MB Civic

Go to Article
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/38/9448

From the archives … Since we’re hearing from John Negroponte these days – evidently he’s taking issue with the newly leaked National Intelligence Estimate that says the Iraq War has increased the risk of terrorist attacks – I believe a little perspective is in order. Mr Negroponte is a Yes Man from way back.

The National Catholic Reporter, which had covered the right-wing persecution of Catholic clergy in Central America during the ’80s, was one of the few publications still questioning Negroponte’s fitness.

In an April 2004 article, the magazine recounted a statement from Society of Helpers’ Sister Laetitia Bordes, who had gone to Honduras and approached Negroponte about the “disappearances” of 32 women who had fled to Honduras after rightist death squads in El Salvador assassinated Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980.

Later, these women, including one who had been Romero’s secretary, “were forcibly taken from their living quarters in Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared,” Sister Laetitia Bordes said. “John Negroponte listened to us as we exposed the facts. … Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the U.S. embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government.”

The National Catholic Reporter noted, “Years later, the Baltimore Sun would reveal that Negroponte apparently knew more than he was letting on. In fact, charge his many critics, the ambassador oversaw an exponential increase in military aid to the Honduran army, deceptively downplayed human rights violations, and played a key role in supporting the activities of Battalion 316, a CIA-backed Honduran-based regional counterinsurgency unit subsequently found to be among the cruelest of the cruel.”

Down the memory hole…
-MAB