Johnny and Otto (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 11:53:43 +0200
From: "Tausch, Arno" <Arno.Tausch@bmsg.gv.at>
To: 'Peter Grimes' <p34d3611@jhu.edu>
Subject: Johnny and Otto

14Apr2001 CUBA: Highlights of Radio Rebelde news 1700 gmt 13 Apr 01. 
7. [41] Roberto Morejon Commentary:

US President George W. Bush has surrounded himself with advisers experienced
in the arts of the most rancid anti-communism as well as in lobbying for
generous military budgets. Many of the president's advisers see the United
States as the centre of the world, whose decisions must be obeyed without
hesitation. In the long list of officials at the service of the darkest
causes, some names that jump out are that of Otto Reich, an individual with
watered down Cuban roots, and John Dimitri Negroponte, who is up to his neck
in the anti-Sandinist Nicaraguan counter-revolution scandal.

Latin America must be in a stupor upon hearing news of Otto Reich's
appointment as undersecretary of state for hemispheric affairs in the light
of his well known ties with the terrorists and the anti-Cuban Miami mafia
with which he collaborated during last November's electoral fraud in
Florida. The former ambassador to Venezuela, Reich lobbied for the approval
of the anti-Cuban Helms-Burton Law in 1996, a task assigned to him as result
of his reputation as a trusty organizer of Reagan's dirty war in Central
America, a time during which he established close ties with the infamous
Oliver North.

John Dimitri Negroponte, nominated by Bush to the UN ambassadorship, would
become one of the main spokesman of US foreign policy despite his poor moral
character. As ambassador to Honduras in the eighties, he encouraged the
presence of the US military in that country which became at the time the
spearhead of the fight against the Sandinist. Negroponte claims he was
unaware of the actions of the death squads.

The faces of Otto Reich and John Dimitri Negroponte must be indelibly etched
in the handles of the revolvers that the cowboy Bush carries in his holsters
to push the world around.

Source: Radio Rebelde, Havana, in Spanish 1700 gmt 13 Apr 01.
BBC Worldwide Monitoring/ (c) BBC 2001. 
Quellen:BBC MONITORING INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 
BBC MONITORING AMERICAS - POLITICAL 14/04/2001 
        
        
        
06Apr2001 USA: OLDIES, BUT NOT GOLDEN. 
[FINAL Edition]
The first President Bush pardoned Iran-Contra figures who might have linked
him to that scandal. The second President Bush, however, isn't shy about
reviving interest in those times. In fact, he might be trying to relive
them. George W. Bush wants to send some of the original Iran-Contra players
back into action.
President Bush has nominated Otto Reich to be assistant secretary of state
for Latin America. In the Reagan administration, Mr. Reich ran an office
that secretly pumped out propaganda to build support for the Contras
fighting Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Those with short memories - which old and
new President Bushes must have concluded is most Americans - should remember
that the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran and illegally
diverted the profits to the Contras.
Mr. Reich's job was to plant articles he had ghost-written for supposed
opinion-makers and to browbeat editors whose newspaper, TV or radio reports
said bad things about the Contras. His office, according to a 1987
government report, "engaged in prohibited, covert propaganda activities."
The Reagan Justice Department declined to charge Mr. Reich.
More recently, the Cuba-born Mr. Reich has made his mark by helping to write
the Helms-Burton Act tightening economic restrictions on that island. His
nomination pays back Cuban exiles in South Florida who love Gov. and
President Bush, but it worries the GOP's free-trade wing, which prefers
engagement (and profit) to a policy that has failed for 40 years.
For U.N. ambassador, President Bush wants John Negroponte, a Reagan-era
ambassador to Honduras who somehow forgot to oppose kidnappings, torture and
executions by CIA-backed right-wing death squads in that country. Former
death-squad participants who had been enjoying a kind of sanctuary in the
United States suddenly have been deported, making them unavailable to
testify at confirmation hearings.
What a pair of nominations. Mr. Reich lied to Americans so the government
could carry out illegal covert operations. Mr. Negroponte silently
countenanced human rights abuses that, repeated throughout Latin America,
confirmed the stereotype of brutal Yankee meddlers willing to overlook
murder by any dictator who claimed to be anti-communist.
Aided by the pardons he granted, President Bush's father has stuck to his
claim that he was "out of the loop" on Iran-Contra. His son wants to put the
wrong people from that era back into the loop.
President [George W. Bush] has nominated Otto Reich to be assistant
secretary of state for Latin America. In the Reagan administration, Mr.
Reich ran an office that secretly pumped out propaganda to build support for
the Contras fighting Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Those with short memories -
which old and new President Bushes must have concluded is most Americans -
should remember that the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran
and illegally diverted the profits to the Contras.
Copyright Palm Beach Post Apr 6, 2001 
Quellen:UMI 
PALM BEACH POST 06/04/2001 
        
        
        
06Apr2001 USA: Bush nominees under fire for link with contras. 
By Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles.
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. 
Quellen:GUARDIAN 06/04/2001 P17 
        
        
        
