Rewarding the Dark Side:
CIA Praises Dubious Accomplishments of Former Central America Station Chief
By Jack Healey
Prizes for human rights work in the West for westerners are few and far between, as it should be. If any, they usually are saved for the victims of human rights abuses who survived and came back from the graves and suicides. The Nobel Peace Prize goes to organizations that stand for the victims, the disappeared, the medically wounded and the abused civilians in wars. The Nobels also go to individuals for great human rights activism like Sean Mac Bride, Bishop Tutu and Elie Wiesel. These are strong people who represent the best in all of us and who saved many a life with their extraordinary behavior. Other awards like the R.F. Kennedy, Reebok and Carter/D'Menil bring light and attention to the wounded and the weak and highlight international unseen conflicts.
During the Reagan years, I was the Executive Director of Amnesty International in the USA. I had the responsibility of representing the thousands and thousands of innocent people being killed in that period in Central America, among others. The death toll in conservative terms reached three hundred and fifty thousand people, mostly of the Central American Indian population. This death count occurred within the two terms of President Reagan. American backing for those doing the massive amount of the killings, disappearances and torture went to over a million dollars a day. The deaths of the six Jesuits in the middle of the capitol of El Salvador woke the average American up to the reality of the killing squads of our American allies. It was a real shame that it took these six American deaths instead of the thousands of Central Americans to do that, but we human rights people will take any edge we get from this kind of terrible tragedy. Edges count in human rights work.
To feel the depth of the agony and pain of Central America today, one needs a comparison to fully grasp the past. For instance, in the Vietnam Warn the US suffered 59 thousand deaths from our population of over 250 million. This war still haunts our soldiers, and us and brings us over and over to our monuments for those who died. The death toll in Guatemala and El Salvador was roughly 350,000 out of 17 million in their wars. It means that 2% of the population was lost. If we Americans had lost the same ratio in Vietnam as did the citizens of Central America, it would have meant the loss of 5 million soldiers. This gives one a sense of the breadth and length of what Central America went through and how long it will take to get over this trauma, given our unforgettable experience with the Vietnam War over 25 years ago.
All this to say that the Central America station chief of the CIA is just about to receive an award from that institution for his work in Central America in this deathly time frame. The Washington Post cited this story in an article by Vernon Loebon and followed it with another article on March 14 by Tom Blanton. It brought back my memories of dealing with Elliot Abrams, the Asst. Sect. of State for Human Rights re the human rights issues of that administration. Abrams not only did not stop shipments shock batons to apartheid South Africa, he also arranged the funding pattern for those doing the most damage in Central America. He and Dick Chancy, the Secy. of Defense said that they were not clear re who killed the Jesuits in San Salvador and they took their good old time in admitting that their allies did the killings.
My suggestion is that these governmental awards by the CIA might be for those who support the dark side of what our government does and is proud of the results. These award winners would accept fall responsibility for what they did, or did not do, in the name of the American people. Thus, this CIA award to their Central American Station Chief would then be fair arid appropriate. I would then support the CIA and its chosen agent for this dark award. In fact, we could name it after him or some other deserving dark sider.�
By Jack Healey
Prizes for human rights work in the West for westerners are few and far between, as it should be. If any, they usually are saved for the victims of human rights abuses who survived and came back from the graves and suicides. The Nobel Peace Prize goes to organizations that stand for the victims, the disappeared, the medically wounded and the abused civilians in wars. The Nobels also go to individuals for great human rights activism like Sean Mac Bride, Bishop Tutu and Elie Wiesel. These are strong people who represent the best in all of us and who saved many a life with their extraordinary behavior. Other awards like the R.F. Kennedy, Reebok and Carter/D'Menil bring light and attention to the wounded and the weak and highlight international unseen conflicts.
During the Reagan years, I was the Executive Director of Amnesty International in the USA. I had the responsibility of representing the thousands and thousands of innocent people being killed in that period in Central America, among others. The death toll in conservative terms reached three hundred and fifty thousand people, mostly of the Central American Indian population. This death count occurred within the two terms of President Reagan. American backing for those doing the massive amount of the killings, disappearances and torture went to over a million dollars a day. The deaths of the six Jesuits in the middle of the capitol of El Salvador woke the average American up to the reality of the killing squads of our American allies. It was a real shame that it took these six American deaths instead of the thousands of Central Americans to do that, but we human rights people will take any edge we get from this kind of terrible tragedy. Edges count in human rights work.
To feel the depth of the agony and pain of Central America today, one needs a comparison to fully grasp the past. For instance, in the Vietnam Warn the US suffered 59 thousand deaths from our population of over 250 million. This war still haunts our soldiers, and us and brings us over and over to our monuments for those who died. The death toll in Guatemala and El Salvador was roughly 350,000 out of 17 million in their wars. It means that 2% of the population was lost. If we Americans had lost the same ratio in Vietnam as did the citizens of Central America, it would have meant the loss of 5 million soldiers. This gives one a sense of the breadth and length of what Central America went through and how long it will take to get over this trauma, given our unforgettable experience with the Vietnam War over 25 years ago.
All this to say that the Central America station chief of the CIA is just about to receive an award from that institution for his work in Central America in this deathly time frame. The Washington Post cited this story in an article by Vernon Loebon and followed it with another article on March 14 by Tom Blanton. It brought back my memories of dealing with Elliot Abrams, the Asst. Sect. of State for Human Rights re the human rights issues of that administration. Abrams not only did not stop shipments shock batons to apartheid South Africa, he also arranged the funding pattern for those doing the most damage in Central America. He and Dick Chancy, the Secy. of Defense said that they were not clear re who killed the Jesuits in San Salvador and they took their good old time in admitting that their allies did the killings.
My suggestion is that these governmental awards by the CIA might be for those who support the dark side of what our government does and is proud of the results. These award winners would accept fall responsibility for what they did, or did not do, in the name of the American people. Thus, this CIA award to their Central American Station Chief would then be fair arid appropriate. I would then support the CIA and its chosen agent for this dark award. In fact, we could name it after him or some other deserving dark sider.�
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