A Dictator Dreams of Home; Jean-Claude Duvalier is pining for a comeback. But the United States and many Haitians frown on that idea.

Byline: Joseph Contreras, With Malcolm Beith in New York and Marie Valla in Paris

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not the first Haitian leader to fly into exile aboard a U.S.-supplied plane under intense pressure from a Republican administration in Washington. The same fate befell Jean-Claude Duvalier, the self-proclaimed president for life and son of the notorious dictator Francois Duvalier, in 1986. The U.S. president at the time was Ronald Reagan. Duvalier, widely known as Baby Doc because his father was a physician, now wants to end his long exile in France and come home as a private citizen. "In spite of all the years, I have remained very attached to [Haiti]," Duvalier told NEWSWEEK in an interview in Paris last month (box). "I ought to go back to participate in the reconstruction of the country."

A lot of people inside and outside Haiti would firmly disagree. The younger Duvalier left the country amid allegations of abject corruption and human-rights violations committed during his 15-year rule. No self-respecting politician in Haiti today professes any allegiance to him, and the Bush administration doesn't want him to come back any time soon. "We would view the return of Jean-Claude Duvalier as a negative development for Haiti and the region," said a U.S. State Department official last week. His return would have been unthinkable under Aristide, whose political career began as an outspoken opponent of the Duvalier regime in the 1980s, when the future president was still a Roman Catholic priest in the capital of Port-au-Prince. But in the aftermath of Aristide's fall from power, some mainstream politicians no longer dismiss the idea. "I have no problem with Duvalier coming back," says Marc Bazin, a retired World Bank official and former presidential candidate who broke with Baby Doc after briefly serving as his Finance minister in 1982. "If we're going to look for consensus and reconciliation, we can't keep those people out."

Any decision to allow Duvalier back into the country would have to be made by Gerard Latortue, an ex-foreign minister and a former U.N. official who was appointed interim prime minister last month to guide Haiti through its post-Aristide transition. Latortue has yet to voice any opinion on the matter, but there appear to be no legal impediments barring the return of Duvalier, who was granted asylum by the French government when he fled Haiti. Attorneys working for the Aristide government prepared a case against Duvalier on charges of stealing state funds, but it never came to trial.

Now 52, Duvalier walks with a stiff gait. His height and gray-flecked hair give him the appearance of a ...