22585: This Week in Haiti 22:16 06/30/2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                        June 30 - July 6, 2004
                           Vol. 22, No. 16

HAITI'S ILLEGAL PRIME MINISTER ARRESTS THE LEGAL ONE

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."

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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