Editing Elliott Abrams (section)

===Assistant Secretary of State, 1980s===
Abrams first came to national prominence when he served as [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan's]] Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the early 1980s and later as Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs. His nomination to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs was unanimously approved by the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] on November 17, 1981.<ref name="brite">{{cite journal|last=Bite|first=Vita|date=November 24, 1982|title=Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Issue Brief IB81125|journal=Congressiokal Researce Service Major Issues System|publisher=Library of Congress|pages=5–6|url= https://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs//data/1982/upl-meta-crs-8859/IB81125_1982Nov24.pdf?PHPSESSID=59cb7309244ccd0ecddc8ba98158d482|access-date=November 16, 2009}}</ref> Abrams was Reagan's second choice for the position; his first nominee, [[Ernest W. Lefever]], had been rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 5, 1981.<ref name="brite" />

During his time in the post, Abrams clashed regularly with church groups and human rights organizations, including [[Human Rights Watch]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Back in Political Forefront: Iran-Contra Figure Plays Key Role on Mideast|last=Dobbs|first=Michael|date=May 27, 2003|newspaper=Washington Post|page=A01<!-- |article no longer available on line 2009-11-16 -->}}</ref> According to an article in ''[[The Washington Post]]'', in a 1984 appearance on the program ''[[Nightline (US news program)|Nightline]]'', Abrams clashed with [[Aryeh Neier]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.soros.org/about/bios/b_neier |title=Aryeh Neier |access-date=2007-05-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513072854/http://www.soros.org/about/bios/b_neier |archive-date=2007-05-13 }}</ref> the executive director of Human Rights Watch<ref>{{cite journal |last=Neier |first=Aryeh|date=November 2, 2006|title=The Attack on Human Rights Watch|volume=53|issue=57|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19500|journal=[[The New York Review of Books]]}}</ref> and with the leader of [[Amnesty International]], over the Reagan administration's foreign policies. They accused him of covering up atrocities committed by the military forces of U.S.-backed governments, including those in [[El Salvador]], [[Honduras]], and [[Guatemala]], and the rebel [[Contra (guerrillas)|Contras]] in [[Nicaragua]]. Abrams accused critics of the Reagan administration's foreign policy towards Latin America of being "Un-American" and "unpatriotic."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/executivesecrets00daug_0|url-access=registration|title=Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency|last=Daugherty|first=William|date=2004|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=9780813123349|page=[https://archive.org/details/executivesecrets00daug_0/page/254 254]|language=en}}</ref>

In an October 1981 memo, weeks prior to his confirmation in the Senate, Abrams asserted, "human rights is at the core of our foreign policy."<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Jacoby|first=Tamar|date=1986|title=The Reagan Turnaround on Human Rights|journal=Foreign Affairs|language=en|volume=64|issue=5|pages=1066–1086|doi=10.2307/20042781|jstor=20042781}}</ref> Critics say that Abrams and the Reagan administration misappropriated the term human rights, with Tamar Jacoby writing in 1986, "in a period that more or less coincided with Abrams' tenure as assistant secretary of state for human rights, the White House endeavored to appropriate the banner of human rights for itself to use it in battle not only against communist regimes but also, in a more defensive way, against domestic opponents of its human rights policy."<ref name=":3" /> The Lawyers Committee, Americas Watch and Helsinki Watch wrote a report in 1985, charging that Abrams had "developed and articulated a human rights ideology which complements and justifies Administration policies" and undermined the purpose of the human rights bureau in the State Department.<ref name=":3" />

