Negroponte well fitting into the war cabinett (fwd)

http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20010311_bush_recycles_contragaters.asp

BUSH RECYCLES CONTRAGATERS

On March 6 U.S. President George W. Bush officially nominated retired career
diplomat John Negroponte to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations (UN). Although the post will no longer carry cabinet rank, as it did
under President Bill Clinton, Bush said that Negroponte, who has served as
ambassador to Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines, will be a "key member"
of the administration's foreign policy team. The appointment will have to be
confirmed by the Senate. 
Human rights activists strongly oppose the appointment, which was first
reported in mid-February. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to
1985 while the U.S. was using the country as a base for rightwing contra
rebels seeking to overthrow the leftist Nicaraguan government of the time.
During Negroponte's tenure, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
trained and equipped a unit of the Honduran army, Battalion 316, which
kidnapped, tortured and executed hundreds of suspected subversives,
according to a four-part series the Baltimore Sun published in 1995. The Sun
writes that its investigation "found that the CIA and the U.S. embassy knew
of numerous abuses yet continued to support Battalion 316, collaborate with
its leaders and keep the full truth from getting into the embassy's annual
human rights report to Washington." "Ambassador Negroponte knew all about
the human rights violations, and he did nothing to stop them," Honduran
human rights commissioner Leo Valladares told the Sun. (Sun 3/7/01) 
Bush is reportedly planning another controversial appointment:
Cuban-American Otto Reich is expected to replace Peter Romero as assistant
secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. During the mid-1980s Reich
headed the U.S. government's Office of Public Diplomacy, which carried out
"prohibited, covert propaganda activities" on behalf of the contras,
according to a U.S. comptroller general's report in 1987. The activities
included ghostwriting under false pretenses op-ed pieces for the New York
Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post to support the U.S.-backed
war against Nicaragua. Reich left the office in 1986, serving as ambassador
to Venezuela until 1989. For the last six years, Reich has been a lobbyist,
making more than $600,000 from the Bacardi-Martini liquor company. He had a
role in the writing of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act
("Helms-Burton"), which tightens the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba in ways
that could help Bacardi sue foreign competitors that do business in Cuba.
(New York Times 3/9/01) 
The first head of Battalion 316, retired Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir,
returned to Honduras on March 4. Discua left the U.S. on February 28 when
the U.S. government let his diplomatic visa expire. Discua was officially
serving as alternate Honduran representative to the UN, but the U.S.
cancelled the visa on the grounds that he wasn't living in New York, where
the UN's headquarters are located. Discua, who may face illegal enrichment
charges in Honduras, told reporters on March 6 that Battalion 316, which he
headed from January 25 to March 30 in 1983, was not involved in human rights
violations but was formed to participate in a planned invasion of Nicaragua.
(Tiempo (Honduras) 3/7/01; La Prensa (Honduras) 3/7/01) 
Two other Honduran former armed forces chiefs, who preceded Discua in the
post, are also under investigation for corruption: generals Arnulfo
Cantarero López and Humberto Regalado Hernández. (El Diario-La Prensa (NY)
3/1/01 from EFE) 

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/CentralAmerica.html
<http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/CentralAmerica.html> 


ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA
President of Honduras
Honduras was the original "Banana Republic," its history inextricably
intertwined with that of the U.S.-based United Fruit Company, but in 1979,
when Anastasio Somoza was overthrown in Nicaragua, Honduras got a new
nickname: "The Pentagon Republic." In 1978 Honduras received $16.2 million
in U.S. aid; by 1985 it was getting $231.1 million, primarily because
President Suazo Cordova, working with U.S. Ambassador John Dmitri Negroponte
and Honduran General Gustava Alvarez, allowed Honduras to become a training
center for U.S. funded Nicaraguan contras. General Alvarez, who according to
Newsweek, "doesn't care if officers are thieves, as long as they are
virulent anti-communists," assisted in training programs and founded a
special "hit squad," the Cobras. Victims of the Cobras were stripped, bound,
thrown into pits and tortured. The Reagan Administration claimed ignorance
of these human rights violations, but U.S. advisors have admitted knowledge.
Alvarez, who made enemies among his troops because he pocketed U.S. aid and
because he belonged to the "Moonies", a far-right South Korean religious
cult, was overthrown by the military in 1984. Suazo's ties to Alvarez cost
him his bid in the next election, but death squad activity and U.S. aid to
Honduras continue. Many high ranking government and military personnel
during and after Suazo's term were drug traffickers, and although the U.S.
government denies knowledge of this, there is evidence to the contrary. In
fact, the U.S. embassy was renting space from known drug dealers.

