Rumsfeld: El Salvador Can Be Iraq Model

From 1979 to 1992, El Salvador suffered a bloody civil war with leftist guerillas that left 75,000 dead in this nation of 6.5 million, where half live in poverty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4610634,00.html

The disappointment that I saw in the faces of Salvadorans the night after the elections was a mirror image of the frustration which Iraqis expressed to me in August of 2003 about the fact that the US occupying forces had not made things substantially better or more secure for them. Imagine the disappointment that Iraqis felt after the US invasion when they saw a large military presence, complete with tanks, defending the Ministry of Oil and not one US soldier defending the hospitals, while looters carried away essential medical equipment and supplies. A similar disappointment was felt in El Salvador last week after the United States administration, through its direct interference in the outcome of El Salvador's elections, failed to defend the principles of democracy. The actions of the United States, in both Iraq and El Salvador, have perpetuated an impoverishment of human rights and true democracy, and yet it seems to me that the people of both countries are resilient and determined to be hopeful. Perhaps this is because they have no other choice but to find hope in the face of the memories of a difficult past and the shadows of an uncertain future. In response, it seems that I, as a US citizen, have no choice but to consider first and foremost not the interests of my own country but rather the well-being and human rights of those whose lives are most dramatically impacted by the policies of my government and the consumerist, individualistic culture which molds these policies.

http://www.counterpunch.org/farrell04052004.html

A CIA-trained and equipped Honduran unit, Battalion 316, kidnapped, tortured, and killed hundreds of Hondurans. A Baltimore Sun expose says that reports prepared by the embassy under Negroponte's supervision "were crafted to leave the impression that the Honduran military respected human rights."

Negroponte even dismissed as 'unfounded' details about Battalion 316's deadly activities by the exiled head of Honduran military intelligence. Death squads in El Salvador killed 40,000 in one year alone, including an archbishop and 32 nuns who were tortured then thrown out of a helicopter.

Now Negroponte will be an imperial proconsul, with all the powers associated with ruling Iraq under military occupation. The embassy, in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, will be the largest ever by any country in the world, with a staff of nearly 4,000. It's a palace of an occupying force, keeping power and profits in 'safe' hands, not an embassy.

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/2004/345/index.html?id=np3.htm

Rumsfeld's visit was en route to a conference of American defense ministers in Quito, Ecuador, next week. A host of issues are expected to be on the table there — from counternarcotics efforts throughout the Americas to the peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

Rumsfeld will also visit Nicaragua and Panama. Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic had troops in Iraq, but they departed earlier this year.

Speaking with reporters on the flight to El Salvador, Rumsfeld said hundreds of insurgent fighters had been killed in the fight for Fallujah, but offered no prediction on when the city would be secured.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1100225942114390.xml&storylist=international