[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Oppose Negroponte appointment-Al please forward to AWARE

[Al Kagan]

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>X-Sender: a-fields at express.cites.uiuc.edu
>Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:21:05 -0500
>To: UCProgressives at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>From: Belden Fields <a-fields at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Oppose Negroponte appointment-Al please forward to AWARE
>Cc: sf-core at yahoogroups.com
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>	The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is being pressured to 
>support the appointment of John Negroponte, presently UN ambassador 
>for the US, to be the ambassador to Iraq.  This is a terrible 
>appointment.  Negroponte was the US ambassador to Honduras during 
>the time that the US, in cooperation with the Argentine military 
>during its "Dirty War" dictatorial period,  was training the 
>anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan on Honduran soil.  Many framers were 
>displaced from the border area.  Honduras was run by the U.S. 
>embassy, the CIA, and General Gustavo Alvarez who was on the CIA 
>payroll.  Those who opposed this arrangement were "disappeared". 
>The US-trained Battalion 316, the Honduran Special Investigations 
>Directorate, was an especially vicious death squad.  The 
>Inter-=American Court to Justice of the OAS has found the government 
>of Honduras guilty of obstructing investigations into the deaths of 
>4 of Battalion 316's many victims.  Negroponte was the center of all 
>of this activity, yet continues to deny that death squads were 
>operating in Honduras.  The people of Iraq do not deserve this man 
>who is likely to act the role of potentate in their  country just as 
>he did in Honduras.
>	The only reason that Negroponte was approved as ambassador to 
>the UN was because Bush pushed it through two days after 9/11.  Now 
>he is trying to get it through on a fast-track schedule claiming the 
>Iraq appointment requires urgency.  Hearings in the Senate Foreign 
>Relations Committee began today.  Bush's supporters are trying to 
>get it approved by the committee by the end of this week.
>	It is urgent that people contact members of the Senate 
>Foreign Relations Committee to let them know that they oppose the 
>appointment.  It must be done right away.  The members of the 
>committee I would urge people to contact are Senators: Richard 
>Lugar, Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, Russell Feingold, Barbara 
>Boxer, Bill Nelson, Paul Sarbanes, Chuck Hagel, Jon Corzine, and Jon 
>S. Corzine, and John Kerry.  I would also contact our own Senator, 
>Dick Durbin, who is not on
>the committee.
>	This is easy to do.  Just go to Google and type in the name 
>of the Senator--e.g. Senator Joseph Biden.  On the home page there 
>will a written "contact us."  That will open up the form for 
>e-mailing or calling the  senator's office.  You can type a short 
>message each time or write one message and cut and paste it on each 
>e-mail.  There is no time for letters via snail mail.  It needs to 
>be phone calls or e-mails.
>	I can't stress who serious this appointment is.  Before being 
>stationed in Honduras, he did his dirty work in Vietnam.  His 
>appointment to the UN was both appalling and a sign of contempt by 
>this administration for that organization.  His nomination for the 
>ambassadorship to Iraq is a sign that the US intends to control that 
>country the way they controlled tiny Honduras.  We can't let that 
>happen.
>Thanks,
>Belden


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu