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Oversendes uten kommentar.
Trond Andresen
********************
>Labour Left Opposition - http://CLC_LO.listbot.com
>
>A nun recalls meeting Bush's proposed ambassador to the UN
>
>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 in
>1996 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.
>282 Shoreview Avenue
>Pacifica, CA 94044
>Tel. (650) 359-6635
>e-mail lbordes@jps.net
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