According to American University political scientist [[William M. LeoGrande]],<ref name=":4" /> <blockquote>Communist governments were the worst human rights violators in the world, Abrams believed, so virtually anything done to prevent Communists from coming to power (or to overthrow them) was justifiable on human rights grounds. This theory fit neatly into the Cold War presumptions that framed Reagan's foreign policy and allowed the administration to rationalize supporting murderous regimes so long as they were anti-Communists. In practice, it was little different from Henry Kissinger's realpolitik that discounted human rights issues entirely.</blockquote> Abrams was generally considered a skilled and influential bureaucrat in the human rights bureau.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Maynard|first=Edwin S.|date=1989|title=The Bureaucracy and Implementation of US Human Rights Policy|journal=Human Rights Quarterly|volume=11|issue=2|pages=175–248|doi=10.2307/761957|jstor=761957}}</ref>

==== Guatemala ====
As Assistant Secretary of State, Abrams advocated for aid to Guatemala under then dictator [[Efraín Ríos Montt]], erroneously stating in 1983 that his reign had "brought considerable progress" on human rights.<ref name="Malkin"/> Ríos Montt came to power via a coup in 1982, overcoming the forces of General [[Fernando Romeo Lucas García]]. Thirty years later, Ríos Montt was found guilty of overseeing a campaign of [[Guatemalan genocide#Genocide under Ríos Montt|mass murder and torture of indigenous people]], [[genocide]], in Guatemala. Ríos Montt, who claimed he had no operational control of the forces involved, was convicted of genocide against the [[Maya peoples|Maya]]-[[Ixil people|Ixil]] population.<ref name="Malkin">{{cite news |first=Elisabeth |last=Malkin |title=Trial on Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/americas/trial-on-guatemalan-civil-war-carnage-leaves-out-us-role.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=16 May 2013}}</ref>

==== El Salvador ====
Abrams frequently defended the [[human rights in El Salvador|human rights record of the El Salvador government]] and attacked human rights groups as communist sympathizers when they criticized the El Salvador government.<ref name=":4" /> In early 1982, when reports of the [[El Mozote massacre]] of hundreds of civilians by the military in El Salvador began appearing in U.S. media, Abrams told a Senate committee that the reported number of deaths at El Mozote "was not credible," reasoning that the reported number of deaths was greater than the likely population, and that there were survivors. He said that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/the_truth_of_el_mozote |title=The Truth of El Mozote |last=Danner |first=Mark |date=December 3, 1993 |magazine=The New Yorker |pages=4, 50–50 |access-date=November 16, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121115135836/http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/the_truth_of_el_mozote |archive-date=November 15, 2012 }}</ref> The massacre had come at a time when the Reagan administration was attempting to bolster the [[human rights]] image of the Salvadoran military. Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply [[Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front|FMLN]] propaganda and denounced U.S. investigative reports of the massacre as misleading. In March 1993, the [[Salvadoran Truth Commission]] reported that over 500 civilians were "deliberately and systematically" executed in El Mozote in December 1981 by forces affiliated with the Salvadoran government.<ref>{{cite book|last=Whitfield|first=Teresa|title=Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador|publisher=Temple University Press|location=Philadelphia|year=1994|page=389|isbn=978-1-56639-253-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qv9o4qoOnFEC&pg=PA389}}</ref> A 1992 Human Rights Watch report criticized Abrams for downplaying the massacre.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Forrest |first1=Jack |title=Biden nominates controversial former Trump-appointee to Public Diplomacy Commission |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/03/politics/elliott-abrams-public-diplomacy-nomination/index.html |website=CNN |access-date=4 July 2023 |language=en |date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The massacre at El Mozote: the need to remember |url=https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/pdfs/e/elsalvdr/elsalv923.pdf |website=Human Rights Watch |access-date=4 July 2023 |date=4 March 1992}}</ref>

