Alert: Defeat Negroponte for Iraq Ambassador

Following is an alert written by the Nicaragua Network and
endorsed by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition. Please call your
Senators before the vote on Thursday and demand that they
vote no.

JOHN NEGROPONTE’S IRAQ NOMINATION BEING RUSHED THROUGH
SENATE COMMITTEE
Call Senators Now to Demand They Vote No

Career diplomat John Negroponte has been nominated by
President Bush to be U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. He would
head the largest U.S. embassy after what is now admitted
to be "limited sovereignty" is turned over to Iraq on June
30. Negroponte’s record makes him uniquely unqualified for
this important posting.

*Negroponte was political officer at the U.S. Embassy in
Vietnam from 1964-1968, the height of the war, and during
a period of extrajudicial executions and gross human
rights abuses, including massacres by the infamous "Tiger
Force" of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

*Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985
during which he oversaw a ten-fold increase in staff and
an embassy that housed one of the largest CIA deployments
in all of Latin America. He lied to Congress about his
knowledge of the infamous Battalion 316 death squad, and
managed illegal aid to the Contras fighting the Nicaraguan
government in direct contravention of Congress’ ban.

*Negroponte was ambassador to Mexico 1989-1993 where he
shepherded the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
to its conclusion. NAFTA has caused one million Mexican
farmers to lose their land and livelihoods and undermined
labor and environmental protections in Mexico, the U.S.,
and Canada.

*Negroponte has served as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations since September 2001 during the run-up to the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. He is guilty of lying to the UN about
justifications for the war and successfully pressured
Mexico and Chile to fire their UN ambassadors after they
clashed with him over the war.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee scheduled a rushed
hearing on the nomination on Tuesday, April 27, 2004 and
the Senate leadership has scheduled a full Senate vote for
Thursday, April 29. Negroponte’s lack of democratic
credentials and his record of support for, or turning a
blind eye to, gross human rights violations, held up his
nomination for UN ambassador in 2001. But, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee held a quick approval vote on
Sept. 12, 2001, rushing him through during the chaos
following the tragedy of the day before.

We must not allow the Senate to sweep his horrible record
under the rug a second time. Call the Capitol Switchboard
at 202-224-3121, ask for your Senator’s office, and demand
that your Senator vote no on the Negroponte confirmation.

For a good background piece just released by the Council
on Hemispheric Affairs, visit:
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.20_Negroponte.htm

As additional background, here is a personal account,
written in July 2001 by Sr. Laetitia Bordes, s.h.:

NEW RIPPLES IN AN EVIL STORY

John D. Negroponte, President Bush’s nominee as the next
ambassador to the United Nations? My ears perked up. I
turned up the volume on the radio. I began listening more
attentively. Yes, I had heard correctly. Bush was
nominating Negroponte, the man who gave the CIA backed
Honduran death squads open field when he was ambassador to
Honduras from 1981 to 1985. My mind went back to May 1982
and I saw myself facing Negroponte in his office at the
U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa. I had gone to Honduras on a
fact-finding delegation. We were looking for answers.
Thirty-two women had fled the death squads of El Salvador
after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980
to take refuge in Honduras. One of them had been Romero’s
secretary. Some months after their arrival, these women
were forcibly taken from their living quarters in
Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared. Our
delegation was in Honduras to find out what had happened
to these women.

John Negroponte listened to us as we exposed the facts.
There had been eyewitnesses to the capture and we were
well read on the documentation that previous delegations
had gathered. Negroponte denied any knowledge of the
whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the U.S.
Embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran
government and it would be to our advantage to discuss the
matter with the latter. Facts, however, reveal quite the
contrary. During Negroponte’s tenure, U.S. military aid to
Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million; the U.S.
launched a covert war against Nicaragua and mined its
harbors, and the U.S. trained Honduran military to support
the Contras.

John Negroponte worked closely with General Alvarez, Chief
of the Armed Forces in Honduras, to enable the training of
Honduran soldiers in psychological warfare, sabotage, and
many types of human rights violations, including torture
and kidnapping. Honduran and Salvadoran military were sent
to the School of the Americas to receive training in
counter-insurgency directed against people of their own
country. The CIA created the infamous Honduran
Intelligence Battalion 3-16 that was responsible for the
murder of many Sandinistas. General Luis Alonso Discua
Elvir, a graduate of the School of the Americas, was a
founder and commander of Battalion 3-16. In 1982, the U.S.
negotiated access to airfields in Honduras and established
a regional military training center for Central American
forces, principally directed at improving fighting forces
of the Salvadoran military.

In 1994, the Honduran Rights Commission outlined the
torture and disappearance of at least 184 political
opponents.

It also specifically accused John Negroponte of a number
of human rights violations. Yet, back in his office that
day in 1982, John Negroponte assured us that he had no
idea what had happened to the women we were looking for. I
had to wait 13 years to find out. In an interview with the
Baltimore Sun in1996 Jack Binns, Negroponte’s predecessor
as U.S. ambassador in Honduras, told how a group of
Salvadorans, among whom were the women we had been
looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981 and savagely
tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, before
being placed in helicopters of the Salvadoran military.
After take off from the airport in Tegucigalpa, the
victims were thrown out of the helicopters. Binns told the
Baltimore Sun that the North American authorities were
well aware of what had happened and that it was a grave
violation of human rights. But it was seen as part of
Ronald Reagan’s counterinsurgency policy.

Now in 2001, I’m seeing new ripples in this story.

Since President Bush made it known that he intended to
nominate John Negroponte, other people have suddenly been
"disappearing", so to speak. In an article published in
the Los Angeles Times on March 25 Maggie Farley and Norman
Kempster reported on the sudden deportation of several
former Honduran death squad members from the United
States. These men could have provided shattering testimony
against Negroponte in the forthcoming Senate hearings. One
of these recent deportees just happens to be General Luis
Alonso Discua, founder of Battalion 3-16. In February,
Washington revoked the visa of Discua who was Deputy
Ambassador to the UN. Since then, Discua has gone public
with details of U.S. support of Battalion 3-16.

Given the history of John Negroponte in Central America,
it is indeed horrifying to think that he should be chosen
to represent our country at the United Nations, an
organization founded to ensure that the human rights of
all people receive the highest respect. How many of our
Senators, I wonder, let alone the U.S. public, know who
John Negroponte really is?

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