Istwa Nou

Jean-Claude Duvalier was barely five years old when his father entered the National Palace, and like most Haitians of his generation he had lived under no other president. Unlike them he had watched at close range how the thing was run. He grew up alone. His companions were a few approved children of Duvalierists, and he learned early that they vanished when their fathers fell out of favour. On hot afternoons he was driven to Clement Barbot's house in Pacot to swim by himself, and it was Barbot who later organised the 1963 ambush on the car taking him to school. He was an indifferent student whose teachers passed him every year because they were frightened. Around town he was called basket head. Schoolmates who once shouted the wrong words when he tripped over were warned never to do it again. He played the cello, argued with his father about the volume of his stereo, drove sports cars around the palace courtyards at ten, and took to motorcycles and hunting. He did not want the job.