July to December 1972 · Haitianspan
Cambronne is cut out in a week and flies to Bogota
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Roger Lafontant had bought his place in the Duvalier hierarchy by informing on fellow student strikers in 1961. In the second half of 1972, while Simone Duvalier was in Miami, he convinced Jean-Claude that Luckner Cambronne was disloyal. Cambronne found the palace closed to him, understood at once what that meant, and took refuge in the Colombian embassy; days later he was in Bogota. Simone came home too late to reverse it and found her son unwilling to listen. The official explanation was that the president disliked some of Cambronne's businesses, in particular the trade in blood plasma drawn from poor Haitians and sold abroad. Hemo Caribbean shut its doors. The divorce law was changed so that both parties had to be represented, and fees from quick divorces were directed into the treasury, which conceded where they had been going. Jean-Claude then spoke feelingly about the need for morality in government.
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