Haiti

October 1, 1988
Written by the senior editor of the Haiti Times (and sister-in-law of Baby Doc's successor, General Henri Namphy), this is the most intimate and revealing examination to date of the Duvalier years. Based largely on interviews with former officials, intellectuals, voudou priests and ordinary folk, Abbott provides a shocking view of conditions in the Black Republic from the 1957 election of Duvalier pere to the exile of his son, Jean-Claude, in 1986, and up to the installation of President Leslie Manigat two years later. For the most part, it is a nightmarish chronicle of corruption, greed and relentless slaughter, climaxing in an account of ``Blood Sunday'' (29 November 1987) when the dreaded Tonton Macoutes reemerged to sabotage Haiti's first free election in 30 years. Abbott traces the transformation of Francois Duvalier from puritanical country doctor to mad despot, the rise of the Macoutes gangs under Madame Max Adolphe and their political rivalry with the Haitian army, and the bizarre, lackadaisical reign of Jean- Claude Duvalier, including details of the reckless squandering of public funds by his wife Michelle. Photos. Author tour.

January 1, 1991
Interviews with former officials, intellectuals, voudou priests and others form the basis for this shocking study of the republic from Francois Duvalier's election in 1957 to the 1988 installation of President Leslie Manigat. ``The most intimate and revealing examination to date of the Duvalier years . . . a nightmarish chronicle of corruption, greed and relentless slaughter,'' said PW.

September 1, 2011

An appalling chronicle of Haiti's ruinous progress, with Duvaliers major and minor serving as exemplars of venality.

Much of this book first appeared in 1988, when Abbott published Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy. In this revised edition, the author brings us up to the present. "Just as the story of the Duvaliers and the infamous regime they created continues years after the last Duvalier left Haiti," she writes, "it surely began long before 1957, the year Papa Doc became President." Abbott begins with the abominable French colonial period, when it was cheaper to work slaves to death in the cane fields—just buy more—than provide the basic means of survival. The earth-shaking slave revolt that bounced French, Spanish and British interests from the island soon slid into degeneracy, thanks in large part to the embargo placed on the country's products by the United States, whose slave-holders feared the bad example and crushed the trade that would have ushered Haiti into the modern world. Bitter class divisions, unchecked violence and mulatto-black enmity also marred the country's early years, as well as an atrocious period of American occupation, all of which Abbott spells out in passionate, excruciating detail. Then came Papa Doc Duvalier—again, such initial promise; he spoke of integrity and humility—whose reign of terror, pillage and debauchery was all about the micromanagement of greed and power through such vehicles as the voodoo and the paramilitary group the Tontons Macoutes. Abbott draws a forceful portrait of a tyrant who gradually destroyed the country's agricultural base while massacring all dissent—the amount of grotesque violence in these pages is breathtaking—to create a poster child for international aid. So it goes, with one corrupt autocratic government following another, to the sorry spectacle of an earthquake a year-and-a-half ago still crippling the country today.

More than two decades later, Abbott's theory of Duvalierism's enduring legacy holds water.

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