Our Man in Baghdad:
John Negroponte, The Man & the Mission
By Jessica Pupovac

When Paul Bremer bid his Iraqi mistress adieu, packed his bags and prepared to get the hell out of Bagdhad, George W was suddenly forced to reach far into their bag of tricks in search of a candidate who could possibly be capable of filling his boots. Where would they find a diplomat who could manage the largest embassy in the world with the prowess, cunning and skill necessary for such a task; a diplomat who understands what “democracy promotion” Bush-style is all about; a diplomat who wouldn‘t be tempted to leave Baghdad in search of the simple life and a killer white sauce? In what might be one of his more clever and brazen moves since coining the term “misspoke,” -- he named one John Dimitri Negroponte.

It was a nomination that effectively stunned the peace and justice movement into silence. Concerned Americans responded with “what?,“ “huh?,“ and the usual email campaigns, but were ultimately unable to penetrate the lock-step obedience of the Senate, which approved him by a 95 to 3 in less than 3 weeks. Deciding once again that “unity” and speed are more valuable than thoughtful debate, they failed to review the unique credentials Negroponte brings to the position and in doing so made a selection that speaks volumes about the US’ true intentions in Iraq.

Kissinger’s Apprentice

One of Negro Ponte’s first forays into diplomacy was in the US embassy in Saigon, where Henry Kissinger saw great potential in the young aspiring emissary and brought him along to the Paris peace talks. The two reportedly had a scuffle over the terms of the peace accords, however, which Negroponte considered to be too soft.

During his time in Vietnam, he is rumored to have played a key role in implementing the Phoenix Program, a secret campaign of torture and murder that claimed the lives of some 20,000 suspected Vietcong sympathizers, according to CIA estimates.

The USS Honduras

Negroponte is most notorious, however, for his work in Central America, where he arrived in 1981 to serve as Ambassador to Honduras. In four short years, he transformed his post from being nothing to write home about to the seat from which the Reagan administration ran it’s battle for it‘s version of “democracy” (a.k.a. unbridled free market capitalism enforced with an iron fist) in the region.

Honduras shares borders with Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, all countries that were then in the throes of bloody civil wars, spurred by a rise in social movements and guerilla factions responding to the region’s colonial legacy of disparity and marginalization. The US government, very interested in maintaining the status quo, containing leftist ideology and maintaining hegemony, transformed Honduras into a platform for counter-insurgency efforts in the region -- “the USS Honduras - a stationary aircraft of sorts.” During Negroponte’s term and under his tutelage, military aid to the country skyrocketed from $4 million in fiscal 1980 to $77.5 million in 1984. The embassy in Tegucigalpa became one of the largest in all of Latin America, employing 116 members and overseeing the construction of several new US airfields and base camps.

Democratic Principles

One of those bases was El Aguacate, the site of a mass grave exhumation in 2001. The remains of close to 200 people were found there, two of whom were missing US citizens. Many Hondurans believe that the base was used as a secret torture and detention center in the eighties and a place to bury the victims of the death squad known as the “Batallion 316.” The Batallion 316 was formed by a close friend and ally of Negroponte’s, General Gustavo Alvarez.

Although Honduras itself never had a guerilla movement to speak of, great lengths were taken to ensure that anyone who might be a “communist” sympathizer be stopped (labor union leaders, journalists, academics and civil rights activists, among others). Decree 33, passed in May 1983, made the work of the Batallion semi-legitimate, declaring a “terrorist” anyone who distributed political literature, associated with foreigners or joined groups deemed subversive by the government. “They followed, arrested and executed people who just thought differently,” recalled Honduran attorney general Edmundo Orellana in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. The Sun investigation also found that the Batallion used “shock and suffocation devices in interrogation.“ “Prisoners often were kept naked and when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.” COFADEH, the Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared, registers at least 300 people murdered at the hand of the state during this era and 184 disappeared.

For this, Reagan awarded Alvarez the “Legion of Merit” for his work in “encouraging democracy,” at Negroponte’s recommendation.

Information Management

Not even the Honduran army supported the work of Alvarez and his secret police force. Many of his colleagues considered him to be Uncle Sam’s lapdog and openly denounced the violence and repression taking place in Honduras. The abuses did not go unnoticed in the Honduran press, either, which reported on military abuses almost every single day. Civil society also responded with weekly demonstrations, at times marching right up to the US Embassy. Honduran officials and groups such as COFADEH report meeting with Negroponte and finding him cold and uncooperative.

