Duvalier going in 24 hours, says TV report

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 10

Duvalier going in 24 hours, says TV report

NZPA-AAP Washington Haiti’s President-for-life, Mr Jean-Claude Duvalier, would quit within 24 hours and be replaced by a civilian-military Government, CBS television news reported yesterday.

The American Network, citing unidentified Western Intelligence sources, said he would flee to France, and then possibly to Morocco.

The Intelligence sources had said the arrangement, under which Mr Duvalier agreed to step down and be replaced by a civilian-mili-tary junta, had been negotiated through the United States and several Western European and African countries.

“If things should go awry” in Haiti and American lives were in danger, a "stand-by U.S. military intervention plan” had been activated, C.B.S. quoted the sources as saying.

The earlier news of Mr Duvalier’s search for asylum in Europe spread through the capital, which had greeted rumours of his flight last week with

joy turned to riot. The Opposition said he might be gone in days. Mr Duvalier, aged 34, called the United States Ambassador, Mr Clayton McManaway, to the National Palace.

Jeffrey Lite, director of the United States Information Agency at Port-au-Prince, said such a summons was not unusual. He did not elaborate and gave no details of the meeting. Mr Duvalier’s last meeting with Mr McManaway occurred on January 30, the day before a White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, erroneously announced that the Government had fallen and Mr Duvalier had left the country. The Voice of America reported that Greece, Spain, and Switzerland had refused requests by Mr Duvalier to take up residence.

V.O.A. is the main source of news in the impoverished Caribbean nation since independent radio stations were ordered off the air on Saturday as part of a state-of-siege declaration.

Gregoire Eugene, leader of the Social Christian Party, one of the two legally registered opposition groups, predicted that Mr Duvalier would flee before Monday, the first day of pre-Lenten Carnival.

“Everyone is waiting for Jean-Claude to leave the country as soon as possible. He should have left already,” Mr Eugene said.

The Catholic Church would play a main role in preventing looting and rioting if Mr Duvalier went. Central to that effort would be letting the Church station, Radio Soleil, resume broadcasting, he said. Soleil broadcasts in Creole, the only language understood by most Haitians, and is respected for its independent news coverage of recent events. At least 50 people are believed to have been killed and more than 100 were injured in Port-au-Prince, a city of about one million people. Sporadic demonstrations and violence have continued in outlying districts.