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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Government Secrecy : International Relations : Iraq : Latin America : Regime |
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The Negroponte File: John Negroponte's Chron File from Tenure in Honduras Posted |
Current rating: 0 |
by National Security Archive
(No verified email address) |
13 Apr 2005
|
Human rights -- what human rights? Negroponte has a giant blind spot for human rights.
Close Relations with Honduran Military,
Contra "Special Project" Against Nicaraguan Sandinistas
Dominated Cable Traffic |
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2005: As the Senate Intelligence Committee convenes to consider the nomination of John Negroponte to be Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Archive today posted hundreds of his cables written from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa between late 1981 and 1984. The majority of his "chron file" -- cables and memos written during his tenure as Ambassador -- was obtained by the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were actually declassified at Negroponte's request in June 1998, after he had temporarily retired from the Foreign Service.
The 392 cables and memos record Negroponte's daily, and even hourly, activities as the powerful Ambassador to Honduras during the contra war in the early 1980s. They include dozens of cables in which the Ambassador sought to undermine regional peace efforts such as the Contadora initiative that ultimately won Costa Rican president Oscar Arias a Nobel Prize, as well as multiple reports of meetings and conversations with Honduran military officers who were instrumental in providing logistical support and infrastructure for CIA covert operations in support of the contras against Nicaragua -- "our special project" as Negroponte refers to the contra war in the cable traffic. Among the records are special back channel communications with then CIA director William Casey, including a recommendation to increase the number of arms being supplied to the leading contra force, the FDN in mid 1983, and advice on how to rewrite a Presidential finding on covert operations to overthrow the S!
andinistas to make it more politically palatable to an increasingly uneasy U.S. Congress.
Conspicuously absent from the cable traffic, however, is reporting on human rights atrocities that were committed by the Honduran military and its secret police unit known as Battalion 316, between 1982 and 1984, under the military leadership of General Gustavo Alvarez, Negroponte's main liaison with the Honduran government. The Honduran human rights ombudsman later found that more than 50 people disappeared at the hands of the military during those years. But Negroponte's cables reflect no protest, or even discussion of these issues during his many meetings with General Alvarez, his deputies and Honduran President Robert Suazo. Nor do the released cables contain any reporting to Washington on the human rights abuses that were taking place.
Today's posting by the National Security Archive includes the complete series of cables released under the Freedom of Information Act. The State Department released another several dozen cables from the series yesterday, and these will be included on the Archive site later today.
THE NEGROPONTE FILE: Part 2
Additional Papers Posted on "Special Project"
Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005: As John Negroponte faced questioning today about his activities in Honduras during the contra war, the National Security Archive posted additional documents from his chron file as ambassador. The documents, part of a large file of 470 cables obtained by the Washington Post through the FOIA, provide a virtual day-to-day record of Negroponte's unique tenure as ambassador, as he secured Honduran military, logistical and political support for the controversial CIA paramilitary campaign to overthrow the Sandinista government.
Follow the link below to read the complete Negroponte chron file:
http://www.nsarchive.org |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Cables Show Central Negroponte Role in 80's Covert War Against Nicaragua |
by Scott Shane
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Apr 2005
|
WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of newly released cables that John D. Negroponte sent to Washington while serving as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980's show that he played a more central and assertive role than previously known in managing the United States' covert war against Nicaragua's leftist government, which he called "our special project."
The cables show that Mr. Negroponte worked closely with William J. Casey, then director of central intelligence, on the Reagan administration's anti-Communist offensive in Central America. He helped word a secret 1983 presidential "finding" authorizing support for the contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels were known, and met regularly with Honduran military officials to win and retain their backing for the covert action, the documents show.
The cables add details to the public picture of Mr. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee to be the first director of national intelligence, as a tough cold warrior who enthusiastically carried out President Ronald Reagan's strategy. They show he sent admiring reports to Washington about the Honduran military chief, who was blamed for human rights violations, warned that peace talks with the Nicaraguan regime might be a dangerous "Trojan horse" and pleaded with officials in Washington to impose greater secrecy on the Honduran role in aiding the contras.
The documents, part of Mr. Negroponte's State Department file, were declassified at Mr. Negroponte's request in 1998 and made public as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post, which reported on them Tuesday. They were posted by the National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University, on its Web site a few hours before Mr. Negroponte's Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday.
The documents appear to lend some support to the contention of Mr. Negroponte's critics that he did little to protest human rights abuses by Honduran military units blamed for abductions, torture and murder. Mr. Negroponte and some of his fellow diplomats have maintained that he worked behind the scenes against such abuses, but the cables make few references to the issue.
In fact, after a meeting in October 1983 with the head of the Honduran military, Gen. Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, who was widely held responsible for human rights abuses at the time, Mr. Negroponte reported to Washington that General Álvarez was misunderstood.
