US envoy defiant on leaving Nicaragua

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

US envoy defiant on leaving Nicaragua
24 mins ago

http://d.yimg.com.nyud.net:8090/a/p/afp/20091101/capt.photo_1257107263147-1-0.jpg

The US ambassador to Nicaragua, Robert Callahan (L), is
escorted by riot police as he leaves a public university
in Managua, while supporters of Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega stage demonstrations against him, on October
30. Callahan said on Sunday he plans to stay put in the
Central American nation despite violent protests demanding
that he go home.
(AFP/File/Isidro Hernandez)

MANAGUA (AFP) – The US ambassador to Nicaragua said on Sunday he plans to stay put in the Central American nation despite violent protests demanding that he go home for allegedly meddling in domestic politics.

"I am staying here to work as US ambassador (as) we have a strong and constant commitment to the Nicaraguan people," Ambassador Robert Callahan told local media.

"My main job is maintaining good relations with Nicaragua and I will do everything in my power to do so," he added.

Thousands of Nicaraguans pelted the US embassy with rocks and home-made explosives last week, demanding the ambassador be expelled for criticizing a ruling allowing leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election indefinitely.

Ortega's administration issued a statement calling Callahan's comments an "inadmissible" interference in Nicaragua's internal affairs, but stopped short of asking for his removal.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091101/pl_afp/nicaraguapoliticsus

[virgogal]

1. If Ortega hasn't requested his removal he should stay. Tough situation,though.

[EFerrari]

6. This man is a war criminal who worked with Negroponte.

He should not only should not stay, he should be in prison for all the butal deaths that happened on his watch.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Please see previous thread for information on this Bush appointment to Nicaragua:

Nicaragua police evacuate US ambassador to safety from protests
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4126954

He's an old Iran-Contra veteran, a former asst. to death-squad loving Reagan vampire ambassador John Negroponte.

[bertman]

9. "He's an old Iran-Contra veteran, a former asst. to death-squad loving Reagan vampire

Ambassador John Negroponte."

THAT'S WHY HE'S STILL THERE!!!

This is the NEW WORLD ORDER that George HW Bush so fervently espoused. The Military-Industrial-Corporate Complex THROUGH PRESIDENT OBAMA'S AMBASSADORIAL SELECTIONS is sending the message to Central and South America that these indigenous democratic governments are not going to be tolerated.

Same old same old.

For those on DU who are too young to remember, Reagan backed death squads and paramilitaries all over Central and South America as a bulwark against COMMUNISM. Iran-Contra was just one small piece of that gigantic puzzle that allowed right-wing governments and paramilitaries to terrorize, kidnap, and slaughter anyone who tried to help the working classes have any say in their governance.

Rec.

[roody]

3. In the 80s, his strong commitment was to starving the Nicas to death.

[EFerrari]

7. That this administration could possibly put him in Nicaragua

as filthy as he is, is in itself a signal to Latin America and not a good one.

[never cry wolf]

4. A google on his name calls up a DU thread on the guy by SHRED

Robert Callahan is an odd choice for US ambassador to Nicaragua

That is now happening again. The US state department has informed Nicaragua that the new American ambassador here will be Robert Callahan, who was the press attaché at the US embassy in Honduras when that embassy was a nerve centre for the contra war.

In Honduras, Callahan served as spokesman and speechwriter for ambassador John Negroponte. Years later, when Negroponte became director of national intelligence, he brought Callahan along as his public affairs director. It was Negroponte, now deputy secretary of state, who engineered Callahan's recent nomination.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2762794

I know Obama had plenty on his plate, but getting the neo-cons out of the government should be a top priority.

[EFerrari]

8. Latin American leaders are watching this closely and what they see is

Obama leaving in the same old Iran Contra felons.

Negroponte is "advising" Hillary.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Obama should recall this asshole.

He not only interfered in Nicaraguan affairs, he misrepresented them. And he has been engaged in an anti-Ortega, anti-Sandinista psyops/disinformation campaign for some time. He needs to be gone.

And this doesn't even include his history as a terrorist during the Reagan horrors of the 1980s.

The Pukes in Congress are holding up all of Obama's diplomatic appointments in Latin America. I don't know how this Bushwhack appointee fits into that picture, but I think the main issue is the Bushwhack arrangement for seven new US military bases in Colombia, just "signed" by the Bushwhack appointee in Colombia (another dirtbag), that has to be approved by Congress (ours). (The Colombian congress and people have been excluded from these negotiations, as have the other leaders of Latin America, who have strong objections to it, and rightfully fear it.) LOTS AND LOTS of war booty is at issue, as well as (very likely) an oil war plan for South America that Rumsfeld left on the desk and that seems to be proceeding (assets being put into place) of its own volition. This is what the rightwing coup in Honduras is mostly about--securing and probably expanding that very strategically important US air and naval base. Honduras was the launching pad for the Iraq-Contra war and other atrocities in Central America. Mel Zelalya was Honduras' first good president, ever, and one of his proposals was to convert the US air base in Honduras to a commercial airport. The plane that carried him out of the country at gunpoint, last June, stopped for refueling at that very US base, while the US military--tight with the Honduran military--stood down.

Obama has a stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America. The Pukes and warmongers want to sabotage and destroy that policy. Obama really, really needs to get these Bushwhack traitors out of the diplomatic corps, the Pentagon and the CIA. They are cooking up big trouble for him in Latin America, and they need to be stopped. They instigated a white separatist coup in Bolivia just this last September. They almost started a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela in that year (2008). They are harkening to Rumsfeld's call--in a WaPo op-ed of 12/1/07--for "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America, and he did not mean legitimately elected governments; he meant white separatists in Bolivia, the fascists talking of secession in Venezuela and Ecuador (the main oil targets), the golpistas in Honduras and the re-funded and re-organized paramilitary death squads in Nicaragua and everywhere else that the people have managed to elect decent governments.

During the campaign, Obama stated in Miami that he wants to provide "U.S. leadership" in Latin America. He doesn't need to do that. Latin America now has excellent leadership of its own, for the most part. What he needs to do is to prevent the Bushwhacks from destroying that leadership, as the US has done through most of our modern history. Latin Americans have worked hard on their democratic institutions, and have created democratic systems that are responsive to the people. The only exceptions are countries where the US/Bushwhacks have grossly interfered, with infusions of billions of dollars in military aid in support of bad--and in one case, Colombia, truly awful--governments. We need to STOP providing that kind of "leadership"--anti-democratic leadership--and start showing some of that peace, respect and cooperation. We cannot win a war in Latin America against its increasingly united leftist democracies--neither an economic war nor a hot war. And if you want an example of a people unprepared for war who, inspired by democracy, got prepared virtually overnight, you have only to look at the history of the US in WW II. The Bushwhacks need to be curtailed in Latin America before they destroy the change for peace and cooperation.

[Vidar]

10. Our criminal complicity with neocon nonsense continues to deepen.

[IndianaGreen]

11. This fascist pig Callahan is a George W. Bush holdover

just like that other pig we have in Honduras, Hugo Llorens (a Miami gusano!).

[Louisiana1976]

12. That explains it--Obama must not care all that much about Central America--

otherwise, he would have put his own diplomats in Honduras and Nicaragua. It's time Obama fired this Ugly American in Nicaragua.