[CIMC-work] Fw: Call Senate on Negroponte Nomination as US Ambassador to Iraq!

[nscchicago]

Tom Baker here FORWARD FOR ACTION

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathy" <kathy at afgj.org>
To: "Nicaragua Network Hotline" <nicanet-hotline at afgj.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 2:24 PM
Subject: Call Senate on Negroponte Nomination as US Ambassador to Iraq!


> ACTION ALERT!
> John Negroponte's Iraq Nomination Being Rushed Through
> Senate Committee
> Call Senators Now to Demand a Full Investigation
> Negroponte is the "Worst Man for the Job"
>
> Career diplomat John Negroponte has been nominated by
> President Bush to be US Ambassador to Iraq.  He would head
> the largest US 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 US 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 US, and
> Canada.
> ? Negroponte has served as US ambassador to the United
> Nations since September 2001 during the run-up to the US
> 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 has scheduled a
> rushed hearing on the nomination for Thursday, April 29,
> 2004.  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. If one of your Senators is on
> the Foreign Relations Committee, call and demand a
> thorough hearing and rejection of Negroponte's nomination.
>  If neither of your Senators are on the committee call
> both Senators anyway and tell them to demand that Chairman
> Lugar and Ranking Member Biden conduct a full hearing and
> reject the "worst man for the job."
>
> For a good background piece just released by the Council
> on Hemispheric Affairs, visit:
>
www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.20_Negroponte.htm
>
> Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 108th Congress:
> Chairman: Richard G. Lugar (IN ? R) (202) 224-4814
> Ranking Member: Joseph R. Biden (DE ? D) (202) 224-5042
> Chuck Hagel (NE ? R) (202) 224-4224
> Paul S. Sarbanes (MD ? D) (202) 224-4524
> Lincoln Chafee (RI ? R) (202) 224-2921
> Christopher J. Dodd (CT ? D) (202) 224-2823
> George Allen (VA ? R) (202) 224-4024
> John F. Kerry (MA ? D) (202) 224-2742; Campaign Hdqts:
> (202) 712-3000
> Sam Brownback (KS ? R) (202) 224-6521
> Russell D. Feingold (WI ? D) (202) 224-5323
> Michael Enzi (WY ? R) (202) 224-3424
> Barbara Boxer (CA ? D)  (202) 224-3553
> George V. Voinovich (OH ? R) (202) 224-3353
> Bill Nelson (FL ? D) (202) 224-3353
> Lamar Alexander (TN ? R) (202) 224-4944
> John D. Rockefeller IV (WV ? D) (202) 224-6472
> Norm Coleman (MN ? D) (202)-224-1152
> Jon S. Corzine (NJ ? D) (202) 224-4744
> John Sununu (NH ? R) (202) 224-2841
>
> 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 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 documentation that 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?
>
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