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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Government Secrecy : International Relations : Iraq : Latin America : Regime |
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Veteran of Dirty Wars Wins Lead US Spy Role |
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by Duncan Campbell
(No verified email address) |
18 Feb 2005
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Written off by Many After His Role in Central America, John Negroponte's Revived Career Hits a New High |
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Honduran Coodinator of COFADEH (Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras) Bertha Oliva poses for a photo, in front of a banner with faces of those deatined and disappeared during the 1980s, after hearing the news that John D. Negroponte was appointed as U.S. intelligence chief, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005. Negroponte was ambassador in Honduras between 1981 and 1985. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
John Negroponte's nomination by President Bush yesterday to be his chief of intelligence represents the pinnacle of rehabilitation for a man who, for many people, will always be associated with US involvement in the "dirty wars" in Central America in the 1980s.
While Mr. Bush has restored to office other figures from that period of American history, none has been promoted to the same extent as the former ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the UN and Iraq.
Mr. Negroponte, 65, was born in London, the son of a Greek shipping magnate who emigrated to New York during the second world war.
After Harvard law school, he began a diplomatic career that has spanned more than four decades and taken in some of the most challenging posts on three continents.
He has described his time as a political officer in Vietnam during the war in the 60s as a "career-defining experience". He only left the diplomatic service for a three-year stint with the New York publishers McGraw Hill, a "sabbatical" which ended when he became the US ambassador to the UN in 2001.
To his admirers, he is a powerful, experienced, charismatic figure of patrician bearing who has earned the trust of successive American administrations, whether they were led by Presidents Reagan, Bush senior or Clinton. He is often described as "the diplomats' diplomat" and credited with a steely determination in negotiations in eight foreign postings. With his wife, Diana, he adopted five children in Honduras.
To his detractors, he is tainted by his time between 1981 and 1985 in Honduras, a country that was being used as a launchpad for the illegal US-backed war waged by the contras against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Honduran military was accused of taking part in torture and extra-judicial killings.
Had Mr. Negroponte reported this to the US Congress, military aid to the country could have been suspended and their cooperation in the war on the Sandinistas might thus have ended.
The Baltimore Sun re-investigated the US actions there in 1995. One former Honduran congressman, Efrain Diaz, told the paper that the attitude of Mr Negroponte and other US officials at the time was "one of tolerance and silence".
"They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed."
For their cooperation with the US, the Honduran government had its military aid increased from $4m to $77m a year. Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch has accused Mr Negroponte of "looking the other way when serious atrocities were committed".
Last year, Mrs Negroponte told the Washington Post that the Honduras accusations made in the media were "old hat" and added: "I want to say to those people: Haven't you moved on?"
Mr Negroponte's career has moved certainly on. When he was appointed by Mr Bush to be ambassador to the UN in the summer of 2001, he was subjected to lengthy questioning about how much he knew of the atrocities being committed during his time in Honduras, but the senate debate on the issue was cut short by September 11. Mr Negroponte's appointment was speedily confirmed in the haste to fill the post.
Politically, he is seen as a conservative, although he is not regarded as being as far to the right as the hawkish neo-cons in the Bush administration.
He was regarded as being closer ideologically to the former secretary of state Colin Powell, and was even spoken of in some circles as a potential successor to the post now held by Condoleezza Rice.
Last year he was given the difficult task of being the US ambassador to Iraq, which made him the head of the biggest diplomatic staff in the world, some 900 people.
It was a role that came to fruition with the recent elections, which he has made clear he regards as a major success.
In an opinion article which appeared in the Guardian this month, co-authored by George Casey, the commander of multinational forces in Iraq, Mr Negroponte wrote: "Although the heroic vote for freedom here in Iraq was humbling, it did not surprise us. Since the transition to Iraqi sovereignty seven months ago, we have seen daily manifestations of Iraqi courage and determination. Once again, as in South Africa, El Salvador and Ukraine, democracy proved stronger than fear."
He praised "the journalists who chronicled this victory of ballots over bullets" and noted the "Herculean and indispensable efforts of American servicemen and women."
Now the man whose diplomatic career many had regarded as finished five years ago is about to become one of the most powerful figures in the United States.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk |
See also:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0218-10.htm
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Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Intelligence Nominee Comes Under Renewed Scrutiny on Human Rights |
by Scott Shane
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Current rating: 0
19 Feb 2005
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ASHINGTON, Feb. 18 - Human rights advocates repeated longstanding criticisms on Friday of John D. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee as director of national intelligence. They said accusations that he covered up abuses as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980's had a new importance after recent cases of American abuse of detainees.
In Honduras, Mr. Negroponte "looked the other way" when evidence of rights violations came to light, said Reed Brody, counsel to Human Rights Watch.
"Unfortunately," Mr. Brody said, "today the United States is involved in serious human rights crimes committed in the process of collecting intelligence. Is he just going to look the other way again?"
Sandra Coliver, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights law center in San Francisco that has aided Honduran torture victims, said the nomination would hurt the United States' image in Central America.
"In Central America," Ms. Coliver said, "Negroponte is indelibly remembered for his role in increasing the amount of U.S. aid to the Honduran military at the very time that the military's role in supporting brutal death squads was becoming abundantly clear. What kind of a message will this appointment send to the people of Central America? That the U.S. is willing to overlook massive human rights atrocities in the name of collecting intelligence in pursuit of U.S. national interests."
Mr. Negroponte, 65, now ambassador to Iraq, is a career diplomat who has worked all over the world in his 40-year career. He has faced repeated scrutiny for his work as envoy to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when Honduran military units, some trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, carried out kidnappings, torture and killings.
As the first director of national intelligence, Mr. Negroponte would oversee the C.I.A. and the other 14 agencies that are part of the nation's estimated $40 billion spying enterprise. The post is the centerpiece of intelligence reorganization undertaken chiefly because of the failure to warn of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The C.I.A. and military are also under intense scrutiny because of evidence that detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere have been tortured in questioning and in a few cases have died in custody. Questions have also been raised about whether the intelligence agency has handed over prisoners to third countries, where they might be tortured.
At confirmation hearings for previous posts, Mr. Negroponte has adamantly denied that he tolerated or covered up any abuses.
He said at a hearing in 2001 that his top priority as envoy to Honduras was "encouraging Honduras's return to civilian democratic rule, including protection of human rights."
Efforts to contact Mr. Negroponte through the State Department were not successful.
He has won easy confirmations in the past, and the Honduras record is not likely to be a major obstacle to his confirmation in the new position.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was not particularly troubled by Mr. Negroponte's record there.
"People grow and change over 20 years," Mr. Rockefeller said, adding that the panel would conduct a "thorough" review of the nominee.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who pursued the Honduran questions in 2001, when Mr. Negroponte was confirmed as delegate to the United Nations, issued a statement on Thursday praising him and not mentioning Honduras.
Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee, described Mr. Negroponte in a telephone interview as "a person who has a great deal of credibility." Jack R. Binns, who preceded Mr. Negroponte as ambassador to Honduras, said he opposed the confirmation because he believed that Mr. Negroponte had misled Congress in past testimony and because he might slant intelligence to suit administration policies.
"Based on his performance in Honduras, there's that possibility," said Mr. Binns, who was ambassador from 1980 to 1991 and is now retired and living in Arizona.
Oscar Reyes, whom the Honduran military seized in 1982 and tortured along with his wife, Gloria, said he was dismayed to learn of Mr. Negroponte's nomination.
"He'll say, 'I didn't know,' " said Mr. Reyes, 69, who now publishes a Spanish-language newspaper in Washington. "But the U.S. embassy knew everything that was going on."
Douglas Jehl contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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