Breaking the Spell

At two-minute intervals, a cannon fired a booming salute in Port-au-Prince last week. Thousands of mourners filed through a spacious salon in the white Presidential Palace. There, dressed in a black frock coat and resting in a glass-topped, silk-lined coffin, lay the remains of one of history's most malevolent dictators. He was Francois Duvalier, who liked to be called Papa Doc. For 14 years he had held the wretchedly poor black republic of Haiti in a spell of fear. Now the spell was broken. At 64, weakened by heart attacks and chronic diabetes. Papa Doc died. His son. roly-poly Jean-Claude. 19, whom Duvalier had designated as his successor last January, was immediately sworn in as President.

Voodoo Spirits. Papa Doc cast his spell through the artful use of voodoo, which in effect is Haiti's national religion. Duvalier affected the staring gaze, whispered speech and hyperslow movements recognized by Haitians as signs that a person is close to the voodoo spirits. He solicited the allegiance of voo doo priests in the countryside, often bringing them to Port-au-Prince for a presidential audience, and he encouraged rumors that he possessed supernatural powers. "My enemies cannot get me!" he used to exult to his followers. "I am already an immaterial being."

Reign of Terror. The son of an impoverished Port-au-Prince schoolteacher, Duvalier studied at the University of Haiti medical school. A member of a U.S.-sponsored medical team in the Haitian interior during the 1940s, he became aware of the grip that voodoo holds on the rural masses. After turning to politics, he was elected President of Haiti in 1957, with the army's backing. He had promised that he would do something for the country's poor black majority, who for years have been exploited by a small clique of mulattoes. Instead, Duvalier, who was very dark, immediately imposed a reign of terror on a nation whose slave origins made it no stranger to brutality. His secret policemen, the Tontons Macoutes (Creole for "bogeymen"), murdered and tortured his opponents, sometimes leaving a victim's severed head on display in a marketplace as a warning to others. They also collected unofficial taxes and tribute from cowed Haitian businessmen and peasants.

At first, Duvalier was able to parlay his anti-Communist credentials into sizable aid grants from the U.S. But he squandered much of the funds on grandiose prestige projects like the model city of Duvalierville, now a collection of decaying buildings overgrown by jungle. The U.S. finally cut all but a trickle of aid in the early 1960s. Under Duvalier, Haiti's per capita income of less than $75 remained the hemisphere's lowest, and the country was still racked by disease and hunger.

In 1964, Duvalier declared himself President for Life. He held on to power by playing off one faction against another. With terrifying regularity, he sent his aides from palace to prison, and from there often to either foreign exile or execution. After a kidnaping attempt on two of his children, Papa Doc ordered 65 officers summarily shot. On another occasion, he personally commanded the firing squad that dispatched 19 of his closest followers, whom he suspected--probably without justification --of plotting against him.

Occult Powers. Duvalier began to build a personality cult. The Lord's Prayer was rewritten. "Our Doc," the revised version went, "who art in the National Palace, hallowed be thy name." He boasted that he was a statesman of the same caliber as Charles de Gaulle and demanded homage from his people, who were trucked into Port-au-Prince to sing and dance his praises in front of the palace. To stir up enthusiasm for himself, he would sometimes ride through the capital in his bulletproof Mercedes 600 limousine and stop to scatter money among the crowds.

As Haitian exiles began staging small guerrilla landings in the 1960s, Papa Doc's behavior became even more bizarre. After the leader of a guerrilla group had been killed in a skirmish, Papa Doc had the man's head cut off and brought to the palace. There Papa Doc supposedly used his occult powers to conjure information about the guerrilla band's plans from the dead man's skull. There were rumors that Papa Doc had taken to torturing prisoners himself in the palace basement.

The general assumption had been that Papa Doc's death would set off a political explosion in Haiti. Thus it was a major surprise when the country took the event calmly. At first, only a small group of curious gathered outside the palace fence, and only a few extra police and troops stood guard in Port-au-Prince. By the time of the funeral, the crowds and security forces had grown larger. Nonetheless, the city remained peaceful.

In a radio address to the country, Jean-Claude vowed to carry on his father's "revolution" with the same "energy and intransigence." The power behind Baby Doc is almost certain to be his elder sister, Marie-Denise 29. whom many Haitians regard as the old dictator's only true spiritual offspring. During the past several years, she has deftly shunted aside possible rivals within the palace inner circle.

Border Alert. There was no assurance that the brother-and-sister team could withstand the rivalries and intrigues that beset Haitian politics. Haiti has seldom escaped violence during leadership changes. Many experts anticipate a period of intense but quiet rivalry between army and secret-police factions, which may later explode into open fighting.

Haiti's neighbors braced for trouble. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, put its border troops on a full alert. In Washington, the State Department conceded that the U.S. had increased naval and air surveillance of the sea approaches to Haiti. Since the island's northwestern tip is only 50 miles away from Cuba across the Windward Passage, the U.S. is worried that Fidel Castro, who has been more bellicose than usual in recent weeks, may seize upon Duvalier's death as an opportunity to stir up trouble in Haiti.

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