Duvalier Quotes

The door opened and DuValier sprang out. Stephen growled, low in his throat, and stood up straighter. “Istvhan, loan me your sword. I need to kill this man.” “No one give him a sword,” ordered the Bishop. “I am feeling distinctly conflicted here,” said Istvhan. One of the paladins, a woman with a curiously blank expression, unhooked a long dagger from her belt and handed it to Stephen. “Thank you.” “Technically that wasn’t a sword,” said the Bishop. “I applaud your threading of the needle there. Dammit.

The fervor and single-mindedness of this deification probably have no precedent in history. It's not like Duvalier or Assad passing the torch to the son and heir. It surpasses anything I have read about the Roman or Babylonian or even Pharaonic excesses. An estimated $2.68 billion was spent on ceremonies and monuments in the aftermath of Kim Il Sung's death. The concept is not that his son is his successor, but that his son is his reincarnation. North Korea has an equivalent of Mount Fuji—a mountain sacred to all Koreans. It's called Mount Paekdu, a beautiful peak with a deep blue lake, on the Chinese border. Here, according to the new mythology, Kim Jong Il was born on February 16, 1942. His birth was attended by a double rainbow and by songs of praise (in human voice) uttered by the local birds. In fact, in February 1942 his father and mother were hiding under Stalin's protection in the dank Russian city of Khabarovsk, but as with all miraculous births it's considered best not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

More lives were taken on purpose in the war on Nicaraguan “subversion” than have been saved by all the missionaries in Calcutta even by accident. Yet this brute utilitarian calculus is never employed against Mother Teresa, even by the sort of sophists who would deploy its moral and physical equivalent in her favor. So: silence on the death squads and on the Duvaliers and noisy complaint against the Sandinistas, and the whole act baptized as an apolitical intervention by someone whose kingdom is not of this world.

The Trujillo and Duvalier regimes were among the most kleptocratic, sadistic, repressive and murderous in the entire twentieth century – a century which, tragically, provided plenty of competition. The State Department knew what was going on in these countries. And yet the idea that Fidel Castro was the worst of these leaders took hold and stuck, regardless of the evidence – and the bodies – piling up.

Inevitably came the time when he angrily repudiated his former paladin Yasser Arafat. In fact, he described him to me as 'the Palestinian blend of Marshal Petaín and Papa Doc.' But the main problem, alas, remained the same. In Edward's moral universe, Arafat could at last be named as a thug and a practitioner of corruption and extortion. But he could only be identified as such to the extent that he was now and at last aligned with an American design. Thus the only truly unpardonable thing about 'The Chairman' was his readiness to appear on the White House lawn with Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton in 1993. I have real knowledge and memory of this, because George Stephanopoulos—whose father's Orthodox church in Ohio and New York had kept him in touch with what was still a predominantly Christian Arab-American opinion—called me more than once from the White House to help beseech Edward to show up at the event. 'The feedback we get from Arab-American voters is this: If it's such a great idea, why isn't Said signing off on it?' When I called him, Edward was grudging and crabby. 'The old man [Arafat] has no right to sign away land.' Really? Then what had the Algiers deal been all about? How could two states come into being without mutual concessions on territory?

Haiti Haïti, mon pays, wounded mother I'll never see. Ma famille set me free. Throw my ashes into the sea. Mes cousins jamais nés hantent les nuits de Duvalier. Rien n'arrete nos esprits. Guns can't kill what soldiers can't see. In the forest we lie hiding, unmarked graves where flowers grow. Hear the soldiers angry yelling, in the river we will go. Tous les morts-nés forment une armée, soon we will reclaim the earth. All the tears and all the bodies bring about our second birth.

Duvali

Grace couldn’t take it any more. “I’d rather not keep the Crown Prince waiting,” she said. Gods, what else would move things along quickly? “And…um…my shoes pinch.” The other three people all looked down at her feet. Grace reddened and fought the urge to shift the feet in question nervously. “I can fetch a chair,” said DuValier hastily. “I can carry you,” said Stephen. Marguerite’s shoulders began to shake with suppressed laughter. Oh sweet gods and goddesses, are they fighting over me? It was ludicrous. It was absurd. It made no sense.

Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack and Israeli human rights activists filed a freedom of information request in Israel in 2019 to gain documents from the Ministry of Defense about its relationship with Haiti under Duvalier, but their request was denied by the court. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Hagai Brenner, in rejecting the request in February 2021, claimed that releasing the documents could “greatly embarrass the state.