April 12th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reject the nomination of Mari Del Carmen Aponte for the post of Ambassador to El Salvador.
Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government called Aponte, “unsuitable to represent the United States in El Salvador or anywhere else in the world.”
Aponte’s past relationship with someone U.S. counterintelligence officials identified as a Cuban intelligence agent led to her withdrawing from consideration as the Ambassador for the Dominican Republic in 1998 under a cloud of suspicion.
An Insight on the News story detailed Aponte’s alleged recruitment by the Cuban spy agency, including receiving a loan which was never paid back that originated from Cuban sources. Most significantly, Aponte refused at the time to allow the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to give her a polygraph test to clear her name, and withdrew from consideration after Committee questions about her suitability continued.
“Aponte’s subsequent resume also casts considerable questions about where her loyalties lie, and she should be rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” said Wilson.
From 2001 to 2004, Aponte served as the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. In this cabinet-level role, she represented the governor of Puerto Rico in the United States, where she, on at least one occasion, referred to Puerto Rico as a “country,” and her office issued at least one press release calling her office in D.C. an “embassy.”
Bill Wilson concluded that, “It is astounding that anyone who has refused to explain close, personal ties to Castro’s spy network and declared Puerto Rico’s independence from the United States would be nominated to represent our nation in El Salvador which has been a lynchpin nation in Central America.
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee should cut this nomination off at the knees by voting no on confirmation, and failing that, placing holds to demand a recorded, up-or-down vote.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be considering the Aponte nomination on Tuesday, April 13th.
Attachments:
“Aponte: A Loyalty Risk for Ambassador?”, Richard McCarty for ALG News, March 8th, 2010
ALG Nominee Alert, Mari Del Carmen Aponte, March 2010.
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