News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 23/11/05 |
Who is Janet Sanderson, Haiti US ambassador nominee? by Lyn Duff |
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www.sfbayview.com/112305/janetsanderson112305.shtml In a surprise move Nov. 9, President George W. Bush nominated former Algerian Ambassador Janet Sanderson to be the new United States ambassador to Haiti, a position that has been vacant since August. Little information is available on Sanderson, who is alleged to have been intimately involved in the illegal detention of two dozen Algerian nationals at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanemo Bay in 2002. Haiti observers are concerned Sanderson would further the dismantling of Haiti’s democracy begun by her predecessor, James B. Foley, who supported a small group of demobilized soldiers in overthrowing elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide last year. Foley later appointed Gerald Latortue, a businessman of Haitian descent from Boca Raton, Florida, as prime minister of Haiti. Latortue has been criticized internationally for ordering the illegal detention of his political opponents and condoning rampant human rights abuse, including the politically motivated mass rape of woman in impoverished neighborhoods. The State Department released a terse statement Nov. 9 stating that Sanderson is a “career diplomat” from Tucson, Arizona. However, public records show that Sanderson has been a resident of California for three years. Sanderson graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1977 with a bachelor’s in government. She completed an honors thesis, “The Arab Oil Weapon,” that year before joining the State Department as a career diplomat in August 1977. Sanderson was appointed as U.S. vice consul to Bangladesh in 1978. Her career followed a typical path for years, say observers. After leaving Bangladesh, she served for less than two years at the American embassy in Tel Aviv before returning to Washington to be a desk officer in the department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs and serving as the petroleum attachÈ to Kuwait. During the first Gulf War, Sanderson was working as economic counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jordan. She was later appointed economic minister-counselor at the embassy in Cairo, where she served for almost four years under Ambassador Edward Walker. In 1997, Sanderson was promoted to the second highest position in the Cairo embassy: deputy chief of mission. Sanderson’s career took an interesting turn Feb. 2, 2000, when then President Bill Clinton nominated her to be the new ambassador to Algeria. She quickly became embroiled in a human rights controversy when 24 Algerian nationals were interned in Guantanamo Bay. In November 2001, the Algerians were working for humanitarian organizations in post-war Bosnia when they were arrested at the behest of the U.S. government, who accused them of “planning terrorist attacks on the American and UK embassies in Sarajevo.” Two of the men are computer programmers, while the other 22 held administrative positions in several different NGOs. The men were detained without bail for three months before the Bosnian Supreme Court acquitted them. However, in the early morning hours on the day they were to be released, the men were hooded, shackled and taken away to an unknown destination. They wouldn’t be located for over a month. Soraya Nechla says that representatives of the International Red Cross finally found her husband, Mohamed Nechla, in an American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where he was being held with 23 other Algerians. She and the other families wrote to the detained men but only received a short, heavily censored response five months later. Each letter was identical, reading: “My health is good, do not worry.” For months the families petitioned Sanderson, then U.S. ambassador to Algeria, for news of the detained aid workers. She refused to meet with the families, advising them to contact the Algerian authorities, says Abdelkader Ait Idir, spokesman for the families. After a year in custody, all 24 Algerian aid workers were released. One, Mustapha Ait Idir, Abdelkader’s 33-year-old brother, is still angry at Sanderson and other State Department officials for the treatment meted out in the “Guantanamo Bay cages.” Sanderson has never commented publicly on her role in the arrest and detention of the Algerian aid workers. On May 4, 2003, Sanderson was removed from her post as ambassador and replaced by Richard W. Erdman, who had been advising the state undersecretary in charge of Near East affairs. The move was widely commented on by the national press, who called Sanderson “ineffective” and “strangely silent” on important national and international issues. Several months later, on Aug. 25, 2003, Sanderson moved to California, where she worked for a year as diplomat in residence at UC Berkeley, recruiting students to join the ranks of the State Department and promoting the correctness of U.S. foreign policy, said a Foreign Service official. Haiti observers have expressed concerns about Sanderson’s appointment because of her “dubious” record on combating human rights abuse and because of her support for the military drawdown program. The Pentagon’s drawdown program transfers unused military equipment, including heavy weaponry, to American allies. During a Senate hearing in 2000, Sanderson stated, “The drawdown program, like the rest of our foreign assistance program, underscores the importance we attach to [the country we give weapons to] and to our ongoing political, military and security relationship.” The United States violated its own arms embargo against Haiti repeatedly during the past two years, transferring weapons to the Haitian National Police that were later used to kill peaceful protestors and other innocent civilians, say human rights workers. “We can only imagine how much worse it’s going to get under the new ambassador, Sanderson, if she has already expressed her support for military drawdowns. Haiti needs a return to democracy, not more weapons in the hands of human rights abusers.” No date has been announced yet for Sanderson’s move to Haiti. She would need to appear before the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and be confirmed by the Senate before her appointment is finalized. Lyn Duff (LynDuff@aol.com) is a reporter currently based in Port-au-Prince. She first traveled to Haiti in 1995 to help establish a children’s radio station and has since covered Haiti extensively for Pacifica Radio’s Flashpoints, heard on KPFA weekdays at 5 p.m., and other local and national media. ********************************* Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou – Many Hands Make Light a Heavy Load: See: FRANCE Must Return the Charles X Ransom to Haiti| Open Letter to the Sign Action Petition at End of Letter for demanding Restitution to Haiti by English at: Read also, Claude Ribbe’s “The Crime of Napoleon” Condemn Sham Elections in Haiti HLLN’s position on the sham elections * |
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