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Fellowship of Reconciliation
Dear friend,
My jaw almost hit the floor when I saw that Elliott Abrams has been nominated to join the State Department Bipartisan Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. The man belongs in the Hague, not in another U.S. administration.
Call the congressional switchboard to be connected to your Senators. Tell them you are firmly opposed to the appointment of this dangerous man with blood-stained hands. Ask them to publicly announce that they will vote no on his confirmation.
U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Abrams was a defender in the 1980s of the Guatemalan Montt government, a regime so brutal that its actions — mass murder, rape, and torture of the indigenous Ixil Mayan people — were later classified as genocide by the United Nations.
Over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush Sr. administrations, under Abrams's watch, 75,000 Salvadorians lost their lives. In the village of El Mozote, the Salvadorian Junta military herded women and children into a church convent. They opened fire with U.S.-supplied M-16 automatic rifles and then burned the building to the ground. 140 children, average age six, were killed. Asked in 1994 about the U.S.’s record on El Salvador, Abrams called it a “ fabulous achievement.”
Abrams is the epitome of white Christian nationalism, dressed in the 1452 “Discovery Doctrine,” which codified white settler colonialism into law, and adorned with the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which declared it the exclusive "right" of the U.S. to exploit and plunder Latin America and the Caribbean.
Under the Bush administration, Abrams did everything he could to undermine peace negotiations in Israel/Palestine. He refers to Israel's violent illegal setter movement as "natural," championed the Iraq war, was convicted in 1994 of lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra affair, and as recently as 2019, with the Trump administration, tried to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela.
When he testified to Congress in 2019, I (then national co-director of CODEPINK) confronted him: "How dare you violate international law and carry out crimes against G-d and humanity," I told him. Democracy Now covered the protest.
Before the full Senate votes on the confirmation of Elliott Abrams to another U.S. administration, the nomination has to pass through the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. This is the first place to stop him. If you are represented by someone on this committee please act immediately.
FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
Bob Menendez (chair) D-NJ
Ben Cardin D-MD
Jeanne Shaheen D-NH
Chris Coons D-DE
Chris Murphy D-CT
Tim Kaine D-VA;
Cory Booker D-NJ
Brian Schatz D-HI
Chris Van Hollen D-MD
Tammy Duckworth D-IL
James Risch (ranking) R-ID
Marco Rubio R-FL
Mitt Romney R-UT
Pete Ricketts R-NE
Rand Paul R-KY
Todd Young R-IN
John Barrasso R-WY
Ted Cruz R-TX
Bill Hagerty R-TN
Tim Scott R-SC
Tell them not to allow this man who has caused so much death, pain, and destruction already to have a new rein.
U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Justice is long overdue for the El Salvadorian priests and other faith leaders whose murders Abrams covered up, for the children murdered in El Mazote, the Ixil Mayan women raped by death squads in Guatemala, and for the Palestinians who watch Israeli bulldozers destroy their homes and lives to make way for more illegal settlements. The blood of Abrams's victims call out from the ground. Hearing their cries, we are called to do all that we can to stop Abrams from getting another State Department position.
