The Panama Deception (1992) Movie Script

The shooting began at midnight.
Everyone ran toward their home.
People started hollering.
Children began crying.
It was a complex operation,
27 targets were hit simultaneously.
I heard some of my family get shot.
I don't know nothing else
that has happened.
I just was "keep going",
because I was frightened to die.
I was frightened to die.
The goal was not to level the place
but to minimize damage to property
and most important of all
to minimize casualties.
And that was accomplished.
My daughter did not belong to any group.
She had nothing to do with Noriega.
She was innocent. She had nothing to do
with all of this. And they killed her!
If I had to do it again, I would do it
again. Because the cost was high.
It was men, women, civilians and military.
They gave their lives. Not for us.
They gave their lives for
democracy, for liberty, for freedom.
And I don't mind paying any price
under the sun, to be free.
On December 19th 1989,
while Panamanians were getting
ready for the Christmas holidays,
the United States was secretly mobilizing
26,000 troops, for a midnight attack.
I saw helicopters approaching.
They were close.
The lights went out and
the helicopters began to shoot.
People were running left and right
without direction
without knowing where they were going.
It was not just machine-gun fire. There
were bombs. The noise was frightening
You could hear gunfire
coming from all directions.
And a strange noise that
we had never heard before.
People were frightened, running,
wondering what was going on.
The sky was completely red. And there was a
tremor you could feel throughout the city.
The invasion was swift,
intense and merciless.
When it was over, thousands lay dead and
wounded and the country was in shambles.
Millions of U.S. tax dollars were swallowed
up in three days of brutal violence.
The strategy was considered a
stunning military and political success.
In many ways, the invasion served
as a testing ground
for the Persian Gulf war
one year later.
It is also an indication
of the kinds of intervention
the United States may undertake
in the years to come.
But still, big questions remain.
What exactly happened during
the invasion of Panama? And why?
This is the CBS evening news.
Dan Rather reporting.
More than 20,000 U.S. soldiers and marines
launched their attack
in the early morning darkness...
As the invasion unfolded
Americans stayed glued to their
TVs and newspapers for coverage.
But how much of the real picture
did the media give them?
The performance of the mainstream news
media in the coverage of Panama, has been
just about total collaboration
with the administration.
Not a critical critical murmur, not a
critical perspective, not a second thought.
The story that the White House was pushing
was getting this so-called
narco-terrorist in a net.
And that was the thrust
of all of the coverage.
When are we going to get Noriega?
Have they let Noriega get away?
By late today, they had taken
control of much of the country
but their chief target general
Manuel Noriega, escaped.
Manuel Noriega belongs to that special
fraternity of international villains.
Men like Gaddafi, Idi Amin
and the ayatollah Khomeini,
whom Americans just love to hate.
The White House announced a
$1 million reward for his capture.
The justice department set up a hotline
taking in tips on Noriega's
possible whereabouts.
They focused on Noriega to the exclusion of
what was happening to the Panamanian people
to the exclusion of the bodies in the street,
to the exclusion of the number dead
to the exclusion of what happened to
the women and children in that country
during this midnight invasion.
In some ways, the 1989 U.S. invasion
of Panama was no surprise
given the history of relations
between these two countries.
The United States refused to recognize
Panama's independence movement
throughout the 1800s.
But when the U.S. proposal
to build a canal
across the Isthmus was
turned down by Columbia,
U.S. policy abruptly changed.
In 1903, the United States
provided military backup
enabling Panama to secede from Columbia.
By doing so, the United States secure
the rights to take over the canal project
that had been abandoned by the French.
In a treaty negotiated between the French
canal investors and the United States
the Americans were granted
sovereign control in perpetuity
of a 10 mile wide strip of land
they called the Canal Zone.
Panamanians were not included
in the negotiations
and no Panamanians signed the treaty.
The United States immediately placed
the Canal Zone under military control.
Teddy Roosevelt was asked by what
right he acquired possession of the canal.
At least in the honest words
of a thief, he said I took it.
That gives you no right in law.
It never has.
And hopefully never will.
The canal project had
a dramatic impact on Panama.
The U.S. imported cheap labor
from the Caribbean, India, and Asia
changing the racial makeup of the country.
Thousands of these workers died
and those who remained
lived as part of a new racial underclass.
They created an apartheid system in Panama
based on racial segregation.
Where black people could
not live in the same home
where black people could not even
use the same water fountain.