Remarks General Álvarez made to him during a plane ride were "reflective of his commitment to constitutional government," Mr. Negroponte reported. The general's critics, he wrote, were misled by "a stereotype" or "sheer ignorance." About six months later General Álvarez was forcibly removed from power by other military officers who accused him of dictatorial tendencies, a move that took American officials by surprise.
At Mr. Negroponte's confirmation hearing Tuesday, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said that even though the events in Honduras took place more than 20 years ago, Mr. Negroponte's record there raised questions about his suitability for the new job.
Mr. Wyden said Mr. Negroponte's failure to highlight human rights abuses suggested a tendency to shade his reporting to suit presidential policies.
"It looks like to me you saw things through an administration-colored lens," Mr. Wyden said. "I hope you can convince me that when you brief the president, the president is going to get all the facts."
Mr. Negroponte vigorously defended his record in Honduras. "I certainly believe that my comportment was always absolutely legal and entirely professional," he said.
Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismissed the questions about Honduras as "an issue of 25 years ago" with little relevance to the intelligence job.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, noted that Mr. Negroponte and his wife adopted five Honduran children, which he said showed his "compassion" for the Honduran people.
Peter Kornbluh, a Latin America specialist at the National Security Archive who edited the documents for the Web and wrote accompanying comments, said he believes the documents show Mr. Negroponte was "not an honest broker" in reporting on Honduras.
"This is a truly see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude," Mr. Kornbluh said.
The cables suggest that on occasion, Mr. Negroponte's brazenness in pursuing what was supposed to be a covert action raised eyebrows among his diplomatic colleagues.
In one message to Mr. Negroponte, the American ambassador to Nicaragua, Anthony Quainton, gently scolded him for playing host to Adolfo Calero, political leader of the contras, at a dinner in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
Mr. Quainton wrote, "I have my doubts about a dinner at the residence for a man who is in the business of overthrowing a neighboring government."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/ |
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We Must Not Move On |
by Paul Laverty
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Apr 2005
|
The trouble about writing fiction is that I spend too much time in a room by myself. On occasions I wonder if I'm going nuts, or whether, just maybe, my quiet fury is a normal reaction from an average human being. On Sunday, much to my delight, Universal brought out a new DVD of Carla's Song, written by me and directed by Ken Loach, set against the backdrop of the US-financed war during the 1980s in Nicaragua, where I once worked for a human-rights organisation. The team at Universal were genuinely enthusiastic and worked their pants off to pull it all together. Along with the new director's cut is a glossy booklet with photographs and excerpts from the introduction to my screenplay, written in 1996. I was on a film set when I got word that the text was going to print and I only had 10 minutes to glance over their summary. I faxed a one-paragraph postscript and that is when the trouble started.
Despite the best efforts of the young man at Universal to get my postscript in, he was informed by lawyers that they could not risk it. My agent received a phone call from a lawyer saying what I had written was deemed to be "contentious and inflammatory". I asked for a copy of the opinion but was told that it was "verbal". I asked who counsel was, and on what basis they reached their opinion. Not a squeak. Deadline passed. Postscript gone.
Here is the offending paragraph: "The man who was at the centre of the US experiment to tear Nicaragua apart in the 80s was Mr John Negroponte, once US ambassador to Honduras. He claims to be unaware of any US human rights abuse in Nicaragua or El Salvador during this time. In January of 2005 he was appointed head of national intelligence by George Bush Jr. Each morning he should have no difficulty spotting a terrorist."
Although many continue to question how much Negroponte knew during his time in Honduras, his political rehabilitation has been marked. Last year, he was given the testing position of US ambassador to Iraq, making him head of the biggest diplomatic staff in the world.
David Corn, a US journalist, wrote in detail about Negroponte: "While he was in Honduras and for years afterwards, Negroponte refused to acknowledge the human rights abuses. In a letter to the Economist he said it was 'simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras'." Corn asks him to account therefore for a CIA report that states: "The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned" and linked to "death squad activities". He also quotes from a Baltimore Sun series from 1995: "Time and time again... Negroponte was confronted by evidence that a Honduran army intelligence unit, trained by the CIA, was stalking, kidnapping, torturing and killing suspected subversives."
Honduras was bribed and bullied by the US to host the Contras, who were fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Negroponte, as ambassador, was the local cheerleader taking his instructions from Washington. Every serious human rights organisation conducted detailed investigations within Nicaragua at this time, and while the Sandinistas came in for some heavy criticism too, all revealed widespread and systematic abuse by the Contras, much of it directed at civilians.
Two memories still haunt me. We got a report one night of a Contra attack on a cooperative. In the chaos, a young woman was shot and couldn't run. Her parents somehow got away to the safety of a trench, only to hear the Contras in the near distance torturing their daughter. They found her dead in the ditch the next day with her breasts cut off. Incidents like this peppered the entire war.
