The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

16 DECEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Local APHIS Staffer Murdered in Mexico E dgar Flores Santos, a Mexican employee working for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Ser- vice in Tijuana, was found dead in a field southeast of the city on Oct. 1. American Military News reported that he was found with nine gunshot wounds frommultiple weapons. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Chris- topher Landau tweeted: “Consulate General of the United States in Tijuana and the entire US diplomatic mission in Mexico are mourning the loss of one of our own.” AFSA President Eric Rubin sent con- dolences to the APHIS team via AFSAnet on Oct. 15: “On behalf of AFSA’s Govern- ing Board and professional staff, please accept my condolences on the tragic and senseless murder of your Locally Employed staff colleague Edgar Flores Santos on Oct. 1. Edgar was a beloved member of the APHIS team at U.S. Con- sulate Tijuana, Mexico. “We all know how crucial our local colleagues are to the success of our mis- sion. Without them, the daily business of American diplomacy would be impos- sible. Their contributions are myriad, and they make our foreign policy and global engagement stronger and more success- ful. In Edgar’s case, he helped protect U.S. and Mexican food security, which affects every American.” Mr. Santos leaves behind his wife, Ely, and two children. A GoFundMe page has been set up to support the family at www. gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of- edgar-flores-santos. Many Still Afraid to Dissent, Study Finds I n a study of dissent channels at six U.S. federal agencies, including the State Department and USAID, titled “Stifling Dissent: How the Federal Government’s Channels for Challenging Policies fromWithin Fall Short,” the Proj- ect on Government Oversight (POGO) found that many federal employees think these channels are a “waste of time,” and many would fear retaliation if they were to use one. “The overwhelming reason why people don’t use the [dissent] channels, according to the people we’ve talked to, is they don’t think it would make a differ- ence,” report co-author Nick Schwellen- bach said in an Aug. 20 interview with the Federal News Network. Most agencies that have dissent chan- nels, he adds, “seem to have neglected them”—USAID being the “most stark example.” “During the Obama administration,” Schwellenbach says, “USAID created what’s called the direct channel, which is sort of an offshoot of the Dissent Channel at State. And the direct channel is open to employees … as well as contractors, and they can apparently disagree about virtu- ally any policy that USAID has. However, there’s essentially no information about the direct channel anywhere on the USAID website.” State’s Dissent Channel, founded in 1971 in response to concerns over American policy during the Vietnam FROMTHEGOFUNDMESITE