The Jim Crow law that was practiced
in the southern part of the United States
was implemented in Panama
by the United States government.
After the canal was completed in 1913
the United States continue to
expand its military presence
and tighten its grip
on Panamanians politics.
Violent confrontations between
Panamanians and the U.S. military grew
in the decades that followed.
Tensions peaked in 1964
when students tried to exercise Panama's
right to fly it's flag in the Canal Zone.
21 Panamanians were killed and hundreds
were wounded in the confrontation.
In 1968, Panama's government
was overthrown in a military coup.
Omar Torrijos,
a colonel in the national guard,
emerged as the new leader of Panama.
Although he used repressive measures
to consolidate his power
he became immensely popular.
Torrijos introduced an unexpected
period of social reform
that benefited Panama's majority population
of Blacks, Indians and Mestizos.
It created a populist reformist process.
Humberto Brown, an administrator
at the state university of New York
served as the Panamanians diplomat
to the United Nations.
He was educated in Panama,
during the Torrijos period.
Where, for the first time in Panama,
we had a participation
of the non-oligarchical people of nation.
Where people like myself could go
to university and get a degree, where
the peasants, where people
from the Mestizos, where
all the people were deprived an
opportunity, for once in their life
were playing an important role
in our nation.
In 1978, relations between the United
States and Panama reached a high point.
Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos negotiated
treaties that abolished the 1903 treaty
establishing a new relationship
between the two countries.
The Carter-Torrijos Treaties
required the United State
to vacate its military bases
and withdraw its troops
by the year 2000.
Full control of the canal and the Canal
Zone would be turned over to Panama.
Although these new treaties were
a source of pride for Panamanians
many conservatives in the U.S.
had vehemently opposed them.
The Panama Canal Zone
is sovereign United States territory
just as much as Alaska is
as well as the states carved
from the Louisiana purchase.
We bought it, we paid for it.
And general Torrijos should be told
we are going to keep it.
In November 1980,
Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter
in a landslide election victory.
8 months later,
on the night of July 31, 1981
Omar Torrijos was killed
in a fiery plane crash.
The circumstances of the incident
are unclear.
Authorities said that his plane crashed
into the side of a mountain.
But witnesses said
that the plane exploded in flight.
Although his death was
officially declared an accident,
many suspected that he was assassinated.
Some think that Manuel Noriega
may have been involved.
But many are convinced it was
the CIA that was responsible.
I'm quite convinced that
the CIA killed Torrijos.
This I know because I worked with Torrijos.
Jose "Chu ch" Martinez was one
of Torrijos closest aides for many years.
They killed him precisely at the
moment they had to kill him.
At that moment Torrijos was having
a big influence over Central America.
Especially among the
revolutionary movement.
They killed Torrijos because
Torrijos represented precisely
the political solution of the
whole Central American problem.
Waiting in the wings for his chance to
take power, was colonel Manuel Noriega,
the CIA's primary contact in Panama.
Noriega was head of
Panama's military intelligence
and had a long standing
relationship with the U.S.
He had been on the
CIA payroll since the 60's.
When George Bush became
director of the CIA in 1976,
under president Ford,
he inherited Noriega as a contact.
Despite evidence that Noriega
was involved in drug trafficking,
Bush kept Noriega on the payroll.
In fact, he increased Noriega's salary
to more than $100,000 a year
and eliminated a requirement
that intelligence reports on Panama
include information on drug trafficking.
Over the last 20 years, since Manuel Noriega
was recruited by the CIA to be an asset,
he has obviously provided many important
pieces of information to U.S. intelligence.
Peter Cornblue is senior analyst
at the National Security archives.
The archive has assembled 100s of
previously classified government documents
revealing the details of Noriega's
relationship to U.S. intelligence.
They paid him an incredible amount
of American taxpayers money.
And obviously decided that his
value to them, was so important
that his drug smuggling, and other
illegal activities, could simply be ignored.
I, George Herbert Walter Bush,
do solemnly swear
that I will support and defend
the constitution of the United States.
After George Bush became vice president
under Ronald Reagan in 1981,
he was named head of the
administrations anti-drug campaign
and once again took responsibility
for monitoring Noriega's
intelligence activities.
Bush in fact seems to
have been instrumental,
even according to the
documented evidence
the administration itself
has made available,
in seeing to it Noriega
was well taken care of.
And in fact, admiral Stansfield Turner, the
former director of the CIA under Carter,
claims he cut Noriega off,
that he removed him from the U.S. payroll.
