France New Twists

The juicy French farce starring Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier took several new turns last week. For starters, the former Haitian dictator brought a lawsuit against his French hosts. He charged that the government had mounted "multiple attacks on the personal liberties" of himself, his elegant wife Michele and the rest of his family. He insisted that the French have held them in "solitary confinement" at the exclusive Hotel de l'Abbaye in the Alpine village of Talloires.

Efforts by the U.S. and France to find Baby Doc a new home continued to be unavailing. The latest country to reject a feeler: tiny Monaco. When the west African nation of Gabon was sounded out, the response from President Omar Bongo was curt: "We are not a garbage can." Baby Doc would love to stay in France, but the French summarily reject the idea. Stung by his rough treatment, Duvalier declared, "If I had known the only country I feel close to wouldn't welcome me, I would never have given up power."

A solution cannot come too soon for the Hotel de l'Abbaye's owner, Jean Tiffenat, who also went to court last week, demanding that the Haitians be evicted. Since the Duvaliers' arrival Feb. 7, he has been forced to turn away guests with long-standing reservations. "They asked me if I could lodge a head of state, and of course I accepted," sniffed Tiffenat. "But I didn't know it would be Baby Doc. In the future, I'll be more careful."

At week's end Haiti's five-member governing council announced that it would legally seek Duvalier's return from France. Since the two countries have no extradition treaty, the move was seen in Haiti as a face-saving gesture by a regime increasingly regarded as too sympathetic to Duvalier cronies. There was widespread outrage when it was disclosed that the council had given safe passage to Brazil to Colonel Albert Pierre, head of Baby Doc's feared political police and a man said to enjoy taking a personal role in torture. Days later, an angry mob at the Port-au-Prince airport forcibly prevented retired Duvalier Secret Police Chief Luc Desyr from boarding a flight out of the country. Meanwhile, calls for the resignation of two members of the ruling council closely associated with Baby Doc grew more insistent. Lieut. General Henri Namphy, Haiti's acting head of government, repeated earlier vows to hold free elections, but set no timetable. That prospect helped prompt Washington to restore $26 million in badly needed U.S. aid.