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Dems Ignore Negroponte's Death Squad Past, Look to Confirm
Iraq Appointment
"This Is The Massacre, The Holocaust That We Are Seeing
In Fallujah" - U.S. Bombards Iraqi Town
Damascus Gunbattle Kills Four After Bombing In Diplomatic
Quarter
Cheney Secrecy Case: Is the Supreme Court Allowing the US
to Turn Into an Elected Dictatorship?
Dems Ignore Negroponte's Death Squad Past, Look to
Confirm Iraq Appointment
At a Senate hearing on the appointment of John Negroponte
to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Negroponte was never questioned
about supporting widespread campaigns of terror and human
rights abuses as ambassador to Honduras. We speak to a priest
and a nun who lived in Latin America in the early 1980s as
well as a human rights activist who disrupted Negroponte at
the Senate hearing.
Yesterday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings
on President Bush's nominee for US ambassador to Iraq John
Negroponte and reports from Capitol Hill indicate that he
is now on a fast-track for Senate confirmation. The vote could
come as early as Friday.
If confirmed Negroponte will head up the largest US embassy
in the world, with more than 3,000 employees and over 500
CIA officers. Despite what some would call Negroponte's infamous
history in Central America as US ambassador to Honduras during
the 1980s, he has come up against almost no Congressional
opposition, even from Senate democrats who once criticized
him for supporting widespread human rights abuses.
As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in
coordinating US covert aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua
and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras. During
his term as ambassador there, diplomats alleged that the embassy's
annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like
Norway than Argentina. In a 1995 series, the Baltimore Sun
detailed the activities of a secret CIA-trained Honduran army
unit, Battalion 3-16, that used "shock and suffocation
devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked
and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked
graves." In 1994, Honduras's National Commission for
the Protection of Human Rights reported that it was officially
admitted that 179 civilians were still missing.
A former official who served under Negroponte says he was
ordered to remove all mention of torture and executions from
the draft of his 1982 report on the human rights situation
in Honduras. During Negroponte's tenure, US military aid to
Honduras skyrocketed from $3.9 million to over $77 million.
Much of this went to ensure the Honduran army's loyalty in
the battle against popular movements throughout Central America.
Despite Negroponte's history, Democrats have not offered
any organized resistance to his nomination. In fact some observers
described yesterday's hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee as a love fest. Sen. Chris Dodd who opposed Negroponte
when the committee reported his nomination to be U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations in 2001, has now come out in support
of him, saying, "Whatever differences I've had years
ago with John Negroponte, I happen to feel he's a very fine
Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many
places."
- Senator Chris Dodd, speaking at the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearings on John Negroponte.
While most Democrats either praised Negroponte or refused
to raise his past record, some of the toughest questioning
came from Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. But
he did not question Negroponte on Central America, but on
Iraq.
As Negroponte, responded to Hagel, he was interrupted by
an activist, Andres Conteris of Non-violence International.
- Andres Conteris, is program director for Latin America
and the Caribbean for the human rights group Non-violence
International. He disrupted yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing on John Negroponte's appointment as US
ambassador to Iraq.
- Father Joe Mulligan, is a Jesuit priest who has been
based in Nicaragua for the past 18 years. He has been one
of the main activists trying to determine what happened
to American priest James Carney, who disappeared in Honduras
in 1983. He has met John Negroponte.
- Sister Laetitia Bordes, a Catholic nun with the Society
of Helpers, a Catholic community of women. She is talking
to us from San Bruno, California.
"This Is The Massacre, The Holocaust That We
Are Seeing In Fallujah" - U.S. Bombards Iraqi Town
US aircraft and artillery bombarded Fallujah yesterday in
one of the heaviest assaults of the Iraqi town since the US
siege three weeks ago. We go to Fallujah to get a report from
a journalist embedded with U.S. troops and we speak with CorpWatch's
Pratap Chatterjee, recently returned from Iraq, about Iraqi
resistance, private military contractors and the kidnapping
of his cameraman. US aircraft and artillery bombarded the
Iraqi town of Fallujah yesterday in one of the heaviest assaults
of the resistance stronghold since the US siege three weeks
ago. In an intensive uses of firepower by US forces, artillery
barrages were accompanied by the deployment of a heavily armed
AC-130 gunship.
