Our man in Baghdad: his gray eminence, John Negroponte

Any lingering doubts that the inmates have taken over the asylum were recently dispelled with the nomination by President George W. Bush (and the virtually unopposed confirmation by Congress) of John Negroponte, as Ambassador to Iraq. Mr. Negroponte is now U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

A man with skeletons in his political closet, Negroponte will be charged with the "pacification" and "democratization" of a nation that has never known democracy and which is now at war with itself -- a case of d�jB vu for the veteran civil servant.

Described as a career diplomat "devoid of convictions, only unflinching loyalty to the body politic," Negroponte is accused of concealing from Congress human rights abuses in Central America. While ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte directed the secret arming of Nicaragua's "contra' rebels and is charged by human rights groups of overlooking a CIA-funded Honduran death squad -- the infamous Battalion 3-16 -- while at his post.

Although Negroponte has vehemently denied any knowledge of the atrocities, declassified documents and disclosures by former death squad members cast doubt on his sincerity. Former embassy colleagues interviewed by this writer affirmed with manifest cynicism that Negroponte, who professes to be a staunch advocate of human rights, was indeed involved in human rights, "but not quite the way he claimed."

A former U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that "dispatches about the human rights situation in Honduras [under Negroponte's watch] were so sanitized that cadres at the embassy in Tegucigalpa joked that they were written about Norway...."

Jos� Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch/Americas, called Negroponte "the ostrich ambassador: He never saw anything wrong. He never heard about any human rights violations. It was like he was living on a different planet."

The hasty expulsion from the U.S. of several former death squad members has also raised question. The men, who had been granted asylum in the U.S. and Canada in exchange for their discretion, were deported to Honduras within days of Negroponte's nomination to the U.N.

One of them, General Luis Alonzo Discua Elvir, who served as Honduras' deputy ambassador to the U.N. until the State Department revoked his visa in 2001, went public with details of U.S. support for the death squad he co-founded.

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Negroponte was "at the center of a clash over deep disagreements we had about the role the U.S. should play in Central America and, more importantly, the way -- often secretive or, at best, unclear -- in which policy was being conducted."

Kerry added that "new information suggests that the U.S. Embassy in Honduras knew more about human rights violations than was communicated to Congress and the public."

Negroponte, a long-time prot�g� of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has spent 37 years in the foreign service. He was an envoy in Vietnam and served as ambassador in Mexico and the Philippines.

In 1981, President Reagan sent Negroponte to Honduras, the "banana republic" Washington commandeered as a base for covert military operations against the leftist Sandinistas who controlled neighboring Nicaragua.

On several occasions Jack Binns, Negroponte's predecessor in Honduras, warned the State Department that violence against political opponents of the puppet Honduran government had been on the rise. He first got the cold-shoulder treatment then was summoned to Washington and reprimanded by Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders for reporting human rights abuses through official channels.

"He [Enders] was afraid it would leak and make it more difficult for us to continue our economic and security assistance to the contras," said Binns, now retired. Binn's stint at ambassador lasted only a year, ending shortly after protesting the violence in Honduras.

At Negroponte's behest, U.S. military aid to Honduras ballooned from $4 million to $77.4 million. He also helped orchestrate a cabal now known as the "Iran-Contra Affair," during which arms were funneled through Honduras to help the contras overthrown the constitutionally elected Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Negroponte looked the other way when atrocities were committed in Central America. In light of recent revelations of prisoner abuse at the hands of U.S. military in Iraq, one wonders what kind of message the Bush administration is sending about human rights by posting Negroponte to represent the U.S in Baghdad. Worse, what kind of message does Mr. Bush send about his own moral values?

W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist on assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in southern California.