Attacks and Controversy Surround Bush's Latin American Nominees

 
Many Latin American advocacy groups and activists in the United States are in a campaign mode against two Bush administration nominees. The targets are Otto Reich, nominated for assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, and John Negroponte, Bush's pick for UN ambassador.

Critics characterize the proposed appointments as "a threat to the Latin American community." They point to the nominees' past records, charging that during Negroponte's term as US ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s he "abetted and covered up human rights crimes" and was "a zealous anti-Communist crusader in America's covert wars against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the FMLN rebels in El Salvador." As ambassador to Venezuela, the same critics argue, Reich "played a central role in the deeply divisive policies and the domestic propaganda his office allegedly generated to support the Reagan administration's Central American policies in the 1980s."

Such charges have been voiced more loudly since the US was dropped from the UN Human Rights Commission, a development which some observers characterize as reflecting "a legitimate international dissatisfaction with present US foreign policy." Opponents of Negroponte's appointment have urged a letter-writing campaign to press President Bush to "humbly reconsider this nomination and other foreign policy that has left the US with fewer international friends than ever." They cite press reports, such as allegations in the New York Times that Negroponte used his diplomatic position in Honduras to "carry out the covert strategy of the Reagan Administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"; Los Angeles Times reports that he is accused of "overlooking-if not actually overseeing" CIA-sponsored Honduran death squads; and charges in the Baltimore Sun that Negroponte's subordinate Rick Chidester was ordered to omit "substantial evidence of abuses by the Honduran military" from the embassy's 1983 human rights report. "Negroponte's appointment as US ambassador to the UN would further reflect an arrogant diplomatic insensitivity by the US," such groups maintain.

The effort to block the Negroponte and Reich appointments is part of a larger campaign among Latin American advocacy groups to discredit US foreign policy toward Latin America. Their position includes rejection of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas, as well as support for Plan Colombia. The campaign received a major boost from a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece by former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Oscar Arias. The April 29 article, entitled "A Nominee Who Stands for War," argues that "given the importance of the role of the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, many of us in Latin America are surprised and disappointed by George W. Bush's nomination of Otto J. Reich for this post. Reich headed the Office of Public Diplomacy, which was closed down by Congress in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal because it had, to quote official investigations, 'engaged in prohibited covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public.'" Arias expresses concern that Reich "will cling more closely to the Reagan model than that of the former Bush administration�.His involvement in the Office of Public Diplomacy until 1986 demonstrated his allegiance to the Reagan administration's hawkish policies toward Central America. The purpose of his office was none other than to get the American people to side with war over peace, using propaganda methods determined to be 'improper.'"

Arias argues that Latin Americans have a right to comment on the US nomination process, since the position in question has more of an impact on their region than on the US itself. Most of Arias's arguments uphold the criticisms of US groups, but also echo attitudes expressed by some sectors of the US business community, especially his statement that Reich's "unwavering support for the long-running and unproductive embargo against Cuba" is an example of his "poor fit" with the interests of hemispheric cooperation." The anti-Castro, pro-embargo position that Reich represents will fuel arguments about Bush's seriousness in promoting a free market stance on trade. Pointing to the Cuban embargo is another way to highlight the uneven US policy on trade liberalization, along with the more standard complaints of misuse of anti-dumping legislation and food subsidies.

The Reich confirmation hearings should bring an interesting mix of opinions from social and business lobbyists. In an April 24 Reuters article, Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations cited a "disconnect" between rhetoric and action on Latin America in the Bush administration. Bush has yet to obtain fast-track trade negotiating authority, and his appointment to top posts of Reich and Roger Noriega, both perceived as hard-liners, is unlikely to foster bipartisan consensus, she noted.

Infighting in the confirmation hearings could continue to damage US efforts to reach out to Latin America. It certainly will draw out many of the issues that will spark heated debate in the "trade promotion authority" discussion still to come.