US commanders besieging the town said the assault was in
response to several breaches of the local ceasefire. Tuesday
night's bombardment was shown live on television networks
around the world, including al-Jazeera, which is seen widely
in Iraq and throughout the Arab world.
There is no word yet on casualties in the town, which lies
30 miles west of Baghdad. Guerillas in Fallujah didn't turn
in their heavy weapons by yesterday's deadline, but the U.S.
says it still doesn't plan on a full-scale attack.
It was the second time in two days that they had used the
AC-130, a converted cargo plane nicknamed Spooky or Specter
which spews concentrated cannon and machinegun fire over the
ground. U.S. officers said an AC-130 killed some 64 Shiite
militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr
at Kufa, near the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq.
A spokesman for Sadr told the London Guardian: "[The
Americans] are agitating the situation. Mr Sadr demands that
the occupation should end all over Iraq. The Americans hate
him because he refuses to bargain with them."
- Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor correspondent.
He joins us on the phone from Fallujah where he has been
embedded with US troops for the past several days.
- Pratap Chatterjee, managing director of CorpWatch.org.
He just returned from an extended period in Iraq.
Damascus Gunbattle Kills Four After Bombing In Diplomatic
Quarter
At least four people were killed yesterday in an unprecedented
clash between Syrian police and a team of bombers in the Syrian
capital of Damascus. We speak with British journalist and
Syria expert Patrick Seale who says, "It is not clear
whether this was a failed attempt at something bigger, or
in fact it was something bigger, which has since been covered
up."
At least four people were killed yesterday in an unprecedented
clash between Syrian police and a team of bombers in the Syrian
capital of Damascus.
Gunmen attacked a former United Nations office in a diplomatic
quarter of Damascus, setting off a battle with police that
pelted nearby buildings with bullets and grenades. The Syrian
government said two of the attackers, a policeman and a civilian
were killed in the fighting.
Syrian officials are implying Islamic militants were responsible
for the incident and state TV has shown video of weapons including
rocket-propelled grenades it said were from a cache used by
the bombers.
Violence is almost unheard-of in Syria where the ruling Baath
party tightly controls any dissent.
In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood staged a rebellion in the
northern province of Hama. During the clashes, Syrian forces
razed much of the city, killing as many as 10,000 people,
crushing the Brotherhood after a five-year war.
Last month, Syria about 30 people were killed in clashes
between Syrian Kurds and police after a soccer match brawl
in the northern town of Kameshli escalated.
- Patrick Seale, British journalist who has covered the
Middle East for over 30 years specializing in Syria. He
is the author of Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East.
Cheney Secrecy Case: Is the Supreme Court Allowing
the US to Turn Into an Elected Dictatorship?
The Supreme Court hinted yesterday it will allow Vice President
Dick Cheney to keep secret papers from his energy task force.
In yesterday's New York Times Paul Krugman argued this would
mean the Bush administration has cretaed an "elected
dictatorship: a system in which the president, once in office,
can do whatever he likes, and isn't obliged to consult or
inform either Congress or the public."
The Supreme Court heard long-awaited arguments yesterday
on a White House effort to keep private the records of Vice
President Dick Cheney's energy task force, which developed
the administration's energy policies in 2001.
Three years ago the groups Judicial Watch and the Sierra
Club sued for the right to make public the notes from the
group's meetings but the Bush administration has refused to
despite orders from lower federal judges.
The groups contend that Cheney's task force was not a purely
governmental body but took heavy input from energy-industry
lobbyists who were deeply involved in formulating federal
policy and therefore must disclose its deliberations.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes: "Cheney's
determination to keep his secrets probably reflects more than
an effort to avoid bad publicity. It's also a matter of principle,
based on the administration's deep belief that it has the
right to act as it pleases, and that the public has no right
to know what it's doing."
Krugman continues, "What Mr. Cheney is defending, in
other words, is a doctrine that makes the United States a
sort of elected dictatorship: a system in which the president,
once in office, can do whatever he likes, and isn't obliged
to consult or inform either Congress or the public."
- Solicitor General Theodore Olson, addressing the Supreme
Court on April 27, 2004.
- Paul Orfanedes, attorney for Judicial Watch explaining
the merits of the case and being questioned by Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens on April 27, 2004.
- Tom Fitton, president of Judicial
Watch, one of the two plaintiffs in the lawsuit along
with the Sierra Club.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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