As most everyone is now aware, former dictator Jean Claude Duvalier has returned to Haiti. He was in court for 5 hours yesterday and then was released to return to the hotel where he is staying. They keep announcing that he is going to do a press conference, but they can’t seem to find a place to do it. Understandably, the hotel where he is staying does not want it held there. He has yet to say anything at all publicly. Today, four people came forward to file charges against him for crimes against humanity.

Of course the whole country is talking about Duvalier. I want to share some of the conversations I’ve been privy to, but I don’t want anyone getting in trouble, so I will make up names for them.

While Duvalier was in court yesterday, I spoke with an English speaking Haitian who lived in the USA for a good while and is now back in Haiti. Jacques seemed rather disturbed that they had reportedly arrested Duvalier. He looked me square in the face and said “He’s innocent.” I knew right away what he was talking about. Duvalier never pulled the trigger himself. (I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that was what I assumed he would say.) “He was only 19 years old. He was a kid. He was only interested in girls and hunting.” I asked “Hunting? In Haiti???” He said, “Yes, he hunted birds.”

Let me take a little rabbit trail here. First of all, the only wild land animals in Haiti are mongoose, rats, mice, lizards. Haitians don’t eat any of those, so it sounded comical to me that someone was saying he liked to hunt in Haiti. Okay, so he liked to hunt birds. Now, you have to get the picture. The ONLY people I’ve EVER seen “hunting” birds in Haiti are little boys. They throw rocks at them. When they catch one, they roast it over an open fire. Usually these birds have only an ounce or two of meat on them.

So, as I’m listening to Jacques talking I’ve gone from image one: a young, muscular man with a rifle slung over his back (like in Tarzan movies!) to image two: a small boy in a wooded area with a handful of rocks. So, he’s got a point, he was just a kid. I know in Haiti that 30 year olds seem like 18 and 18 year olds seem like 12, so I get the point, he was not prepared to be president.

“But Jacques, he was president for 15 YEARS! That’s not like 15 DAYS, that’s a really long time to be president.” Jacques responds, “It wasn’t him, it was the people around him. It was his father that set everything in motion and when he died, it was all his men that ran things. Papa Doc died two years before anybody ever knew anything about it. He changed the constitution of the country so that someone only 18 years old could become president. He knew he was dying and wanted his son to keep his power.”

“Jacques,” I retorted, “Are you trying to tell me that all the crimes that took place under his leadership, he knew nothing about.” “That’s right! He was busy with his women!” he replied. In other words, he was irresponsible and that gave him a right to be irresponsible. I avoided going much further in the conversation, since it was obvious he didn’t think Duvalier was a bad guy, at all.

I’ve found it absolutely startling to see so many in this country that are feeling compassion for this man. I have to admit, I am biased. In 1989, while serving as a missionary at New Missions in Leogane, Haiti, I read a book from their library. I don’t remember the name of it, but it scared me terribly at the time. It gave account after account of not just criminal activities at the hands of the Tonton Macoutes, but extremely violent. Time after time, the accounts happened in the middle of the night, while the families were all together, sleeping in their little houses. Women and young girls raped, fathers tortured and taken dragged off, never to be seen again, all sorts of just horrible evil acts. I couldn’t believe that human beings were capable of such things. And it wasn’t just a one-time, Jeffrey Dahmer whacko thing either. Tens of thousands of people were tortured, violated, murdered.

Yes, Jean Claude’s father started all these things. He ordered MANY, if not MOST of these things to be done while he was still alive. Can a son live in his father’s house and be oblivious to what he’s doing? Possibly, although not likely. But when Duvalier was in his 20s and even 30s and these activities continued under his OWN regime, could he claim ignorance still?

Louis stopped by and was chit chatting with the guys in the yard. He looked at me and said “You know what happened in 1986? Right in front of my eyes?” And the story began. “It was at the time when Duvalier was being forced out of the country. I saw some guys pull this Tonton Macoute out of a taptap and start telling him off. They held him so he couldn’t run. This Tonton Macoute had done a lot of really bad things. The leader of the other guys said to him, ‘I’m not going to just kill you, because then you wouldn’t know the suffering that you put so many people through.’ He proceeded to torture the Tonton Macoute. The Macoute told him to be a man and cut his head off. But the man said, ‘No. That would be too easy. I want you to feel what you made others feel.’ Eventually, the Tonton Macoute died.”

Something that I never realized, the Tonton Macoute were not paid for their “work.” On the contrary, very often they paid money in order to become “secret police.” It was all about power. In the days of the Duvalier regime, it was so rare for people to steal. Thieves would likely be tortured and killed and then no one else would dare to steal. The Tonton Macoute, however, were not a well controlled organization. Often individual Makoutes would do whatever they wanted to people for the smallest of reasons. That’s why they were so feared.

You know the saying, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…”? It’s actually a Bible quote from Exodus 21:24. I used to think it rather barbaric of God to tell people that if someone took your eye out that you could take theirs out, too. But then I moved to Haiti and then I also watched the movie The Passion of the Christ. I started to see people actually taking pleasure in the demise of others. Haitians are not more evil than Americans. The difference is that in America there’s a healthy respect (fear) of the law. In Haiti, there is not.

The point, to me, of Exodus 21:24 is that you may seek revenge that is comparable with the wrong done to you. If someone pokes your eye out, you have a right to poke that person’s eye out. You DON’T have the right to cut the person’s head off. It was God telling folks to “chill.” Then Jesus came along and said, you remember an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth? Well, I’m going to give you something even better: turn the other cheek! It’s a historic progression from gladiators to boxers to gymnastics. 🙂

Lex and I were talking on our way to the guest house. Silke is heading back to Germany tomorrow and we went to wish her a bon voyage. We were talking about what if this scenario happens and what if this one happens… Every scenario we thought of brought worse problems for the country, until we came to the final one: The ONLY hope there is for this country is for the Kingdom of God to come among us. Pastor Dan Lee preached about the Kingdom of God being IN us, a couple of weeks ago during our Leadership Conference (Luke 17:21). This is what was on my mind. Then I read the beginning of the beatitudes… And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. We were right, that is the hope for Haiti today, the Kingdom of God!