Negroponte, however, had the audacity to tell a very divergent story to the press, to the US Congress and even to the Honduran people, whose personal experiences were otherwise. He reported to The Economist that it is “simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras” and to Honduras’ El Tiempo that “Democracy is being consolidated in this country. The armed forces have supported that process.” The 1982 human rights report on Honduras that he submitted to Congress asserted that “there are no political prisoners in Honduras,” that “no incident of official interference with the media has been recorded for years,” and that “student, worker and peasant and other interest groups have full freedom to organize and hold frequent public demonstrations without interference.” It is difficult to imagine that he could have seen these statements as anything less than bold-faced lies.

Junior-level official Rick Chidester, a staff member at the Embassy assigned to compiling human rights data, claims that his reports that the documents were significantly altered before being submitted to Congress, making them look more “like the human rights report from Norway.”

The “Contra Cashier”

So integral was Negroponte’s role as the “Contra Cashier” in the Iran-Contra affair that the New York Times credits him with single-handedly “carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Niaragua.”

In early 1984, two US mercenaries, Thomas Posey and Dana Parker, contacted Negroponte, wishing to supply weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras in an effort to violently overthrow their government. Despite the 1983 Boland Amendment, declaring any support of the Contras illegal because of their horrible human rights record, Negroponte connected them with people who could get the job done. He also helped funnel cash, training and intelligence to the Contras and provided them with a safe haven inside the Honduran border.

Backed by such substantial US support, the Contras were able to unleash a wave of terror against the civilian population in Nicaragua that makes members of Al-Queida look almost civilized. Edgar Chamorro, a former Contra leader, published a letter in the New York Times on January 9, 1986, exposing this sordid relationship:
During my four years as ’Contra’ director, it was premeditated policy to terrorize civilian noncombatants to prevent them from cooperating with the government. Hundreds of civilian murders, tortures and rapes were committed in pursuit of this policy, of which the Contra leaders and their US superiors were well aware.
The World Court found the US guilty of “state-sponsored terrorism” in the Iran/Contra affair.

LIFE AFTER HONDURAS

Negroponte’s next assignments included directing the State Department’s response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, trying in vain to keep US troops in the Phillipines and Panama, and promoting US business interests abroad, particularly in the energy industry.

As Ambassador to Mexico from 1989 to 1993, he was “intimately involved” in the creation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The treaty has been shown to have a detrimental affect on the environment and the poor both north and south of the border, while expanding corporate privileges and profits.

After Mexico, he retired from diplomacy and finally plunged full-time into the corporate world, working with McGraw-Hill Publishers as Vice-President of Global Markets. George W tapped him the week after September 11 for the position of US Ambassador to the UN. There, he was able to contribute to the fudged case for attacking Iraq and to the downfall of the US’ standing in the international community.

Upon his nomination to the UN, many death squad veterans previously living in the US enjoying impunity for their war crimes were deported, including Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, Commander of the Batallion 316. His visa revoked, he publicly claimed to have information linking our man to the death squads’ activities. Unfortunately, when the Senate confirmation hearings commenced, Elvir was far, far away.

Hello, Iraq

In January 2004, London’s The Guardian reported that the Pentagon had approved a secret police force in Baghad and budgeted $3 billion for it’s creation. The secret force will draw from Iraqi exile groups and former mukhabarat agents (the notorious secret police forces under Saddam), already skilled in the art of intimidation and torture. Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counter-terrorism reported that “They’re clearly cooking up joint teams to do Phoenix-like things, like they did in Vietnam.” The idea, as in the Phoenix program, the Contra project, and the creation of the Batallion 316, is to scare the civilian population out of supporting the opposition -- without trial, without due process, without proof of any wrong, and with torture, extra judicial killings and intimidation. What that amounts to is the absolute prevention of the “democracy“ we are ostensibly there to secure.

Enter John Negroponte. Sure, he does not speak Arabic or have any experience in the Middle East. But, he does have vast experience in subverting other countries’ democratic institutions, overseeing clandestine military operations on multiple fronts, covering up human rights violations, laughing in the face of federal and international law and establishing open season for US business interests and corrupt military dictatorships willing to sell out their country for personal gain. And, he has gotten away with all of it unscathed. He’s just the man for the job.

“It is difficult for me to accept that he is a free man,“ explained Chicago-based Honduran activist Alexy Lanza, “and what is even more difficult is that he can be named Ambassador to the UN. But naming such a man Ambassador to Iraq is simply perverse.” His placement is a major insult to all of those in Central America who suffered during his time there, it is a clear sign of the US’ true intentions in Iraq of establishing geo-political dominance, and it is a warning to all in Iraq who dare oppose the occupation in their words, thoughts or deeds.