[The U.S. Senate must reject Abrams’ nomination. Diplomacy
should be guided by individuals who prioritize human rights,
transparency and accountability, not by those who have enabled
atrocities. ]
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BIDEN’S NOMINATION OF ELLIOTT ABRAMS IGNORES A VIOLENT PAST  
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Marc Rosenthal
October 16, 2023
The Progressive
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_ The U.S. Senate must reject Abrams’ nomination. Diplomacy should
be guided by individuals who prioritize human rights, transparency and
accountability, not by those who have enabled atrocities. _

, Shutterstock

 

In the 1980s, I witnessed the devastating impact of U.S.-sponsored
violence
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innocent civilians during humanitarian and solidarity trips to El
Salvador. The scars of that dark period, which the United States have
never formally taken responsibility for, still haunt the people of El
Salvador today. Now, four decades later, we have an opportunity to
hold Elliott Abrams—a chief architect
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that conflict—to account for the atrocities he helped create and
cover up. 

Abrams was recently nominated
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President Joe Biden to chair the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public
Diplomacy, a public relations post whose goal is to shape
international perceptions about the United States. It’s appalling
that Abrams, a former member of the Trump and Reagan Administrations,
can still be seen as a respectable candidate for any public office,
much less one that’s involved with diplomacy. It is still not too
late, however, for Congress—the same body that Abrams lied to about
the Iran-Contra Affair—to correct course by showing him the door. 

One of the most glaring stains on Abrams’s record is his involvement
in the El Mozote Massacre
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horrifying atrocity during which around 1,000 innocent civilians,
including 195 children, were brutally killed. 

Having witnessed the atrocities as a nurse documenting human rights
abuses for the United Nations in 1985, I can attest to the
heart-wrenching reality of the systematic pattern of torture,
disappearance and assassination that unfolded in El Salvador. Bodies
were left in the streets as a gruesome means of terrorizing the
populace. 

El Mozote, we soon learned, was only a part of a much larger campaign
to drive rural communities from their homes. The Salvadoran and U.S.
military strategy, which Abrams had helped formulate, was to drain the
sea to kill the fish.

Abrams shamefully dismissed
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reports as mere communist propaganda before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on February 8, 1982. In the Salvadoran civil
war, 75,000 lives
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lost. In 2019, he described U.S. policy during this time in El
Salvador as a “fabulous achievement
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Abrams’ troubling track record does not stop there. He faced legal
consequences for withholding information from Congress in 1986 during
the Iran-Contra affair, an act that raises serious doubts about his
honesty and trustworthiness.

Three years before, Abrams had lent support
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the Guatemalan military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, who was
later convicted
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genocide and crimes against humanity during the Guatemalan civil war.
Adams’s advocacy was crucial in ending the weapons embargo that had
been instituted
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the Carter Administration in response to Montt’s human rights
record—making him complicit in a legally-defined genocide. 

Additionally, his stance against an independent Palestinian state,
coupled with advocacy for Israeli expansionist policies and illegal
settlements in the West Bank, reveals a consistent pattern of
disregard for human rights and international law. Abrams has also
played a role in some of the most destructive foreign policy decisions
and wars in Venezuela
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We must call for accountability. The U.S. Senate must reject Abrams’
nomination. Diplomacy should be guided by individuals who prioritize
human rights, transparency and accountability, not by those who have
enabled atrocities committed by foreign governments.

Nominations often entail political considerations, but I implore Biden
to rise above partisanship. Upholding the integrity of U.S. diplomacy
means appointing individuals committed to peace and human rights. We
can no longer compromise on these principles. It’s time to put our
values first and ensure that the voices of those most affected by
U.S.-sponsored violence do not go unheard.

_Marc Rosenthal is a retired ER Nurse who has been involved in
international solidarity for over fifty years. He is a co-founder of
the U.S.-El Salvador Sister City Network._

_This column was produced [[link removed]] for
Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and
distributed by Tribune News Service._

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech._

_Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we publish on national politics,
culture, and events including U.S. foreign policy; we also focus on
issues of particular importance to the heartland. Two flagship
projects of The Progressive include Public School Shakedown
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to resist the privatization of public education, and The Progressive
Media Project [[link removed]], aiming to diversify our
nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. _

* Elliot Abrams
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* El Salvador
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* Guatemala
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* Ronald Reagan
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* Human Rights
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