Also in 1993, documentation emerged suggesting that some Reagan administration officials could have known about El Mozote and other human rights violations from the beginning.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/how-us-actions-helped-hide-salvador-human-rights-abuses.html|title=How U.S. Actions Helped Hide Salvador Human Rights Abuses|last=Krauss|first=Clifford|date=March 21, 1993|work=New York Times<!-- |access-date=2009-11-16 -->}}</ref> However, in July 1993, an investigation commissioned by Clinton Secretary of State [[Warren Christopher]] into the State Department's "activities and conduct" with regard to human rights in El Salvador during the Reagan years found that, despite U.S. funding of the Salvadoran government that committed the massacre at El Mozote, individual U.S. personnel "performed creditably and occasionally with personal bravery in advancing human rights in El Salvador."<ref>{{cite book|last=Whitfield|first=Teresa|title=Paying the Price|pages=389–390|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qv9o4qoOnFEC&pg=PA389|publisher=Temple University Press|isbn=978-1-56639-253-2|date=1994-11-09}}</ref> Abrams said in 2001 that Washington's policy in El Salvador was a "fabulous achievement."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010702/corn|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120915081355/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010702/corn|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 15, 2012|title=Elliott Abrams: It's Back!|last=Corn|first=David|date=June 1, 2001|work=The Nation|access-date=November 16, 2009}}</ref> In 2019 he said that the "fabulous achievement" was that El Salvador "has been a [[democracy]]".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.vox.com/2019/2/15/18225109/elliott-abrams-ilhan-omar-venezuela|title=The fight between Ilhan Omar and Elliott Abrams, Trump's Venezuela envoy, explained|author=Zack Beauchamp|newspaper=Vox|date=Feb 15, 2019}}</ref> In a 1998 interview, Abrams remarked, "While it was important to us to promote the cause of human rights in Central America it was more important to prevent a communist takeover in El Salvador."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hartmann|first=Hauke|date=2001|title=US Human Rights Policy under Carter and Reagan, 1977-1981|journal=Human Rights Quarterly|language=en|volume=23|issue=2|pages=402–430|doi=10.1353/hrq.2001.0017|s2cid=143934287|issn=1085-794X}}</ref>

====Nicaragua====
{{See also|Nicaragua v. United States}}
When Congress shut down funding for the [[Contras]]' efforts to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government with the 1982 [[Boland Amendment]], members of the Reagan administration began looking for other avenues for funding the group.<ref>National Security Council internal memorandum, "Options and Legislative Strategy for Renewing Aid to the Nicaraguan Resistance". January 31, 1985. Declassified under [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|FOIA]]</ref> Congress opened a couple of such avenues when it modified the Boland Amendment for fiscal year 1986 by approving $27 million in direct aid to the Contras and allowing the administration to legally solicit funds for the Contras from foreign governments.<ref name="nytimes07-10-87">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/10/world/iran-contra-hearings-boland-amendments-what-they-provided.html|title=Iran-Contra Hearings; Boland Amendments: What They Provided|date=July 10, 1987|work=New York Times|access-date=2009-11-16}}</ref> Neither the direct aid, nor any foreign contributions, could be used to purchase weapons.<ref name="nytimes07-10-87"/>

Guided by the new provisions of the modified Boland Amendment, Abrams flew to [[London]] in August 1986 and met secretly with Bruneian defense minister General Ibnu to solicit a $10-million contribution from the Sultan of [[Brunei]].<ref name="finalreportch25">{{cite web|url=https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm|title=Final Report of the Independent Counsel For Iran/Contra Matters Vol. I: Investigations and Prosecutions|last=Walsh|first=Lawrence E.|date=August 4, 1993|work=Chapter 25|publisher=U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia|access-date=November 16, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Abrams|first=Elliott|title=Undue Process: A Story of How Political Differences Are Turned into Crimes|publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|The Free Press]]|year=1993|pages=[https://archive.org/details/undueprocessstor00abra/page/89 89]|isbn=978-0-02-900167-7|url=https://archive.org/details/undueprocessstor00abra/page/89}}</ref> Ultimately, the Contras never received this money because a clerical error in [[Oliver North]]'s office (a mistyped account number) sent the Bruneian money to the wrong Swiss bank account.<ref name="finalreportch25"/>