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/113/nationalnews.html


Bush appoints counter-insurgency experts 
On March 6 US President George W. Bush officially nominated retired career
diplomat John Negroponte to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations
(UN). Although the post will no longer carry cabinet rank, as it did under
President Bill Clinton, Bush said that Negroponte, who has served as
ambassador to Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines, will be a "key member"
of the administration's foreign policy team. The appointment will have to be
confirmed by the Senate. 
Human rights activists strongly oppose the appointment, which was first
reported in mid-February. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to
1985 while the US was using the country as a base for rightwing Contra
rebels seeking to overthrow the leftist Nicaraguan government of the time.
During Negroponte's tenure, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained
and equipped a unit of the Honduran army, Battalion 316, which kidnapped,
tortured and executed hundreds of suspected subversives, according to a
four-part series the Baltimore Sun published in 1995. The Sun writes that
its investigation "found that the CIA and the US embassy knew of numerous
abuses yet continued to support Battalion 316, collaborate with its leaders
and keep the full truth from getting into the embassy's annual human rights
report to Washington."
"Ambassador Negroponte knew all about the human rights violations, and he
did nothing to stop them," Honduran human rights commissioner Leo Valladares
told the Sun. 
Bush is reportedly planning another controversial appointment:
Cuban-American Otto Reich is expected to replace Peter Romero as assistant
secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. During the mid-1980s Reich
headed the US government's Office of Public Diplomacy, which carried out
"prohibited, covert propaganda activities" on behalf of the Contras,
according to a US comptroller general's report in 1987. The activities
included ghostwriting under false pretenses op-ed pieces for the New York
Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post to support the US-backed war
against Nicaragua.
Reich left the office in 1986, serving as ambassador to Venezuela until
1989. For the last six years, Reich has been a lobbyist, making more than
$600,000 from the Bacardi-Martini liquor company. He had a role in the
writing of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act
("Helms-Burton"), which tightens the US trade embargo against Cuba in ways
that could help Bacardi sue foreign competitors that do business in Cuba.
The first head of Battalion 316, retired Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir,
returned to Honduras on March 4. Discua left the US on February 28 when the
US government let his diplomatic visa expire. Discua was officially serving
as alternate Honduran representative to the UN, but the US cancelled the
visa on the grounds that he wasn't living in New York, where the UN's
headquarters are located. Discua, who may face illegal enrichment charges in
Honduras, told reporters on March 6 that Battalion 316, which he headed from
January 25 to March 30 in 1983, was not involved in human rights violations
but was formed to participate in a planned invasion of Nicaragua.
Two other Honduran former armed forces chiefs, who preceded Discua in the
post, are also under investigation for corruption: generals Arnulfo
Cantarero López and Humberto Regalado Hernández.
Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas: wnu@igc.org <mailto:wnu@igc.org>



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4166120,00.html
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4166120,00.html> 

