Haiti president now says no pardon for 'Baby Doc'

Monday, January 30, 2012

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian President Michel Martelly has backed off a suggestion from an interview a day earlier that he might be open to a pardon for former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. He said he meant only that he wanted an end to the internal conflict that has long afflicted his country.

Martelly, speaking in a radio interview in Dublin Friday, said that "I never proposed to pardon" the dictator known as "Baby Doc," who is under a judicial investigation for crimes committed during his brutal 15-year rule in the 1970s and 1980s. The judge is expected to rule soon on whether Duvalier will face trial on corruption and human rights charges.

A day earlier, The Associated Press interviewed Martelly on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and asked about the former dictator and the pending decision. The president suggested he had little appetite for a trial, saying reconciliation for his nation is more important than punishing Duvalier.

"My way of thinking is to create a situation where we rally everyone together and create peace and pardon people, to not forget about the past -- because we need to learn from it -- but to mainly think about the future," he said.

Martelly added that any decision on a possible pardon would come only with "a consensus among all leaders, all political parties."

In the Friday interview with Ireland's Newstalk FM, Martelly was asked by the host why he would pardon Duvalier. The president said he was misunderstood by the AP.

"When I mentioned reconciliation it has nothing to do with Duvalier," he said. "Duvalier is a case where only the justice (system) can decide on it."

He said that years of often violent struggle among the various factions in Haitian society have left the country in shambles and that the conflict has to end for there to be any progress in Haiti.

"The problem is the Haitian people fighting among themselves. So I mentioned my will to reconcile the Haitian people, not pardon Duvalier," he said.