Recently released declassified documents that had been requested by the Senate for the Negroponte hearing were always on Negroponte's mind because they repeatedly articulated a concern over any bad publicity that could becloud his reputation. An undesirable outcome of this kind would have hardened opposition to President Reagan's extremely controversial policy of trying to suck Honduras into the Contra war in exchange for secret bribes to a number of that country's political and military officers, as well as hundreds of millions in U.S. funds being allocated for economic and military assistance programs to the Honduran regime.
Another high-profile case in which Negroponte claims to have intervened was the disappearance of a suspected leftist, Inés Murillo. A number of reports at the time stated that a U.S. Embassy (or perhaps a CIA) official had visited the Honduran torture facility known as INDUMIL, where Murillo was being held and tortured. The daughter of a prominent local family, Murillo's parents were relentless in trying to locate their daughter, even taking out a full-page advertisement in the Honduran newspaper, El Tiempo. Negroponte professedly vocalized concern over Murillo's status, again fearing bad press coverage, and brought up the matter when meeting with Honduran officials. Four days later, Murillo was, in effect, narrowly saved from a certain death when she was publicly sentenced to two years in prison.
Contra Connections
Starting in the early 1980s, Hondurans had become the primary U.S. support base for the Contra war. The Honduran Army provided facilities and logistical support in a swath of territory adjacent to Nicaragua which became known as "Contraland." Honduran channels were also used to funnel U.S. funds to the Contras, without disclosing their source, at a time when such funding to the rebels was prohibited by Congress, but was still flowing from other U.S. funding sources, including the CIA.
During his stint in Tegucigalpa, Negroponte expanded the embassy staff's size ten-fold and it came to house one of the largest CIA deployments in all of Latin America. The same scenario inevitably will be the case in Baghdad once Negroponte initiates his ambassadorship, and presides over what is being touted as the largest U.S. overseas diplomatic mission in the world, with anywhere from one to three thousand personnel being employed there. Hondurans frequently referred to Negroponte as the U.S. "proconsul" of the country, as his arrogant and stealthy style of operating was more like that of an intelligence officer than a traditional diplomat, redolent of his days as a young agent in Vietnam. Utilizing this persona, he was able to guarantee the cooperation of a Honduran base for the Contra rebel army through his domination of compromised local officials and institutions.
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