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Meanwhile: In Haiti, nostalgia for a dictator

James Pringle International Herald Tribune

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti A pantheon is where the illustrious dead of a nation are honored. So why, one wonders, are the sinister momentos of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier on display, along with the elegant anchor of Christopher Columbus's wrecked caravel Santa Maria, in Port- au-Prince's national pantheon museum?

There is Papa Doc's black top hat, gold-handled cane and thick spectacles, all of which Duvalier affected to make himself resemble Baron Samedi, the voodoo divinity of the graveyards, and thus be more feared.

"Poor Haiti and the character of Dr. Duvalier's rule are not invented, the latter not blackened for dramatic effect," Graham Greene wrote about "The Comedians," his novel of expatriate life and love under Papa Doc's tyranny. "Impossible to deepen that night."

It's an indication of how bad things have become in Haiti that Papa Doc has now been quietly rehabilitated. In fact, the father-son dictatorship of Papa and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, from 1957 to 1986, are now viewed by many Haitians as a kind of Belle Epoque - and tubby Baby Doc's rule, especially, as a golden age.

"Papa Doc was the best president we ever had," one older Haitian recalled. "In these days, all children went to school, and poor people ate free at government-sponsored messes. Nothing happened to you if you didn't challenge Papa. At least, you knew where you stood."

I had traveled to Haiti partly to see whether the gossip columnist Aubelin Jolicoeur, the model for the character Petit Pierre in "The Comedians," had survived. I was hoping to enjoy a refreshment with him beneath the slowly turning ceiling fans on the balcony of the famed turn-of-the-century Hotel Oloffson, on which Greene based his Hotel Trianon.

But the hotel's Haitian-American proprietor, Richard Morse, told me that Jolicoeur had died last year in his late seventies - appropriately, on St. Valentine's Day; the flamboyant "Aubie" was a great ladies' man.

Today, a suite at Oloffson's is named after him - others are christened for Greene, Mick Jagger, who stayed here in the '70s, and Truman Capote.

I also stayed at Oloffson's, one of the few guests, and sampled what Morse rightly calls the hotel's infamous rum punches.

Morse, a musician and anthropology major, runs a 14-piece band that on Thursdays plays rock mixed with voodoo rhythms. He is philosophical: "If things are good, we will have tourists. If bad, we will have journalists," he says.

In 2002, Newsweek named the decrepit but characterful Oloffson's one of its five favorite grand hotels worldwide. Sadly, the hotel's mangy mutt, dubbed Papa Dog, has gone to canine heaven.

The calm that followed President René Préval's election victory in February has changed into anarchy in the three months since he took office in May, though Préval is no tyrant, locals say.

"Be careful," a Lebanese art gallery manager warned me urgently as I browsed pictures of vibrant Haitian art in Petionville, the cool, hillside town where the mulatto elite lives above Port-au-Prince. "You could be kidnapped at any moment."

Security has disappeared again. The road to the international airport is unsafe, and, according to a UN stabilization force spokesperson, under daily automatic weapons fire. When my car broke down on the uphill climb to Petionville, a houngan, or voodoo priest, stopped to pick me up before the gangs did. After two decades of political violence, Haiti is awash with guns.

It's even risky to walk around central Port-au-Prince by daylight. Small wonder I saw almost no tourists. As a "blanc" (white), as the Haitians call out to Americans or Europeans as they chivvy you for a dollar, you stand out like a sore thumb.

Life expectancy for the 8.3 million Haitians continues to fall, though it is already only 52. Illiteracy is at 80 percent. The country looks ruined, its hillsides stripped of trees for charcoal. Annual per capita income is $390.

The magic and mystery of Haiti, and its beguiling charm, seem to have vanished. After so much horror, Haiti is no longer exotic. Even the voodoo drums I used to hear seem stilled in nights darkened by power outages. Almost no one feels optimism for the future.

For the present, at least, it is, as Greene wrote four decades ago, "impossible to deepen that night."