Former Haitian leader Jean-Claude Duvalier has said his surprise return to the country after 25 years in exile was because he wanted to help rebuild his country.
Mr Duvalier’s statement comes amid continuing political turmoil caused by the cancellation of the second round of voting in the presidential election.
Since his return he has been charged with crimes against humanity and with fraud. He has denied the charges.
He said he expressed sorrow to those who considered themselves victims of his government.
‘I have come back as a sign of my solidarity during this extremely difficult period in national life,’ Mr Duvalier said yesterday in his first full public statement since his sudden return last Sunday to the nation he once ruled with an iron fist.
‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier said he also wanted to ‘voice my deep sorrow to my fellow countrymen who say, rightly, that they were victims under my government.’
Speaking in a weak voice to a room packed full of journalists, the 59-year-old called for ‘national reconciliation’ in Haiti and said he had hoped for a ‘rapid resolution to the political crisis’.
But he did not outline what had happened to those who suffered under his 1971-1986 regime.
Instead, speaking mainly in French with a few words of Creole, he offered ‘sympathies to my millions of supporters who, after my voluntary departure from Haiti in 1986 to avoid a bloodbath and to allow a swift resolution to the political crisis, were left to themselves.'
The ex-dictator said thousands of his supporters were ‘assassinated, suffocated, interrogated, subjected to tire necklaces burnings; their houses, their possessions were pillaged, uprooted and torched.’
With so many unanswered questions, his words are only likely to stoke further tensions among people with long memories of his brutal rule.
Many fear he is seeking a return to power by capitalising on the current political chaos stalking the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean country.
Haiti, already struggling to recover from the devastating January 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak, is caught up in deepening political turmoil due to disputed presidential elections.
