NYT: Intelligence Nominee Comes Under Renewed Scrutiny on Human Rights

[DeepModem Mom]

Intelligence Nominee Comes Under Renewed Scrutiny on Human Rights
By SCOTT SHANE

Published: February 19, 2005


WASHINGTON, 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."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/politics/19intel.html

[merwin]

1. IMHO, he was hired to take care of that pesky insurgent problem.

Probably the same way as in Central America.

[jpgray]

2. I hope everyone is mailing/calling the crap out of their congresspeople

This asshole shouldn't get in without a fight.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. He didn't 'look the other way'

he was knee-deep in blood. He was staring right at it saying 'good job boys'. Negroponte was in charge of the on the ground end of the Reagan administration's 'suppression' efforts in central america.

What do the appointments of Gonzoles Negroponte and Chertoff say about what direction the bush adminstration thinks things are going to go inside the USA?

[Supersedeas]

5. the blood of innocents is on my hands in the Bush junta

[IndianaGreen]

6. Like you said, he was a major player in human rights abusers

more importantly, his appointment as the head of the new American NKVD spells dangers for all of us.

[Toots]

4. The US is not done with Central and South America

There will be much more death in their future. The US brings death and misery everywhere it goes.

[struggle4progress]

7. Washington leaks that death squads are back in fashion -- and ...

... (as if by magic) Elliott Abrams is named deputy national security advisor and John Negroponte is named intelligence czar.

:grr:

US death squads resurface
http://www.spectator-online.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/03/420316ad7fa2d