Istwa Nou

Jean-Claude Duvalier was sworn in on 22 April 1971, in a private ceremony his mother organised and at which she held the list of cabinet appointments. He was in shock, and palace doctors were giving him tranquillisers on Simone Duvalier's orders. He did not walk in his father's funeral procession. A day later he met the foreign press, introduced by Fritz Cineas, the new information minister and Cambronne's man, read a short statement in French asking for objective coverage, shook hands and left. He then toured police stations, army posts and militia posts around the capital, where the declarations of loyalty were emphatic; Constant's removal had been noted. On the Thursday he addressed the assembly, speaking so quietly that parts of the chamber could not hear him, a trick his father had used to keep people guessing. There would be no pardons and no tolerance of communists, he said, and the United States could count on Haiti.