Bush put him back on
and in fact gave him a raise.
And developed an even closer
relationship than had existed before.
With support from the CIA,
Noriega was able to outmaneuver his rivals
and in august of 1983, he became
commander of the Panamanian military.
As the Reagan administration
expanded its covert war
against the Sandinista government
in Nicaragua,
Noriega became increasingly helpful.
Working with the CIA,
and with Israeli arms dealers,
Noriega helped coordinate
an arms supply network
to provide weapons to contra
bases in northern Costa Rica.
It is by now undeniable that the
same planes that were carrying arms
from Panama into Costa Rica
were also carrying drugs.
And in fact, the people who were
the pilots flying those arms to the contras
and flying drugs on up,
eventually reaching the U.S.,
had been indicted and are now serving time.
This operation essentially gave
Manuel Noriega the assurance
they would turn a blind eye
to his continued brokering of cocaine deals
in return for using his network
to get the arms to the
contras in northern Costa Rica.
Noriega's involvement in the drug traffic
really increased his importance
as a source for the CIA
and as someone who was able to conduct
dirty tricks in the region for the CIA
So, it's no accident that the CIA became
the most prominent defenders of Noriega
against the drug charges,
because that's the sort of thing
which CIA clients tend to do.
Time after time when we install
strong men the third world,
because we want them to be strong,
we want to see them involved
with the strongest local economic forces
which, time after time,
are the drug traffic.
Despite Noriega's collaboration
with many U.S. covert operations,
he was becoming increasingly uncooperative
with U.S. objectives in Central America.
In 1984, he angered
the Reagan administration
by hosting Latin American leaders
at the Contadora peace talks.
The talks called for an end to U.S.
intervention in Central American affairs.
Noriega was not the yes-man
that the United States wanted him to be.
He simply didn't like to be pushed around.
He certainly didn't people like
John Poindexter or even William Casey
coming down to his villa and telling
him what he should or should not do.
Then in 1986,
the Iran-contra scandal erupted.
Noriega's primary contacts
in the administration
were now under intense scrutiny.
Oliver North was fired,
Poindexter was forced to resign
and William Casey fell ill
with a brain tumor.
So all 3 of Noriega's major protectors
were out of government and that led
quickly to a shift in U.S. policy.
Sentiments within Panama were
turning against Noriega as well.
For three years
Noriega worked with the DEA in a sting
operation code-named Operation Pisces.
In 1987, with Noriega's assistance,
authorities arrested hundreds of suspects
and froze millions of dollars
in Panama's banks,
severely disrupting the
money-laundering business.
The financial community was outraged and
Noriega's opponents mobilized against him.
Back in Washington, Noriega's opponents
lobbied and testified against him,
accusing him of murder,
corruption and drug running.
The U.S. media quickly
turned it into a major story.
But relations with Panama are under a new
cloud tonight because of news reports...
Senator Jesse Helms charged today
that the military strongman of Panama,
Manuel Noriega, is the number one
drug trafficker in the Americas.
Reports from U.S. intelligence have also
led to new investigations on Capitol Hill.
Faced with increased pressure,
both in the U.S. and Panama,
Noriega introduced
a wave of brutal repression,
attacking protesters in the streets
and jailing hundreds of opponents.
The Reagan administration now
openly called for his removal.
We do want Noriega out of there and a
return to a civilian democratic government.
But behind the scenes, the administration
was secretly negotiating with Noriega,
promising not to indict him
on drug charges,
if you would cooperate with
U.S. objectives in Central America.
Gabrielle Gemma,
director of the independent commission
of inquiry on the U.S. invasion of Panama,
spoke to Noriega about
his negotiations with the U.S.
General Noriega told us there were
a number of demands placed on him
directly both through Poindexter
and other meetings, where
the state department
pressured him to change
the Panamanian governments
policy on several issues.
He said that by far the most pressing
was the demand by the U.S. that Noriega
and the Panamanian government,
allow the U.S.
to expand their military
presence in Panama
and to renegotiate the treaties
to allow them to keep control
over the 14 military bases
that presently exist in Panama.
Noriega refused to agree
to the U.S. demands
or to relinquish his power in Panama.
In February 1988, two U.S. federal
grand juries in Florida, indicted Noriega,
accusing him of drug trafficking,
money-laundering and racketeering.
It was the first time
a foreign head of state
had ever been indicted
in the United States.
