President of Haiti Government Family Jean-Claude Duvalier (French: [ʒɑ̃klod dyvalje]; 3 July 1951 – 4 October 2014), nicknamed "Baby Doc" (French: Bébé Doc, Haitian Creole: Bebe Dòk), was a Haitian dictator who inherited the President of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in February 1986.

[2] He maintained a notoriously lavish lifestyle (including a state-sponsored US$2 million wedding in 1980) while poverty among his people remained the most widespread of any country in the Western Hemisphere.

He was content to leave substantive and administrative matters in the hands of his mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, and a committee led by Luckner Cambronne, his father's Interior Minister, while he attended ceremonial functions and lived as a playboy.

Duvalier used this "non-fiscal account", established decades earlier, as a tobacco monopoly, but he later expanded it to include the proceeds from other government enterprises and used it as a slush fund for which no balance sheets were ever kept.

[14] By neglecting his role in government, Duvalier squandered considerable domestic and foreign goodwill and facilitated the dominance of Haitian affairs by a clique of hardline Duvalierist cronies, the so-called "dinosaurs".

[15] Discontent among the business community and elite intensified in response to increased corruption among the Duvaliers and the Bennett family's dealings, which included selling Haitian cadavers to foreign medical schools and trafficking in narcotics.

[4] The marriage also estranged the old-line Duvalierists in the government from the younger technocrats whom Duvalier had appointed, including Jean-Marie Chanoine, Frantz Merceron, Frantz-Robert Estime and Theo Achille.

[17] In response to an outbreak of African swine fever virus on the island in 1978, U.S. agricultural authorities insisted upon total eradication of Haiti's pig population in 1982.

The pontiff declared that "things must change in Haiti", and he called on "all those who have power, riches and culture so that they can understand the serious and urgent responsibility to help their brothers and sisters".

[21] He called for a more equitable distribution of income, a more egalitarian social structure, and increased popular participation in public life.

This message revitalized both laymen and clergy, contributed to increased popular mobilization and expanded political and social activism.

[14] Duvalier 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 momentum of the popular uprising against the dynastic dictatorship.

Duvalier's party returned to the palace unnoticed by the U.S. intelligence team due to their motorcade being blocked by a gun battle.

However, the Duvaliers made another attempt to depart on 7 February 1986, this time succeeding, [23] flying to France in a U.S. Air Force aircraft.

[25] In his years of exile, Duvalier made no known attempts to find employment or gain self-employment, nor did he ever try to get a book written about his experience.

[26] However, Duvalier's lawyer Sauveur Vaisse said that his client was still in France and denied that the exiled leader had fallen on hard times.

Although he said exile had "broken" him, he also said that what he described as the improving fortunes of the National Unity Party had "reinvigorated" him, and he urged readiness among his supporters, without saying whether he intended to return to Haiti.

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.

"[38] According to Mac McClelland of Mother Jones magazine: The former dictator was greeted at the Port-au-Prince airport with cheering and celebratory chanting ...

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.