Robert White:Diplomat who served in El Salvador but angered many by speaking out on human rights abu
Robert White: Diplomat who served in El Salvador but angered many by speaking out on human rights abuses in the country
White's views cost him his career but earned him the respect of many Salvadorans and the vindication of history
Friday 06 February 2015
In 1980, when El Salvador was erupting in guerrilla war and military violence, the Carter administration sent a little-known Foreign Service officer as its new ambassador, hoping he could help the US-backed government find a reformist middle ground. Instead, Robert White became an outspoken critic of the assassinations and massacres being carried out by US-trained military units and private right-wing death squads. His views cost him his career but earned him the respect of many Salvadorans and the vindication of history.
His brief tenure in San Salvador was marked by atrocities such as the assassination of Catholic Archbishop Óscar Romero in March 1980 while he was saying Mass in the national cathedral, and the abduction and killing that December of four American women, two church workers, a nun and a lay missionary.
Whiteworked to promote human rights, economic reforms and political negotiations between leftist rebels and El Salvador's junta. But he found himself at loggerheads with the rightist military and establishment, which had powerful allies in Washington and Miami.
White began denouncing security abuses in diplomatic cables, then in interviews and congressional testimony. He called the right-wing leader Roberto D'Aubuisson a "pathological killer" and accused him of orchestrating the execution of Romero. White also accused the Salvadoran national guard of murdering the four American women, two of whom he had dined with the night before their disappearance. He was there when the women's bodies were dug up, and said angrily, "This time the bastards won't get away with it."
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/robert-white-diplomat-who-served-in-el-salvador-but-angered-many-by-speaking-out-on-human-rights-abuses-in-the-country-10027275.html
