(2 of 2)
After Papa Doc died, it soon became clear that there was not enough room behind the throne for both Cambronne and Marie-Denise. Cambronne first managed to get Marie-Denise and her husband Max Dominique ordered out of the country. A few months later, while the Dominiques were vacationing in Acapulco, he had Max fired from his post as Haitian ambassador to Paris. After living in exile in Paris and Washington, D.C., for several months, the persistent Marie-Denise turned up in Haiti again last September. Haitian exiles in the U.S. soon speculated that there would be another showdown and this time Marie-Denise would win. It was not long after she returned to Washington that Baby Doc announced Cambronne's dismissal.
The fall of the shark in the sharkskin suits will not automatically turn Haiti into a model democracy. But it may serve as a warning to other rapacious Duvalierists to curb their excesses; it may also encourage more foreign investment and loans for the long-undernourished Haitian economy. Now that Baby Doc seems to be firmly in power and amenable to reform, he may even release the unknown number of political prisoners ruthlessly rounded up by his father and still rotting in notorious Fort Dimanche prison.