Hardliners against the People
09/05/2005
- Opinión
This United States administration is shamelessly dropping mask that for
many decades covered the real and heinous face of American Imperialism: a
terrorist state, which export terrorism all over the planet.
During the past administrations the methods of controlling and exploiting
overseas geo-economic resources and geopolitical areas were not different
but at least the explanations to justify acts of invasions, coup d’etat
and killings were more intellectually elaborated or were covered up by a
more skillful corporate media or both.
Today the Bush Junior administration has set up in strategic places
persons who were, and still, are directly involved in acts of genocide,
terrorism and crimes against humanity, committed all over the world.
On April 19, 2004, President Bush nominated Ambassador Negroponte to serve
as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. And on May 6, 2004, the Senate confirmed
his nomination.
John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he
supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human
rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the
creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan
Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and
torture center. In August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the
first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who were
killed and buried at this base.
During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became
systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine
military personnel, kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people.
Another international terrorist and fanatic anti-Cuba policymaker is Otto
Reich. He was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal as a result of his
work in Ronald Reagan’s Office of Public Diplomacy.
In 2002, not long after he was reappointed as special envoy to the western
hemisphere, Reich was also nominated to serve on the board of the Western
Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, better known as the School
of the Americas, the U.S. Army’s training ground for Latin American
dictators and world-class human rights violators.
Reich’s successor is another well-known international terrorist with
particular close tight links to the anti-Cuban Miami mafia. Since the
early 1980s, Roger Noriega has played instrumental roles both in Congress
and the White House. In July of 2003, he replaced the controversial Otto
Reich in his current post, as an Assistant Secretary for Western
Hemisphere Affairs.
Noriega has long been an operative for U.S. policies of direct and
indirect intervention abroad. In the late 1980s, he worked in the U.S.
Agency for International Development, where he managed "non-lethal" aid in
Central America. Both the Pentagon and USAID established "humanitarian aid
offices" in 1985 after Congress prohibited U.S. military aid to the
Nicaraguan Contras, based in Honduras, Costa Rica, and in parts of
Nicaragua itself. Much of this aid was delivered to the Contras by
right-wing evangelical and political groups, working closely with the
executive branch. It was later shown that Noriega was directly in charge
of channeling this aid to the Contras-sometimes laundering the aid through
an operative of Colombia's Medellin drug cartel residing in Miami.
Noriega also played a key role in abetting the fall of Haiti's elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in March of 2004. The Center for
Cooperative Research provides evidence that Noriega, who was a vocal
critic of the Aristide government, circulated demands for the removal of
Aristide in the Organization of American States in February 2004. After
the U.S. helped to overthrow President Aristide, Noriega quickly applauded
the ascension of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who came to office
despite the fact that he was living in Florida at the time and was
therefore ineligible for the presidency under Haitian constitutional law.
Amid rampant violence and chaos, Noriega celebrated the overthrow of
Haiti's government, stating to Congress: "Now we can make a new beginning
in helping Haiti to build a democracy that respects the rule of law and
protects the human rights of its citizens."
Following his steps in Haiti, Noriega's latest raison d'étre is the ouster
of Fidel Castro. As the major spokesperson for new measures to tighten the
embargo against the island-outlined in the 2004 Commission for Assistance
to a Free Cuba report-Noriega announced plans "to bring an end to the
regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and to prepare to assist a
post-Castro Cuba".
Noriega has spent years developing rightwing policies to punish Cuba. He
served as Jesse Helms' senior staff member on the Committee on Foreign
Relations that eventually drafted and passed the notorious 1996
Helms-Burton Act. Human rights advocates, international jurists, and
foreign governments have condemned the act for its aim to strangle the
island economically and force other countries to impose the U.S.
blockade.
Nowadays Roger Noriega has a hot potato on his hands. Luis Posada
Carriles, one of his closets friends and the mastermind of 1976 Cuban
airplane blowup over Barbados killing 73 passengers, has entered illegally
in to United States.
Noriega denied any knowledge of Posada’s location but said “we are going
to deal with this in a private, serious and transparent way”.
That is the kind of cynicism that is spread throughout George W. Bush’s
administration.
State terrorism hasn’t changed a bit from the beginning of the imperialism
era, nowadays it is just more explicit and therefore more intolerable.
Two voices in our hemisphere have been raised against these hegemonic
intentions throughout state terrorism. Cuba and Venezuela have spoken
clearly and loudly and they have left a message and example of
sovereignty, self-determination, democracy, freedom and courage worth
following.
https://www.alainet.org/es/node/112007?language=en
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