The U.S. now undertook a systematic
effort to overthrow Noriega.
Economic sanctions were stepped up
and additional troops
were dispatched to Panama.
The United States tonight
declared in effect that
Panama's general Manuel Noriega is a
threat to this country's national security.
Mr. Noriega, the drug indicted,
drug-related, indicted dictator of Panama.
We want to bring him to justice.
We want to get him out
and we want to restore
democracy to Panama.
So when you read
these outrageous charges
by a drug-related,
indicted dictator,
discount them.
They are total lies.
Still unable to force Noriega from power,
the United States turned
its efforts to influencing
the upcoming 1989
Panamanian national elections.
The Bush administration,
working through the CIA
and the national endowment
for democracy,
funneled more than $10 million into
the opposition slate of candidates,
presidential candidate Guillermo Endara,
a wealthy corporate lawyer
educated in the United States
and his vice-presidential running mates
Guillermo Billy Ford and
Ricardo Arias Caldern.
If the same scenario of those elections
occurred and had taken place in the United
States, they would have been illegal.
In the U.S. accepting money
from a foreign government
for the purpose of influencing
a domestic election, is illegal.
Those elections were
irregular from the beginning.
How can you call it a fair election?
This strategy was applied in Panama.
They applied it in Nicaragua.
They will apply it to every government
who disagrees with the U.S. foreign policy.
They use economical sanctions
to starve people and then to
impose a vote on these people.
Because people vote to get
bread when they are hungry.
I don't think that is democracy.
The elections were held,
the counting of the votes began,
and it became clear that the PRD
would lose the election.
At that point,
and not for the first time
in the history of Panama,
or many other countries
in Central America,
the military rulers halted
the electoral process.
The country erupted in violence.
As ballot boxes were seized.
The U.S. supported candidates,
who had been leading in vote-tallies,
were brutally beaten
on the streets of Panama City
in front of rolling TV cameras.
The assailants were alleged
to be Noriega's dignity battalions,
although none were ever identified.
It was a photo opportunity that crystallized
world public opinion against Noriega.
The violence in Panama escalated sharply
this evening when government goons
attacked candidates opposed
to general Manuel Noriega.
Were attacked and beaten up
on the streets of Panama City
Guillermo Endara
One of the opposition
presidential candidates
was beaten and injured during the day,
by backers of military strongman...
Later the presidential candidate Endara
was released from the hospital.
It has been confirmed that
he was attacked by goons.
The following day, president Bush ordered
2000 additional troops into Panama.
I will do what is necessary to protect
the lives of American citizens
and we will not be intimidated
by the bullying tactics,
brutal though they may be,
of the dictator Noriega.
After the election fiasco,
the Panamanian National Assembly
declared a state of emergency and
appointed Noriega head of state.
George Bush, now openly encouraged
the Panamanian military
to revolt against Noriega.
We'd love to see him get him out.
We would like to see him out of there.
With support and encouragement
from the United States,
a group of officers from the
Panamanian Defense Forces (the PDF)
began planning a military coup
to overthrow Noriega.
They secretly met several times
with the U.S. southern command
to coordinate support for the overthrow.
The role to be played
by the United States army
was to block certain roads
and make sure that certain airfields
were not made available for use
by elements potentially
loyal to general Noriega.
With these assurances, the insurgent
troops launched a coup attempt.
They quickly overpowered Noriega's guards,
seized the PDF headquarters
and captured Noriega.
But the Americans did not
carry through on the promises.
Forces loyal to Noriega were allowed to
gain entrance and crushed the rebellion,
freeing general Noriega.
President Bush later denied any
U.S. involvement in the operation.
.. that this is some American operation.
I can tell you: That is not true.
I would repeat we have no argument
with the Panamanian Defense Forces.
We have no argument with them.
We have good relations with
the Panamanians Defense Forces.
But investigative journalist Dough Vaugn
who was in Panama during the
failed coup attempt, disputes Bush's claims
The idea, at least on the American side,
was to lead these coup plotters along,
to seduce them into believing that
they had the support of the United States
and then, at a critical moment,
abandon them,
So that then excuse could be made that
we had to smash the PDF completely.
That we couldn't rely anymore on
disgruntled officers
inside the Panamanian army
to rise up against Noriega and we
would have to do this job ourselves
After the October coup attempt,
1300 additional U.S. troops
were flown into Panama,
and offensive military equipment
was secretly deployed.
The U.S. military stepped up its campaign
of intimidation and provocation.