28Mär2001 USA: ONCE A DIPLOMAT ALWAYS A DIPLOMAT, EH, GEORGE? 
[FINAL Edition]
If any doubt still exists that George W. Bush means to move this country
back to the Cold War era, consider this: John Negroponte - his choice to be
our ambassador to the United Nations - is the same man who directed the
secret and illegal arming of Nicaragua's Contra rebels while ambassador to
Honduras from 1981 to '85.
The Iran-Contra scandal, as it came to be known, began under President
Reagan, who arranged for secret sales of arms to Iran in direct violation of
U.S. laws. Profits from the $30 million in arms sales were channeled to the
Nicaraguan right-wing "Contra" guerrillas to buy arms for their fight
against the leftist Sandinista government.
The chief negotiator in those deals was Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.
Mr. Negroponte also has been accused by human rights groups of overlooking,
if not actually overseeing, the activities of Honduran death squads, said to
be torturing and executing political opponents. The death squads were
supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The vice president at the time, father of the White House incumbent, was
suspected of being deeply involved in the arms deal, especially since he was
a former head of the CIA, but nothing was proved.
In December 1992, the elder Bush, then in his last month as president,
issued pardons to a whole slew of government officials who had been charged
or convicted in the arms scandal.
The Los Angeles Times, for one, predicts that there will be fierce
opposition by Democrats and human rights groups to the Negroponte nomination
when it comes before the Senate for confirmation.
But the same newspaper points out that Mr. Negroponte has strong support. He
is a close riend of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is believed to have
handpicked him for the U.N. post.
And then there is this strange turn of events: Reportedly, several former
members of the death squads, men who could have been forced to testify under
oath at the confirmation hearings, suddenly were ordered deported from this
country about the time Mr. Negroponte's name first was mentioned as a
possible U.N. ambassadorial nominee.
The men in question had lived in the United States for years without
incident, but they recently were ordered to return to Honduras.
One of them, Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, went public this month with
details about U.S. support for the death squads.
Mr. Negroponte served twice in ambassadorships - to Mexico and to the
Philippines - since his Honduran term, and nothing came to light during his
confirmation hearings that could have disqualified him. On both occasions,
he denied knowing about any human rights abuses.
Recent declassified documents and disclosures by former death-squad members
now appear to cast doubt on the truthfulness of his denials.
A veteran of 37 years as a foreign-service officer, Mr. Negroponte has been
described by colleagues in a way that could be either a compliment or an
insult.
One former State Department official who worked closely with him in the
1980s may have thought he was praising Mr. Negroponte when he said: "John
doesn't have an agenda. John is not ideological. He believes in nothing."
Other colleagues described him as a dedicated diplomat who did the bidding
of whoever was in office at the time.
His critics see that as being amoral.
Judging from his background, the man strikes me as the type who might say,
"I was only following orders."
Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of an organization called Human Rights
Watch/Americas, has referred to Mr. Negroponte as "the ostrich ambassador.
He never saw anything wrong. He never heard about any serious human rights
violations. It was like he was living in a different country."
It seems as if George W. Bush is taking a calculated risk in nominating Mr.
Negroponte to be ambassador to the U.N.
Surely, he must know that the confirmation hearings would revive the
Iran-Contra scandal.
And certainly, he must realize that his own father's role in that
controversy will be examined again, and this time perhaps with more hard
evidence.
But maybe the Bushes, father and son, felt they owe Mr. Negroponte for
keeping his mouth shut all these years.
George McEvoy is a columnist for The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is
george - mcevoy@pbpost.com
Credit: George McEvoy
If any doubt still exists that George W. Bush means to move this country
back to the Cold War era, consider this: John Negroponte - his choice to be
our ambassador to the United Nations - is the same man who directed the
secret and illegal arming of Nicaragua's Contra rebels while ambassador to
Honduras from 1981 to '85.
Then there is this strange turn of events: Reportedly, several former
members of the death squads, men who could have been forced to testify under
oath at the confirmation hearings, suddenly were ordered deported from this
country about the time Mr. Negroponte's name first was mentioned as a
possible U.N. ambassadorial nominee.
One former State Department official who worked closely with him in the
1980s may have thought he was praising Mr. Negroponte when he said: "John
doesn't have an agenda. John is not ideological. He believes in nothing."
Copyright Palm Beach Post Mar 28, 2001 
Quellen:UMI 
PALM BEACH POST 28/03/2001 
        
        
        
