Write Your Senator: NO! on Negroponte

John Negroponte was the US Ambassador to Honduras (1981-1985) during the Reagan administration, during which time he was instrumental in overseeing the illegal "contra" revolutionary insurgency against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and "denied or downplayed" serious abuses of human rights by Honduran government and contra military forces. According to Conn Hallinan, "At the time Negroponte was denying human rights violations in Honduras, the military's notorious Battalion 3-16, a secret unit trained by the CIA, and headed by Gen. Gustavo Alverez Martinez, a graduate of the U.S.'s School of the Americas, was kidnapping and murdering opponents of the government."

According to Wikipedia's bio on Negroponte:

Negroponte supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the U.S., and which some critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site.

Andre Couteris of Non-violence International has called Negroponte a "state terrorist." Sister Laetitia Bordes, a Catholic Sister of the Society of Helpers, points to the fact that Battalian 316, the clandestine Honduran death squad, operated with impunity during Negroponte's tenure as Ambassador, and this "was well known to ambassador Negroponte."

Alberto Gonzales's nomination was approved by the Senate on a largely partisan vote, all 36 "no" votes coming from Democrats or Independents. The Senate did not see fit to approve unanimously a man who could justify meaures that could conceivably be construed as "torture." Will they see fit to approve a man who--at the very least--turned a blind eye to murder?

Please, write, call, or e-mail your Senator now and tell them you don't want a man with Negroponte's credentials overseeing not just intelligence gathering, but clandestine operations, abroad and at home, of all American intelligence agencies.