Setting up roadblocks,
confronting PDF forces
and conducting offensive military
maneuvers outside of U.S. jurisdiction.
They have blocked passage here. Calling
it a security problem. What security?
The Panamanian people would never threaten
them. They are the ones threatening.
They are the ones who charge at us with
a weapon. What is wrong with them?
They charge at us with bayonets
in order to scare us.
They said not to step onto that area.
But they are on our side,
it's Panama jurisdiction,
so what the hell is with them?
It came to an inch that that day
the killing didn't started.
Because the tanks and everything were ready
to go and to kill the Panamanian people.
In the final months before the invasion,
the army special operations command sent
a highly secret Delta Force team to Panama.
There were numerous actions
undertaken by that Delta Team,
which were reported in the
United States press as provocations
undertaken by Panamanians
against the United States.
Infiltrations of the United States
position, shots fired in the direction of
of the United States
perimeters and positions.
Roughing up of the United States
citizens in the street.
Sabina Virgo, a national labor organizer,
was in Panama just weeks
before the invasion.
Provocations against the Panamanian people
by the United States military troops
were very frequent in Panama and
they had several results and in my opinion
probably a couple of different intents.
One, I think, was to create
an international incident,
was to have United States troops
just hassle the Panamanian people
until an incident resulted
and from that incident
the United States could then say that
they were going into Panama
for the protection of American life,
which is in fact
exactly what happened.
On the night of December 16th,
a group of U.S. marines ran a military
roadblock in front of PDF headquarters
and were fired on by Panamanian guards.
Lieutenant Robert Bolivar Paz, a U.S.
marine intelligence officer, was killed.
The marines were reported to be part
of a group called the Hard Chargers,
known for provoking
confrontations with PDF forces.
The Pentagon claims the marines
were unarmed and lost.
But local witnesses said they were armed
and exchanged fire with the PDF headquarters,
wounding a soldier and two civilians.
An American serviceman has been killed,
in a weekend shooting incident.
...what US officials called: An example of
general Noriega's cruelty and brutality.
The death of an American officer which
pres. Bush condemned today as an outrage.
A navy officer and his wife were detained.
He beaten and threatened with death.
She threatened sexually.
Another American serviceman,
also threatening that man's wife.
Strong public support for a reprisal
was all but guaranteed.
Four days later on December 20th,
U.S. troops invaded Panama.
The invasion was code-named
operation Just Cause.
Shortly after midnight, U.S. troops
simultaneously attacked 27 targets,
many of which were in
densely populated areas.
One of the primary targets in Panama City
was the headquarters of
the Panamanian Defense Forces,
located in the crowded
neighborhood of El Chorrillo.
U.S. troops shelled the area for four hours
before moving in and calling for surrender.
We ask you to surrender.
If you do not, we are prepared
to level each and every building.
Surrender now.
About 10 minutes after, they've been
speaking this "surrender, surrender"
we sawed here the helicopters.
Start to bomb the quartel.
And start to use their laser ray.
And things like that so we hit the ground.
It soon became clear that the objectives
were not limited only to military targets.
According to witnesses,
many of the surrounding
residential neighborhoods
were deliberately attacked and destroyed.
The helicopters were heavily armed,
firing powerful machine guns and rockets,
and they were firing indiscriminately.
They weren't just looking
for military targets.
They were firing at many civilians.
People were running all over.
Trying to escape.
They shot at everything that moved,
without mercy and without thinking
whether there were children
or women or people fighting.
Instead, everything that moved they shot.
We thought that they
would just take Noriega.
They said that's what they wanted. They
would take him and respect everyone else.
After the bombing been start
been going on for a few hours.
The soldiers say: Tell everybody to come
out with their hands on their head.
They direct us to the church.
When we were in the church
about 6:00 in the morning,
all of a sudden,
the building started to burn
in front of the church.
The people, the only thing they had
was inside that place,
they tried to run out
to get water to hose it.
The American soldiers told them to get out.
Some people are stubborn.
The Americans soldiers shot up in the air.
The people got scared and ran back.
We saw that the North Americans were
denying people access to their homes.
They sent people back and threatened
them with their machine guns
and forbid anyone to get
close to the houses.
All walked in all around the
alleys leading to the houses
Then they began to set the houses on fire.
The Panamanian soldiers know each ally,
how to go in and come out and where to go
and from one street to another street
climb up and go onto a balcony.