http://www.wbenjamin.org/WB_Kiosk.html
<http://www.wbenjamin.org/WB_Kiosk.html> 



IN FROM THE COLD WAR
Bush's Pick for U.N. Ambassador has some Spooky Stuff in His Resume
By Terry J. Allen
IN THESE TIMES/April 2, 2001
http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2509/allen2509.html
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2509/allen2509.html> 
        Like spooks from an abandoned B-Movie graveyard, officials of the
Reagan-Bush era are emerging from the dirt and showing up inside the George
W. Bush administration. The latest resurrection is John Negroponte, whom
Bush recently nominated as ambassador to the United Nations.
        As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte abetted
and covered up human rights crimes. He was a zealous anti-Communist crusader
in America's covert wars against the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua and the FMLN rebels in El Salvador. The high-level planning, money
and arms for those wars flowed from Washington, but much of the
on-the-ground logistics for the deployment of intelligence, arms and
soldiers was run out of Honduras. U.S. military aid to Honduras jumped from
$3.9 million in 1980 to $77.4 million by 1984. So crammed was the tiny
country with U.S. bases and weapons that it was dubbed the USS Honduras, as
if it were simply an off-shore staging ground.
        The captain of this ship, Negroponte was in charge of the U.S.
Embassy when, according to a 1995 four-part series in the Baltimore Sun,
hundreds of Hondurans were kidnapped, tortured and killed by Battalion 316,
a secret army intelligence unit trained and supported by the Central
Intelligence Agency. As Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson wrote in the series,
Battalion 316 used "shock and suffocation devices in interrogations.
Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and
buried in unmarked graves." Members of Battalion 316 were trained in
surveillance and interrogation at a secret location in the United States and
by the CIA at bases in Honduras. Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the chief of
the Honduran armed forces who personally directed Battalion 316, also
trained in the United States at the School of the Americas.
        Negroponte tried to distance himself from the pattern of abuses,
even after a flood of declassified documents exposed the extent of U.S.
involvement with Battalion 316. In a segment of the 1998 CNN mini-series
Cold War, Negroponte said that "some of the retrospective effort to try and
suggest that we were supportive of, or condoned the actions of, human rights
violators is really revisionistic."
        By the time Negroponte was appointed ambassador by President Reagan
in 1981, human rights activists in Honduras were vocally denouncing abuses.
Former Honduran congressman Efrain Diaz Arrivillaga pleaded with Negroponte
and other U.S. officials to stop the abuses committed by the U.S.-controlled
military. "Their attitude was one of tolerance and silence," Diaz told the
Sun." They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were
concerned about innocent people being killed."
        Negroponte ignored such protests, and annually filed State
Department reports from Honduras that gave the impression that the Honduran
military respected human rights. But in an interview with In These Times,
Negroponte's predecessor as ambassador, Carter appointee Jack Binns, tells a
different story: "Negroponte would have had to be deliberately blind not to
know about human rights violations. ... One of the things a departing
ambassador does is prepare a briefing book, and one of those issues we
included [in our briefing book] was how to deal with the escalation of human
rights issues."
        Binns considered the U.S. support for Alvarez and Battalion 316
"counterproductive" to the declared objective of "establishing a rule of
law." This lack of enthusiasm, Binns says, led to "my being cut out of the
loop" by the Reagan administration, which he served for several months
before Negroponte took over. In the summer of 1981, Binns recalls, "I was
called unexpectedly to Washington by Tom Enders, the assistant secretary of
state. He asked me to stop reporting human rights violations through
official State Department channels and to use back channels because they
were afraid of leaks."
        As Binns explains, back-channel messages "don't officially exist.
The message is translated over CIA channels, decrypted and hand-carried from
Langley, one copy only. No record."
        Binns did not agree to use back channels and when he returned to
Honduras, he received no further reports of human rights violations from the
CIA. "I was deliberately lied to," says Binns, who later found out that
Reagan administration had been working behind his back.
        Honduras was only one of many hot spots where Negroponte served. He
spent four years as a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during
the height of the Vietnam War. As an aide to then National Security Adviser
Henry Kissinger at the Paris Peace Talks, he fell out of favor with his
boss, wrote Mark Matthews in a 1997 article in the Sun, "by arguing that the
chief U.S. negotiator was making too many concessions to the North
Vietnamese." Negroponte also served in the Philippines, Panama and Mexico,
where he was a strong booster for NAFTA.
        Rumored to have been Colin Powell's pick for the job of U.N.
ambassador, Negroponte has a reputation as a loyal bureaucrat and efficient
fixer. He also has a Cold War mentality characteristic of many of the old
Reagan-Bush people surrounding the new president.
        The lessons Negroponte has learned from the past may shed light on
what kind of U.N. ambassador he will be if his nomination is approved by the
Senate. When he appeared in 1981 before a Senate committee for confirmation
as envoy to Honduras, he said, "I believe we must do our best not to allow
the tragic outcome of Indochina to be repeated in Central America."
        The tragedy to which he referred, of course, was the defeat of the
United States, not the devastation and death caused by U.S. intervention.
        Copyright 2001 In These Times




