"Robert White, 88; criticized policy on El Salvador as US ambassador" by Pamela Constable, Washington Post January 25, 2015
WASHINGTON — In 1980, when El Salvador was erupting in guerrilla war and military violence, the Carter administration sent a little-known Foreign Service officer into the maelstrom as its new ambassador, hoping he could help the US-backed government there find a reformist middle ground and prevent a full-scale revolution.
Instead, Robert E. White became an outspoken critic of assassinations and massacres being carried out by US-trained military units and private death squads.
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His brief tenure in San Salvador was marked by atrocities that became synonymous with right-wing violence during an era of ideological conflicts in Central America: the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in March 1980, and the abduction and killing that December of four US women — two Maryknoll sisters, an Ursuline sister, and a church worker.
Mr. White denounced the abuses in diplomatic cables, interviews, and testimony.
By 1981, after the election of Ronald Reagan as president ushered in a new era of anticommunist fervor, Mr. White’s days as ambassador were numbered. He was removed from his post less than two weeks after Reagan took office. He soon retired from the Foreign Service after a 25-year career....
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"Sister Ann Keefe, beloved R.I. activist; at 62" Associated Press January 25, 2015
PROVIDENCE — Residents of Providence and state officials are remembering Sister Ann Keefe of St. Michael the Archangel Church as a dedicated and beloved community activist who advocated for peace and social justice.
Roman Catholic Church officials said Sister Keefe died last Sunday at her South Providence home from brain cancer at 62.
Governor Gina Raimondo, US Senator Jack Reed, Mayor Jorge Elorza of Providence, and other officials praised her for her extraordinary commitment to peace, justice, and the poor.
Sister Keefe was noted for fighting gang violence with the Providence-based Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, her work with children in the arts education program Providence CityArts for Youth, and her efforts with a variety of other groups.
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Others are heroes for standing against such things.
"Ex-spy chief wanted in Colombia for wiretaps surrenders" Associated Press February 02, 2015
BOGOTA — The former head of Colombia’s intelligence agency ended several years on the run and surrendered to face charges of spying on opponents of former president Alvaro Uribe.
Maria del Pilar Hurtado late Friday turned herself over to authorities in Panama, where she fled in 2010. She was taken on a predawn flight to Bogota, where a judge ordered her to be jailed at the chief prosecutor’s office while charges are considered.
Chief prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre said he would urge Hurtado to cooperate and reveal ‘‘who gave the order for the illegal wiretapping.’’
The accusations against the spy chief threaten to further tarnish the legacy of Uribe, for years the United States’ staunchest ally in Latin America and credited with crushing leftist rebels once dominant across large swaths of the country.
Hurtado has never implicated the former president in any wrongdoing. As head of the now-defunct DAS spy agency, she oversaw a scandal-ridden institution whose agents seemed unrestrained in their use of illegal wiretaps to monitor politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and even Supreme Court justices who opposed the former conservative leader.
Good thing AmeriKa doesn't have a DAS of any sort (I'm thinking NSA and the explanation of why the government is so dysfunctional).
Dozens of DAS officials, including one of Hurtado’s predecessors, have been convicted of illegal spying and providing assistance to right-wing paramilitary death squads....
U.S.-supported and trained.
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Related: War Crimes Court
