On the morning of Sunday, June 27, 2004, the Prime Minister of Haiti’s overturned constitutional government, Yvon Neptune, voluntarily answered a warrant for his arrest and was imprisoned in the National Penitentiary.

Formerly president of the National Assembly during Haiti’s 47th Legislature (2001-2002), Neptune learned of the warrant while listening to a Port-au-Prince radio station. He stands accused of ordering a Feb. 11 massacre in the coastal town of St. Marc, where pro and anti-government popular organizations clashed for control in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 29 “coup-napping” of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by U.S. Marines.

The U.S.-installed de facto prime minister Gérard Latortue tried to distance himself from the arrest, while casting it in a positive light. “As Prime Minister, I am saddened to see my predecessor in this situation,” Latortue said. “At the same time I am happy that it is Justice which took this decision. He was arrested under a warrant; it is not the government which is persecuting him. I hope that Justice will act very quickly; if there is not evidence to keep him in prison, they will be able to transform the arrest warrant into a simple warrant to appear in court.”

Most observers and analysts concur, however, that Neptune’s arrest appears to be just one more act aimed at blunting the growing resistance and courage of Haiti’s rebellious masses.

“Yvon Neptune is still the legitimate Prime Minister of Haiti, and his arrest is part of a politically-motivated campaign to arrest and intimidate members of Lavalas, President Aristide’s political party,” said Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) in a Feb. 28 statement. “The people who were responsible for President Aristide’s ouster are now determined to destroy the political movement he led.”

The charge against Neptune is far-fetched. Other than the U.S. State Department-supported human rights group National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), whose Haiti-based director, Pierre Lespérance, declared last March that Lavalas authorities and partisans killed 50 people in the St. Marc neighborhood of Scierie on Feb. 11, no evidence of such a massacre has ever been presented.

In early February, U.S and Dominican-backed Haitian “rebels” – mostly former soldiers from the Haitian Army disbanded by Aristide in 1995 – were capturing towns around Haiti’s north as Haitian police, often through complicity, abandoned their posts in the face of growing violence by “rebel”-linked units.

In this way, an anti-government gang called Ramicos took control of St. Marc for about 48 hours. But on Feb. 9, the police’s CIMO unit, with the support of St. Marc’s population and a pro-Lavalas popular organization called Balewouze, took back control of the town. Then Prime Minister Neptune flew in by helicopter with a television crew in an attempt to project confidence and, in his words, “encourage the police.” During those days, there were several skirmishes between the forces of order and those of destabilization.

The Haiti Commission of Inquiry, interviewing refugees from St. Marc in the Dominican Republic after the Feb. 29th coup, learned that the violence issued mostly from Ramicos, a finding Neptune confirms.

“The members of Ramicos, who killed partisans of Aristide, who burned the police headquarters and who committed other awful crimes in Saint Marc during the rebellion, are now those used by the authorities to accuse me,” Neptune told Reuters.

The U.S. Embassy has urged leniency for Neptune given the role he played – unwittingly, he later said – in facilitating Washington’s attempts to pass off the Feb. 29th coup as a constitutional transition. On that day, the U.S. and French Ambassadors stood at his elbows as Neptune read a statement, prepared for him, that Aristide had voluntarily resigned. This announcement temporarily confused and demobilized the Haitian people.

“The U.S. Embassy recalls the crucial and courageous role played by the former Prime Minister in assuring a constitutional and peaceful succession after the resignation of Jean Bertrand Aristide,” an embassy statement said. “We understand that his arrest is linked to the terrible massacre that took place in St. Marc in February 2004.... The government of the U.S. thus calls for a quick and fair investigation.”

In a Mar. 2 interview with Kevin Pina of KPFA’s Flashpoints program and the Black Commentator and Andrea Nicastro of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Neptune repudiated his announcement of Aristide’s resignation. “The resignation of the President is not constitutional because he did that under duress and threat,” he said. He also made clear that the U.S. unilaterally installed former chief justice Boniface Alexandre as the de facto President . “The chief of the Supreme Court was brought here into my office by representatives of the international community,” Neptune said. “I was not invited or present when he was sworn in.”

Neptune’s arrest thrilled former opposition leaders like Evans Paul, the leader of the Democratic Unity Convention (KID). “Anybody named in a warrant must be arrested by Justice and the police,” he said. “The people pointed to those who were involved in the massacre of Scierie, among them Yvon Neptune, either for planning it, ordering it, or by encouraging it by his presence in St. Marc shortly after the drama. Whatever the case, he has his portion of responsibility; and I think that this arrest constitutes a sign against impunity.”

Ironically, impunity is more alive than ever in Haiti. “Rule by the gun and bullet and by terror and arbitrary, capricious and mostly warrant-less jailings, are, as these last unendurable months in Haitian life have clearly proven, the realms of Latortue, [Justice Minister Bernard] Gousse, the former-opposition, [FRAPH death-squad leader] Jean Tatoune, DEA-suspected drug dealer and convicted murderer Guy Philippe and traditional un-electable business elites, such as sweatshop kingpin Andre Apaid, Jr.,” said Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyer’s Leadership Network in a Jun. 28 statement.

The Jamaica Observer had a similar view. “While Mr. Neptune is under arrest,” Haiti’s right-wing thugs “continue to strut around Haiti with impunity, their nasty record of human rights abuse and drug smuggling seemingly of little concern to Mr. Latortue’s administration,” the paper said in a Jun. 29 editorial. “But perhaps we ought not to be surprised. For Mr Latortue had cavorted with them on political platforms in the immediate aftermath of the coup d’état, declaring them heroes and freedom fighters.”