Bush nominees under fire for link with contras 
Special report: George Bush's America <http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/>  
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Guardian 
Friday April 6, 2001 
George Bush's nominee for the post of US ambassador to the United Nations
concealed from Congress human rights abuses in central America that were
carried out by death squads trained and armed by the CIA. 
John Negroponte, Mr Bush's choice for the UN job, and Otto Reich, who has
been named by the president to a senior Latin American post, were also both
closely linked with the illegal contra war against the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua. 
Their nomination has dismayed human rights activists in the US and Latin
America. Critics hope that previously secret information about their former
roles may emerge as the battle against the appointments begins. 
Mr Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 and as such
was in a key position to assist in the war against the Sandinista government
in Nicaragua and rebels in El Salvador. At the time, Honduras was known as
"USS Honduras", such was its position as a base for attacks against leftwing
groups. 
The CIA helped to train an organisation called Battalion 3-16, which carried
out the torture and "disappearing" of 184 people in Honduras deemed to be
politically suspect or communist sympathisers. Until recently, some members
of the battalion had been living in the US, but were deported just as Mr
Bush's selection of Mr Negroponte was announced. Now one of the battalion
members is threatening to blow the whistle on US involvement in training the
death squads. 
General Discua Elvir, a founder of the battalion, who has been deported to
Honduras from Miami, appeared on television in Honduras and told the local
newspaper La Prensa that he was brought to the US to coordinate the
battalion with the contras. 
The rightwing contras were illegally funded by arms sales to Iran. One of
George Bush senior's parting acts as president in 1992 was to pardon those
implicated, thus ending the possibility of the full exposure of his and the
Reagan administration's involvement. 
Mr Negroponte's predecessor in Honduras, Jack Binns, was replaced after
alerting Washington about extra-judicial executions by the Honduran
authorities. Mr Binns has now told In These Times magazine: "Negroponte
would have had to be deliberately blind not to know about human rights
violations... One of the things a departing ambassador does is prepare a
briefing book, and one of those issues we included [in the briefing book]
was how to deal with the escalation of human rights issues." 
"It's very troubling", Reed Brody, of Human Rights Watch in New York, said
yesterday. "When John Negroponte was ambassador he looked the other way when
serious atrocities were committed. One would have to wonder what kind of
message the Bush administration is sending about human rights by this
appointment." 
Mr Negroponte is said to be the specific choice of Colin Powell, the
secretary of state. 
An ex-Honduran congressman, Efrain Diaz, told the Baltimore Sun which
investigated US involvement in the region in 1995: "Their attitude [Mr
Negroponte and other senior US officials] was one of tolerance and silence.
They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned
about innocent people being killed." 
On several occasions, Mr Negroponte also met Colonel Oliver North, who
coordinated support for the contras within the White House. 
The Sun's investigation found that the CIA and US embassy knew of numerous
abuses but continued to support Battalion 3-16 and ensured that the
embassy's annual human rights report did not contain the full story. 
Mr Negroponte, who retired from government service in 1997, has claimed that
when abuses were brought to his attention he took action. 
Mr Bush has also nominated another figure from the Iran-contra era as
assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs. Cuban-born Otto
Reich headed the state department's now defunct office of public diplomacy
for Latin America and the Caribbean between 1983 and 1986. It was accused of
engaging in illegal propaganda activities to promote the Reagan
administration's policies in support of the contras. 


        ----------
        Von:  Peter Grimes [SMTP:p34d3611@jhu.edu]
        Gesendet:  Samstag, 5. Mai 2001 09:32
        An:  WSN
        Betreff:  Bush's man at the UN: a slice of Negroponte's "career"



        NEW RIPPLES IN AN EVIL STORY
        by Sister Laetitia Bordes, s.h.

        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 US 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 documentationthat previous delegations had
gathered.
        Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women.
He
        insisted that the US 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, US military aid to Honduras grew from $4
        million to $77.4 million; the US launched a covert war against
Nicaragua
        and mined its harbors, and the US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US public, know who John  Negroponte really
is?

        Sister Laetitia Bordes, s.h.