The only way the American soldiers
could get could get rid of that danger
was to burn down the buildings there.
That way the Panamanian soldiers
would have nowhere to hide.
I am unaware of any operations
by U.S. military to go through and
systematically burn down buildings.
You get fires that are started by weapons.
But I havn't seen any reports
of U.S. military folks
going through and setting
buildings on fire.
The North Americans began burning down
El Chorrillo at about 6:30 in the morning.
They would throw a small device into
a house and it would catch on fire.
They would burn a house
and then move to another
and begin the process all over again.
They burned from one street to the next.
They coordinated the burning
through walkie-talkies.
And from there, the whole of
El Chorrillo went to nothing.
The Pentagon used Panama as a testing
ground for newly developed hightech weapons
such as the Stealth fighter,
the Apache attack helicopter,
and laser guided missiles.
There are also reports
that can't be explained
indicating the use of experimental
and unknown weaponry.
We have testimony about
combatants who died literally
melted with their guns
as a result of a laser.
We know of automobiles that
were cut in half by these lasers.
Of atrocities committed by weapons that fire
poison darts which produce massive bleeding.
I think there is a probability
there was a use of
sophisticated weaponry, merely to test it.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general,
has conducted extensive research
into the invasion.
Above all though, there was
a use beyond any conceivable necessity
of just sheer firepower.
Just an excessive use of force
beyond any possible justification.
President Bush wanted to make certain
that this was going to be a success.
This was going to be his vindication,
denial of the wimp factor in spades.
So they sent down a force that wasn't going
to encounter any effective resistance
but simply overwhelm the opposition
and the fact that it would cause
tremendous peripheral damage,
damage to innocent civilians on a wide
scale, was not of concern in the planning.
What we intended to do was
to reduce collateral damage.
Collateral damage, it means
if the target is right here,
you are trying not to have
damage to other places.
You are trying to have damage to a specific
target. Because that's a military target.
And you are trying to minimize damage
outside of the military target.
And they worked.
My God, we were sending in
artillery and air strikes
against a very heavily
populated urban area.
There was absolutely no question
that there were going to be
immense numbers of civilian casualties.
We walked among the dead and saw
the tanks run over and crush our dead.
We saw a great number of civilian
cars with whole families inside,
kids, women, and the driver torn to pieces
and crushed by the tanks.
The soldiers passed the tanks
over the people's bodies.
Some of them dead, some of them wounded.
And there were cases that we know,
for example the case of Manuel Carro,
the case of Alexander Hubert, and some
others whose bodies were totally destroyed.
During the days and weeks
following the invasion,
the U.S. policy of applying
overwhelming deadly force continued.
There were many reports of indiscriminate
killings and executions of unarmed civilians.
We have eye witness accounts on the
part of a number of Panamanians
where soldiers took Panamanians
who had been captured
after the invasion and executed
them on the street.
I have seen no reports of U.S. soldiers
executing anyone in Panama.
We have carefully checked out
every such report
and if we think there is evidence that
a U.S. soldier murdered a Panamanian,
we will court-martial that soldier.
That sort of behavior would be absolutely
unprofessional, totally
unacceptable and illegal.
Rafael Olivardia, a community
leader from El Chorrillo,
was taken to the Balboa High School
detention camp the morning after the attack.
There were many Panamanian troops
at the Balboa concentration camp.
They didn't seem to know what was going on.
They were sitting on the grass with their
arms and feet tied with plastic bands.
I, along with many other
people from El Chorrillo,
witnessed their execution
right in front of us.
Eight of the soldiers at the entrance
were executed by U.S. troops.
There were many reports of
unprovoked killings at U.S. roadblocks.
One woman told human rights
investigators how her brother
and four friends were killed at
a roadblock on December 23rd,
three days after the initial attack.
All five of the passengers were forced out
of the car and put facedown on the ground.
They were riddled with bullets.
They were simply going
to visit family members
when they were detained
and killed in the street.
Although 19 cases of homicide
and alleged executions
were filed with the Southern Command,
all but two of these cases were
internally reviewed and dismissed.
During the invasion, and throughout
the days and weeks that followed,
access by the news media
was tightly controlled.
The Pentagon flew in a 16 person press pool
from the major U.S. media.
The pool did not reach Panama however until
after the crucial first 4 hours of the attack
and were restricted to U.S. military bases
for the next day and a half.
Our regret is we were not able to use
the media pool more effectively.
