I could have taken them off, but I wasn`t going to do that. This is the way I am.``

When Walters asked if she could compare herself to another deposed first lady, Imelda Marcos, Duvalier answered, ``Well, we have something in common; we are both married to heads of state and both love our countries.`` She added, ``I have read so many lies about Mrs. Marcos that I now believe nothing in the press.``

Walters says that Baby Doc, heir to his hated late father, Papa Doc, is not the weak and stupid man he has been depicted to be in most accounts. Duvalier is aware of his negative image, but says it is not a true one. He says that ever since 1970, ``I have been a head of state and I was the only one who made major decisions in Haiti.`` (Well, exactly -- some of us call that dictatorship.) But Walters` point is that Duvalier is not still the 19- year-old wimp most people remember him to be when he first took over Haiti.

Walters says the Duvaliers want to stay in France and prefer to live there above any place else, except -- get this -- Haiti, to which they would like to return as private citizens someday.

Walters notes that they do not see anything wrong in anything they did in Haiti -- living amid great luxury while their people wallowed in poverty -- for they had never known life to be any different from that. Walters also found them to be naive in their approach to being interviewed for television, unlike other more sophisticated figures, such as Egypt`s Hosni Mubarak or Richard Nixon or President Reagan or Moammar Gadhafi or any of the other famous ones with whom Walters has sat down to talk.

The Duvaliers had no advisers or lawyers present and gave her the interview privately.

From PIKLIZ (via U.S. Library of Congress )
Jean-Claude miscalculated the ramifications of his May 1980 wedding to Michèle Bennett, a mulatto divorcée with a disreputable background. (François Duvalier had jailed her father, Ernest Bennett, for bad debts and other shady financial dealings.) Although Jean-Claude himself was light-skinned, his father's legacy of support for the black middle class and antipathy toward the established mulatto elite had enhanced the appeal of Duvalierism among the black majority of the population. By marrying a mulatto, Jean-Claude appeared to be abandoning the informal bond that his father had labored to establish. The marriage also estranged the old-line Duvalierists in the government from the younger technocrats whom Jean-Claude had appointed. The Duvalierists' spiritual leader, Jean-Claude's mother, Simone, was eventually expelled from Haiti, reportedly at the request of Michèle, Jean-Claude's wife.

The extravagance of the couple's wedding, which cost an estimated US$3 million, further alienated the people. Popular discontent intensified in response to increased corruption among the Duvaliers and the Bennetts, as well as the repulsive nature of the Bennetts' dealings, which included selling Haitian cadavers to foreign medical schools and trafficking in narcotics. Increased political repression added to the volatility of the situation. By the mid-1980s, most Haitians felt hopeless, as economic conditions worsened and hunger and malnutrition spread.

Widespread discontent began in March 1983, when Pope John Paul II visited Haiti. The pontiff declared that "Something must change here." He went on to call for a more equitable distribution of income, a more egalitarian social structure, more concern among the elite for the well-being of the masses, and increased popular participation in public life. This message revitalized both laymen and clergy, and it contributed to increased popular mobilization and to expanded political and social activism.

A revolt began in the provinces two years later. The city of Gonaïves was the first to have street demonstrations and raids on food-distribution warehouses. From October 1985 to January 1986, the protests spread to six other cities, including Cap Haïtien. By the end of that month, Haitians in the south had revolted. The most significant rioting there broke out in Les Cayes.

Jean-Claude responded with a 10 percent cut in staple food prices, the closing of independent radio stations, a cabinet reshuffle, and a crackdown by police and army units, but these moves failed to dampen the momentumof the popular uprising against the dynastic dictatorship. Jean-Claude's wife and advisers, intent on maintaining their profitable grip on power, urged him to put down the rebellion and to remain in office.

A plot to remove him had been well under way, however, long before the demonstrations began. The conspirators' efforts were not connected to the popular revolt, but violence in the streets prompted Jean-Claude's opponents to act. The leaders of the plot were Lieutenant General Henri Namphy and Colonel Williams Regala. Both had privately expressed misgivings about the excesses of the regime. They and other officers saw the armed forces as the single remaining cohesive institution in the country. They viewed the army as the only vehicle for an orderly transition from Duvalierism to another form of government.

In January 1986, the unrest in Haiti alarmed United States president Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration began to pressure Duvalier to renounce his rule and to leave Haiti. Representatives appointed by Jamaican prime minister Edward Seaga served as intermediaries who carried out the negotiations. The United States rejected a request to provide asylum for Duvalier, but offered to assist with the dictator's departure. Duvalier had initially accepted on January 30, 1986. The White House actually announced his departure prematurely. At the last minute, however, Jean-Claude decided to remain in Haiti. His decision provoked increased violence in the streets.

The United States Department of State announced a cutback in aid to Haiti on January 31. This action had both symbolic and real effect: it distanced Washington from the Duvalier regime, and it denied the regime a significant source of income. By this time, the rioting had spread to Port-au-Prince.

At this point, the military conspirators took direct action. Namphy, Regala, and others confronted the Duvaliers and demanded their departure. Left with no bases of support, Jean-Claude consented. After hastily naming a National Council of Government (Conseil National de Gouvernement--CNG) made up of Namphy, Regala, and three civilians, Jean-Claude and Michèle Duvalier departed from Haiti on February 7, 1986. They left behind them a country economically ravaged by their avarice, a country bereft of functional political institutions and devoid of any tradition of peaceful self-rule. Although the end of the Duvalier era provoked much popular rejoicing, the transitional period initiated under the CNG did not lead to any significant improvement in the lives of most Haitians. Although most citizens expressed a desire for democracy, they had no firm grasp of what the word meant or of how it might be achieved