Jean-Claude Duvalier

Jean-Claude Duvalier (3 July 19514 October 2014), nicknamed "Baby Doc" (Bébé Doc, Bebe Dòk), was a Haitian politician who was the President of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in February 1986.

He succeeded his father François "Papa Doc" Duvalier as the ruler of Haiti after his death in 1971.

After assuming power, he introduced cosmetic changes to his father's regime and delegated much authority to his advisors.

Thousands of Haitians were killed or tortured, and hundreds of thousands fled the country during his presidency.

In April 1971, he assumed the presidency of Haiti at the age of 19 upon the death of his father, François Duvalier (nicknamed "Papa Doc"), becoming the world's youngest president.

Initially, Jean-Claude Duvalier resisted the dynastic arrangement that had made him Haiti's leader, having preferred that the presidency go to his older sister Marie-Denise Duvalier.

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 was invested with absolute power by the constitution.

He took some steps to reform the regime, by releasing some political prisoners and easing press censorship.

However, there were no substantive changes to the regime's basic character.

Opposition was not tolerated, and the legislature remained a rubber stamp.

Much of the Duvaliers' wealth came from the Régie du Tabac (Tobacco Administration).

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.

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".

Foreign officials and observers also seemed tolerant toward Duvalier in areas such as human rights monitoring and foreign countries were more generous to him with economic assistance.

The Nixon administration restored the United States aid program for Haiti in 1971.

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 Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and for the Development of Pig Raising (PEPPADEP) spread already-serious economic devastation among the peasant population, who bred pigs as an investment.

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

Relations with the United States improved after Duvalier's ascension to the presidency, and later deteriorated under the Carter administration, only to normalize under Ronald Reagan due to the strong anti-communist stance of the Duvaliers.

On 27 May 1980, Duvalier married divorcee Michèle Bennett in a wedding that cost US$2million.

The extravagance of the couple's wedding did not lack local critics, though The Christian Science Monitor reported that "the event... was enthusiastically received by a majority of Haitians".

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.

Increased political repression added to the volatility of the situation.

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.

The Duvalierists' spiritual leader, Duvalier's mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, was eventually expelled from Haiti, reportedly at the request of Michèle.

With his wife Duvalier had two children, François Nicolas and Anya.

Over time, Michèle grew to become a power in her own right.

For example, she dressed down ministers at cabinet meetings while her husband dozed.

In addition, reports that HIV/AIDS was becoming a major problem in Haiti caused tourism to decline dramatically in the early 1980s.

By the mid-1980s, most Haitians expressed hopelessness and despair, as economic conditions further worsened and hunger and malnutrition spread.

Rebellion against the Duvalier regime broke out in 1985, and Duvalier fled to France in 1986 on a U.S. Air Force flight.

Duvalier unexpectedly returned to Haiti on 16 January 2011, after two decades in self-imposed exile in France.

The following day, he was arrested by Haitian police, facing possible charges for embezzlement.

On 18 January, Duvalier was charged with corruption.

On 28 February 2013, Duvalier pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption and human rights abuse.

He died of a heart attack on 4 October 2014, at the age of 63.

The son of Simone Ovide, a Mulatto-Haitian woman, and François Duvalier, a black nationalist anti-Mulatto leader who became dictator of Haiti, Duvalier was born in Port-au-Prince and was brought up in an isolated environment.

He attended Nouveau College Bird and Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague.

Later, he studied law at the University of Haiti under the direction of several professors, including Maître Gérard Gourgue.