Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier Returns To Haiti After 25 Year Haitus

'Baby Doc' Duvalier back in Haiti after long exile

"He is happy to be back in this country, back in his home," said Mona Beruaveau, a candidate for Senate in a Duvalierist party who spoke to the former dictator inside the immigration office. "He is tired after a long trip."

Beruaveau said he would give a news conference on Monday.

There were no immediate protests in reaction to his return and very few people were even aware that the former dictator had come back to Haiti.

Haitians danced in the streets to celebrate the overthrow of Duvalier back in 1986, heckling the tubby, boyish tyrant as he was driven to the airport in a black limousine and flown into exile in France. Most Haitians hoped the rapacious strongman known had left for good, closing a dark chapter of terror and repression that began under his late father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.

But a handful of loyalists have been campaigning to bring Duvalier home from exile in France, launching a foundation to improve the dictatorship's image and reviving Baby Doc's political party in the hopes that one day he can return to power democratically.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said that if Duvalier is involved in any political activities he is not aware of them.

"He is a Haitian and, as such, is free to return home," the prime minister told The Associated Press.

The Duvaliers tortured and killed their political opponents, ruling in an atmosphere of fear and repression ensured by the bloody Tonton Macoute secret police.