Architect of Death: Negroponte in Iraq
by Sander Hicks
Broadcast: 4/23/04On Thursday, the White House announced plans to make controversial Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte the United States' ambassador to the new Iraq. Negroponte currently is the US ambassador to the United Nations and will head a Bagdad "super-embassy" with 3,000 employees.
From 1981 to 1985, when Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras, the US-backed Honduran military committed 185 murders. According to a staff assistant, Negroponte suppressed the embassy’s own 1982 report on human rights abuses.
Under Negroponte, US military funding to Honduras went from four to seventy-seven million dollars. The Reagan White House used Honduras as a staging ground for the illegal arming of the Contra rebels.
Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch/America, called Negroponte the "ostrich ambassador," for his willingness to look the other way, making military objectives a higher priority than human rights.
Sander Hicks
Associate Producer
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