23Mär2001 USA: POLITICS-U.S. - ANTI-CASTRO CONTRA BACKER GETS TOP AMERICAS
POST. 
By Analysis By Jim Lobe.
WASHINGTON, Mar. 23 (IPS) - The nomination by President George W. Bush of
Otto Reich, a Cuban exile who played a controversial role boosting the
Nicaraguan contras, to the State Department's top post for Latin America
marks a major victory for hard-line anti-Castro and other right-wing forces
in the new administration.
They lobbied hard for Reich's appointment as assistant secretary of state
for Western Hemisphere Affairs as payback in part for the role played by
Cuban-American exiles in delivering the critical state of Florida - and,
with it, the election of Bush.
Indeed, the appointment came directly from the White House with only the
most cursory input by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell had previously
favored a career foreign service officer, Donna Hrinak, currently U.S.
ambassador to Venezuela, according to knowledgeable sources.
Although the betting now is that Reich will be confirmed by the Senate, some
key lawmakers have indicated they are prepared to fight to defeat his
nomination.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democrats' unofficial spokesman on Latin America
issues since the contra war during the Ronald Reagan era, has warned that
Reich's policy preferences and past performance could make it very difficult
to forge a bipartisan policy toward the region.
Some business interests whose top priority over the next four years is
negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) have also
expressed fears that Reich's hard-line views toward Cuba and his penchant
for belligerence and pressure tactics could make him a convenient and
high-profile target for forces which oppose such an accord.
Reich, who emigrated from Cuba to the United States in 1960 at the age of
15, has worked most recently as a highly successful lobbyist.
In the mid-1990s, he helped draft the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the
41-year-old trade embargo against Cuba by threatening lawsuits against
foreign firms which acquire an interest in expropriated property there.
One of his most prominent clients is Bacardi-Martini, which was a major
beneficiary of Helms-Burton and has paid him over half a million dollars
over the past several years, according to The New York Times.
Other clients include British American Tobacco (BAT) and Lockheed-Martin,
which lobbied successfully last year to lift a 24-year-old U.S. ban on
introducing advanced warplanes into Latin America and gain permission to
sell a dozen or more top-of-the-line fighter jets to Chile.
But he is chiefly known for his controversial role in the mid-1980s as the
head of the State Department's Office of Latin American Public Diplomacy,
which was set up and run by the White House primarily as a mechanism for
boosting the cause of the Nicaraguan contras in the United States.
The office's operations were described by the General Accounting Office
(GAO), Congress' investigative arm, during the Iran-Contra scandal as
"prohibited, covert propaganda activities" which included writing and
disseminating columns and other material in the name of contra leaders for
publication in U.S. newspapers.
A 1988 staff report by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of
Representatives also found "extensive involvement of intelligence community
personnel" by Reich's office "to establish, maintain and manage private
domestic entities engaged in fundraising, lobbying, propaganda and
manipulation of the media in contravention of U.S. laws and regulations."
At one point, five intelligence experts from the Army's 4th Psychological
Operations Group at Ft. Bragg, as well as veteran Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) officers, were working with Reich on propaganda and related
activities - all of which was banned under U.S. law.
Some of those entities played key roles in the administration's secret
effort to raise private money, particularly from wealthy widows and
far-right funders, for the contras at a time when all U.S. agencies were
barred by law from providing any such support or funding, according to the
staff report.
As the Office's director, Reich also became notorious in press circles for
his angry and vehement calls to editors of media to complain vehemently
about reporting which reflected negatively on the contras. At one point, he
accused National Public Radio (NPR) of acting like "Radio Havana on the
Potomac."
For his efforts, Reich was rewarded with a plum diplomatic post - ambassador
to Venezuela - just as the Iran-Contra investigation was gaining momentum.
While his three-year tenure there was less controversial, media reports
frequently complained of his efforts to press the government of President
Jaime Lusinchi to take a more anti-Sandinista position in the Contadora
peace process.
Declassified State Department cables also show an abiding interest by Reich
in the release from Venezuelan prison of Cuban-American exile, Orlando
Bosch, who was charged with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner
over Barbados which killed all 73 people aboard.
Upon his release and deportation to the United States in 1990,
then-President George Bush pardoned Bosch for terrorist acts of which he was
convicted in a U.S. court in the late 1960s.
Reich's advocates, led by some of the most zealous anti-Castro lawmakers in
the U.S. Congress, insist that he is a seasoned diplomat who will not permit
his strong anti-Communist feelings divert him from other U.S. interests in
the hemisphere, particularly in expanding trade and investment and in
prosecuting the drug war in Colombia and the Andean region.
They point to his service before joining the Reagan administration as
director from 1976-1981 of the Washington office of the Council of the
Americas, a trade group of major U.S. companies with interests in Latin
America.
They also note his representation of some of the country's biggest
corporations, including Lockheed, International Paper, Daimler-Chrysler, and
Mobil Oil as indicative of his sensitivity to business' agenda in the
region.
In addition to his ties to the hard-line Cuban exile community, Reich, who
began his political life as a Democrat, also has friends among
neo-conservatives who are claiming an increasing number of slots at the
second and third tiers in the national security bureaucracies of the
administration.
He serves on the board of directors of several organizations, such as New
York-based Freedom House, which receive government funding to carry out
"democracy-promotion" programs in developing countries and Eastern Europe.
Reich himself headed the Latin America division of the U.S. Agency for
International Development during the first two years of the Reagan
administration.
Reich also is not the only senior appointee whose ties to the contra war are
controversial. Bush's pick for U.N. Ambassador, John Negroponte, served as
ambassador to Honduras when the CIA helped establish contra bases there and
trained special Honduran forces which became notorious for death-squad
operations.
While Negroponte himself was never implicated directly in those activities,
he often insisted that there was no evidence of the existence of death
squads.
(c) 2001 Global Information Network. 
Quellen:GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK 
IPS NEWSFEED 23/03/2001 


        ----------
        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.