LATEST PRESS RELEASE FROM JOE MULLIGAN
NEWS RELEASE Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Oct. 30, 1997
EMBASSY VIGIL FOR FATHER CARNEY
VIGIL CONTINUES IN U.S. EMBASSY
TO AWAIT A SERIOUS RESPONSE
REVEAL ANOTHER SET OF CIA DOCUMENTS
For more information, contact COFADEH in Tegucigalpa (telephone 379800) or EPICA in Washington, DC, at telephone(202) 332-0292.
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On October 29 four persons--Sister Jean Brenner, John Patrick Carney, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, and Father Joseph Mulligan, S.J.--had a discussion with U.S. Ambassador James Creagan concerning the case of Father James (Guadalupe) Carney, a U.S. citizen who "disappeared" in Honduras in 1983.
The group gave the Ambassador a letter to President Clinton and a set of demands, which the Ambassador promised to forward to Washington. After the meeting Bishop Gumbleton left the embassy in order to report to the people and press outside, while the other three announced that they would remain in the embassy "to await a serious response from the U.S. government to their demands."
They agreed to leave the Ambassador's office and to wait in another area of the embassy. During the afternoon the group received a letter from the U.S. Department of State which said in part: "The State Department will work with other government agencies and institutions to look into the points raised and to respond to each of the points in an appropriate and helpful manner." While the vigilers did not consider this a satisfactory response to their demands, they accepted it as an indication of possible future assistance.
At 5:30 p.m. they presented two demands to the Ambassador: (1) that he permit them to return the next day to continue to wait inside the embassy and to discuss their demands; and (2) that he make a commitment to send the blacked-out documents and the demands directly to Sec. of State Madeleine Albright and Attorney General Janet Reno.
The Ambassador agreed to the first demand. With regard to the second, he stated that he would do whatever he could. Assured of permission to return the next day, the three left the embassy at 7:15 PM.
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OPEN LETTER FROM THE EMBASSY VIGILERS
TO: President Bill Clinton
Sec. of State Madeleine Albright
Attorney General Janet Reno
Forgive us, dear friends, for the fracture of embassy protocol. But how many bones of Fr. Jim
Carney's body were fractured when he was beaten and tortured at the Reagan administration's
Contra base, El Aguacate? And how was his body fractured when he was thrown from a
helicopter to his death? Or can you prove that he did not suffer these atrocities?
Forgive us, dear friends, for staying in the embassy in a non- violent vigil until you make a
serious commitment to uncover the truth and work for justice in this case. How long was Fr.
Carney forced to stay in El Aguacate, a base under U.S. control?
Forgive us for going beyond letter-writing and petitioning, but from the very beginning in 1983 the U.S. government has not taken this case of a U.S. citizen seriously. The Reagan administration slammed the door shut on the family's efforts to find their brother's body and to discover the truth about his "disappearance."
A handwritten memo dated Aug. 19, 1985, which was declassified and released to the Honduran government in 1996 along with other State Department documents, reported: "Fr. Carney case ... is dead. Front office does not want the case active.... We aren't telling that to the family."
The Clinton administration has opened the door slightly with its declassification of State
Department, CIA and Pentagon documents, but our hopes were dashed when these papers turned
out to be heavily blacked out and thus practically useless to us and to the Honduran government.
The heavily censored documents make a mockery of your stated intentions, Mr. Clinton, to work for justice in Honduras. Your response thus far constitutes an insult to Fr. James Carney, his relatives, and his many friends in the U.S. and in Honduras where he worked as a priest for 18 years.
The documents as released, along with your failure to work seriously in other ways to help
solve this and other cases, seem to us a travesty of justice.
We ask you, as leaders in the government, to make a serious commitment now, after so many
years of procrastination, to do everything possible to help attain justice in the case of Fr. Carney
and the 183 other disappeared persons in Honduras.
SPECIFICALLY:
On August 29 the CIA released over 300 pages of previously classified documents concerning Father Carney, four other disappeared persons, and one survivor of torture. Like the documents released in March, these pages show that extraordinary amounts of material have been excised.
Among these documents is a 1988 CIA report on its investigation of a June 5, 1988 New
York Times article by James LeMoyne entitled "Testifying to Torture." The CIA report noted:
"In the New York Times article, Sgt. Caballero said he had interrogated an American priest. This
reference probably to Father James Francis Carney..." (Florencio Caballero was a deserter from
the Honduran army's Battalion 3-16; he lived in political exile in Toronto until his recent death.)
There is no indication in its report that the CIA investigated this important statement by
Caballero. It is curious that the CIA reports the statement and then gives no follow-up
comments; perhaps they are in the excised sections. We demand to know whether the U.S.
government has investigated the statement by Caballero.
Also, while the CIA mentions "Mr. Mike" in relation to the another case, there is no indication that the CIA investigated Caballero's statement to Carney's relatives [BBC-TV documentary Nov. 22, 1987 as reported in The Nation Jan. 23, 1988] that "Mr. Mike" (an American agent) was present at a meeting where Gen. Alvarez said, "when you capture Guadalupe [Father Carney], kill him after interrogation."
"Mr. Mike" has been linked to both the disappearance of Father Carney and the torture of a
political prisoner. Who is he? Has he been questioned by U.S. authorities in regard to the
Carney case?
Moreover, we DEMAND that the U.S. government identify three U.S. citizens who are
alleged to have been involved in the disappearance of Father Carney: Col. West Blank, Maj.
Mark Kelvi, and "Mr. Mike." In a January 3, 1985 letter to a relative of Father Carney, the CIA
public affairs director stated: "`Col. West Blank' and `Maj. Mark Kelvi' were never employed by
this Agency in any capacity." Were they ever employed by any other agency or branch of the
U.S. government? Were they ever stationed in Honduras?
Sincerely,
Sister Jean Brenner
John Patrick Carney
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Father Joseph E. Mulligan, SJ
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Continuation of News Release:
The accompanying documents are samples of the heavily excised CIA
documents released on August 29, 1997.
NEXT NEWS CONFERENCE: Oct. 31, 9 a.m., in front of U.S. embassy in
Tegucigalpa.---------------------------------------------------------------
Comite de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos en Honduras (COFADEH) BERTHA OLIVA DE NATIVI Coordinadora General
lorena@cofadeh.sdnhon.org.hn
Tele(fax): (504) 379800
EPICA
1470 Irving St., NW
Washington, DC 20010
Tel: 202/332-0292
Fax: 202/332-1184
Email: epica@igc.apc.org
Web: www.igc.apc.org/epica