I also interviewed a young Contra who had been captured by the Sandinistas. He told me he had been involved in many ambushes. While staring out of the window he drifted off into a terrifying reverie and with an imaginary knife in hand, he swished it back and forth, describing how he finished off those lying wounded from an ambushed vehicle.
Almost 20 years on, his face keeps coming back to mind. So too does the image of Negroponte in his new office at national intelligence, in charge of 15 agencies with a multi-billion-dollar budget to seek out terrorists around the world. I'm sure they never met, and suspect the former's butchery would be roundly condemned in diplo-speak by the latter. Can I ask the outrageous question: "What is the difference between those two men?" One has no name and is long forgotten, one of many thousands of illiterate campesino teenagers who did the dirty work on flesh with knives, and wreaked havoc on themselves and their neighbours. The other is a highly trained Yale graduate, a polyglot promoted by Kissinger after he learned Vietnamese, who went on to be US ambassador to the UN, Iraq, and now head of national intelligence, whose only weapon is a pen and a microphone. Kofi Annan, in the UN headquarters, called him "a great diplomat and a wonderful ambassador". So who am I in my tiny room to call Negroponte a human rights denier, and a champion of teenage mutilators?
I am reminded of that wonderful perception by the American philosopher John Dewey who once said: "If you want to establish some conception of a society, go find out who is in gaol." Perhaps, in these times, it should be updated by adding "...and who obtains high office."
In my fantasy, I imagine the ghost of Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty, turning in his grave at the CIA kidnapping their terror suspects in Europe and dumping them in client states for vicarious torture; new US attorney general Alberto Gonzales advising Bush that some elements of the Geneva conventions are "obsolete"; US general Ricardo Sanchez's memo authorising new interrogation techniques that violate the Geneva conventions; subcontracting of interrogation by private US contractors in Iraq; and UK ambassador Craig Murray, fired from his post in Uzbekistan for "operational reasons", who coincidentally took up the case of a mother whose son was boiled alive in detention, and who further claimed MI6 had used information gained by torture passed on by the CIA. Torturers are on the march; some have muscle and plastic gloves, others have expensive educations to chip away at legal convention, and most insidious of all, the wordsmiths, who "soften up" public opinion with "sleep manipulation".
In my continuing dream, Peter Benenson comes back from the grave carrying a little symbol of the scales of justice wrapped up in barbed wire, with a Milan Kundera quote underneath: "The struggle against power is the struggle against forgetting." He calls on us to set up a sister organisation to Amnesty, perhaps Memory International, one that uses the power of public opinion and ordinary decency, not just to follow the fate of the prisoner, but to monitor and challenge the other side of the equation: not the abused, but the "abuser", whether that be the head of the detention centre, the manufacturer who sells the electric batons or, most important of all, their political champions in high office who make their dirty work possible, but never mess their own suit.
Negroponte told his critics last year that allegations against him were "old hat". He said: "I want to say to those people: haven't you moved on?" Not an inch, Mr. National Intelligence Director. I remember.
Paul Laverty is a screenwriter; his films include Ae Fond Kiss and Sweet Sixteen.
© 2005 Guardian Newspapers, Ltd.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ |
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John Negroponte: Ignorant, Incompetent, or Just a Liar? |
by via email
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
14 Apr 2005
|
From FAS's Secrecy News:
NEGROPONTE: CLASSIFICATION IS GOING DOWN
In his Senate confirmation hearing to be the first Director of
National Intelligence, Ambassador John Negroponte made the strange
assertion that government secrecy is declining.
In response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Negroponte said
"the trend in my lifetime has been to reduce the level of
classification" (noted by the Washington Post and quoted by The New
Republic).
One may strain to find an element of truth in this remark. In the
course of Mr. Negroponte's more than six decade lifetime, many
things that had been highly classified have downgraded to a lower
level of classification or declassified altogether -- the workings
of the atomic bomb, high-resolution satellite imagery, the aggregate
intelligence budgets for 1997 and 1998, etc.
Even so, Amb. Negroponte's statement reveals a disappointing lack of
awareness of the steady expansion of classification activity over
the past several years, and its adverse impact on government
performance.
In intelligence agencies in particular, classification policy has
become "dysfunctional," Porter Goss, the current Director of Central
Intelligence, told the 9-11 Commission in 2003.
More broadly, "The federal government set a new record for keeping
secrets in 2004, during which government employees chose to classify
information a record 15.6 million times," according to an analysis
by the public interest coalition OpenTheGovernment.org. See:
http://www.openthegovernment.org/article/articleview/130/1/68/
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to
secrecy_news-request (at) lists.fas.org
with "subscribe" in the body of the message.
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Secrecy News has an RSS feed at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.rss |
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