[CTRL] American Death Squad Blows Away Justice

[William Shannon]

http://www.thespleen.com/politics/xspleennation/index.php?artID=378 American Death Squad Blows Away Justice This week The New York Times ran a very brief Reuters report stating, "Forensic researchers have uncovered the remains of 15 people at a former American base used to train the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s." One might wonder why this was not reported more widely, since it involved U.S. facilities, but perhaps a more important question is why this was not contextualized as another reminder that the United States turned a blind eye to -- if not directly supported -- the murders of leftists in Honduras. And the man who by press accounts is directly responsible for hiding this information, John D. Negroponte, is Shrub's nominee to be ambassador to Honduras. No Non-War Criminals Need Apply It's not unusual for Americans not to pay attention to the United Nations, especially to the ambassador. Given that we will actively fight against U.N. resolutions, refuse to participate in peacekeeping missions and hold back the dues we owe, it's hard to imagine why we would care who shows up to represent us. On the other hand, we should care that the Shrub administration is determined to employ people who we thought we had gotten rid of in the early 1990s, men and women who embarrassed this country in the eyes of the world. In the case of Negroponte, we are going to be sending a man to the United Nations who likely lied to his own country about human rights -- the issue we have attacked China and other countries for. Are You on the Abuse or Off the Abuse? In 1989 Senate testimony, according to Stephen Kinzer in The New York Review of Books, Negroponte said there was no evidence that the Honduran military acted as a death squad. Unfortunately, says Kinzer, "The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asserted in 1988 that 'there were many kidnappings and disappearances in Honduras from 1981 to 1984 and that those acts were attributable to the Armed Forces of Honduras.'" Kinzer notes that a 1998 CIA report "suggests that diplomats at Negroponte's embassy were discouraged from reporting these abuses," which was also indicated in an article earlier this year in The New Republic. Reagan Honduras Ambassador Jack Binns, according to Sarah Wildman's report, says he not only saw human rights abuses in 1980 and 1981, but he reported them to Washington. According to Wildman: A few months and several urgent cables later, Binns was summoned to Washington to meet with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders, who told him to keep human rights violations out of his official reports and to restrict such information to undocumented back channels. "The rationale given to me by Enders," says Binns, "was that he was afraid this information would leak if it were reported in official channels and make it much more difficult to get funding from Congress." Not long after the meeting, Binns was replaced by Negroponte, for whom he left a briefing book that detailed human rights abuses in the country. For more on Honduras in the 1980s, check out this report on the National Security Archive Web site. We will undoubtedly hear in the coming weeks that Negroponte is a "good man," and to Republicans like George W. Bush he is. A "good man," in this context, is someone who takes orders and keeps his mouth shut. The Bushes, from poppy on down, prize this -- lest anyone have to know anything that might seem troubling. Another example of this is the Reagan papers, which again are being held hostage by the White House so they can "review the many constitutional and legal questions raised." What this undoubtedly means is that the administration fears the embarrassment that further evidence of long-discredited, illegal policies like the contra war -- which Hondurans were casualties of -- will cause to many members of the Bush inner circle. As well, the White House is terrified that poppy's records will be released in 2005. A successful fight against the release of the Reagan papers means Bush I's records can remain forever sealed. The Right's Right; the Left's Left for Dead But what's embarrassment when compared to people's lives? Kinzer reports that at least two Americans are believed to be among Honduras's disappeared. Similarly, at least two Americans are known to have been among those killed after Augusto Pinochet took power in Chile, and while there is considerable evidence that American officials -- at the very least -- knew what happened to them, our government refuses to play a role in achieving justice in the case. (Click here to check out the National Security Archive's collection of Horman files.) A judge in Chile wants to question Kissinger about the Horman abduction and plans to send a list of questions to the State Department. Now, the administration may not have all its personnel in place, but I believe it has requisitioned the trash cans it intends to file these queries in. If the U.S. ignores the Chilean case about one of its own citizens murdered abroad, this should be considered a crime. As Reuters notes, "State Department reports declassified last year show that U.S. intelligence officials may have tacitly helped in Horman's abduction." Where is our concern for human rights now? Well, it depends on which humans we're discussing. If you're talking about religious freedom, you better be a Christian trying to convert Muslims, not the other way around. And if you're a freedom fighter, you better be a reactionary rather than a left-wing freedom fighter. The United States is willing to leave other countries alone and allow them to perpetrate murder and human rights abuses -- as long as the beneficiaries are on the right.