The goal was to get reporters down there
so that they could to see from themselves
the early hours of the operation.
Now once they got there, we had a breakdown
in our ability to move them around.
Helicopters that we thought were
gonna be available had to be pulled off.
They were needed for the operation itself.
The press pool that went down there
was managed from the day they arrived.
They were only taken to see what the government,
what the military, wanted them to see.
And there has been continuous
suppression and denial of the extent of damage
which was inflicted during that invasion.
Many journalists who tried
to investigate on their own
were stopped by U.S. troops
from entering areas that were attacked.
Can I see your credentials please?
One of the few journalists who was able
to penetrate the military's restrictions
was a Panamanian photographer Julio Guerra.
I had already taken photographs
in the Chorrillo area.
I'd also taken photos of some dead bodies
in the street
when a North American soldier told me
I couldn't walk any further.
They wanted to take my camera away.
But I didnt let them.
So, they made me open the camera
and expose the role of film with the shots
of the dead bodies I had taken.
Military folk shouldn't be
taking film out of cameras.
You get young guys in combat,
they get concerned,
they do that sometimes.
I don't think that was the norm.
Another Panamanian journalist,
Manuel Becker,
a cameraman
for a London based news service,
was covering the attack
on the night of the invasion
when he was stopped by U.S. troops.
We almost got to
the edge of El Chorrillo.
As soon as we were able to,
we started videotaping.
The North American troops took our tapes
and placed us virtually under arrest
until the bombing was over.
A Spanish news photographer who,
in the early moments,
was able to get a picture
of bodies lined up in the morgue
was subsequently shot
under very strange circumstances.
There was not a conflict but
according to the reports of colleagues,
an American soldier just
took aim and shot him down.
The U.S. military also
targeted the Panamanian media.
Radio stations were immediately
taken over and destroyed.
U.S. forces occupied TV stations
and began transmitting their own signal.
Many journalists were either
arrested or fired.
One of Panama's largest daily newspapers,
La Repblica, was raided,
ransacked, and closed down
by American troops.
The U.S. military's control
over all of the media was so effective,
that there is almost no video footage
of the first three days of the invasion
other than what was shot
by the military's own camera crews.
It's so ironic that the kind
of very tight press control
that you used to see in
Russia under Stalin and under Brezhnev
and which was finally ending
under Gorbachev with Glasnost,
that we've seen in the United States
exactly the opposite phenomenon.
A new degree of press control,
which we never had in Vietnam.
So that the American people
didn't really know what had happened
until it was all over and it was too late.
During the week of the invasion,
more than 18,000 people
who fled from the areas of attack
were forced into temporary detention
centers created by the U.S. forces.
It was a war, it was a battle.
And the way you get it over with
is to find the people who are most likely
to keep shooting at you
and try to detain them.
And that was the goal of that operation.
We arrived at the concentration camp
of Balboa, a school.
It was surrounded by a barbed wire fence
and full of heavily armed soldiers.
When we arrived, they picked all the men
between the ages of 15 and 55
and put us on an army truck.
The women were crying, shouting.
They were pushing us around and
we didn't know where they were taking us.
They took us to a secret place and we were
submitted to an intense interrogation.
Then they put a card in front of us
and took our picture.
So all men between 15 and 55 had this card
with their ID number and refugee number.
As part of the invasion,
the U.S. forces worked with
newly installed Panamanian officials
to institute repressive measures
that continue in Panama today.
American forces took control
of the public buildings,
government ministries,
and the universities.
Almost every organization opposed
to the United States policy
had its offices raided and destroyed.
Thousands of individuals were arrested.
Aries Calderon, Endara
and the attorney general Rogelio Cruz
effectively wrote down the names
of their political enemies,
gave them to U.S. military personnel,
who, going around like stormtroopers,
would break down doors,
drag people out of their houses,
take them to detention centers.
Only because their name was given
by one of these officials.
And that there was no legal case
against these people whatsoever.
I got it, I got it, I got you covered.
Get the door.
Open the door.
Get down on the floor,
U.S. marines.
Government officials had to go underground,
many of them, in order not be arrested,
including university professors.
There were former government and
diplomatic officials that were arrested
and interned at refuge camps
and some of them prisons.
The list runs into the thousands.
Why are they taking you?
They say I have weapons,
I don't no have no weapons
Why are they after him?
Why aren't they after Bush instead?
He's the one who's
killing people all over the place.
Why are they harassing a worker
who's defending other workers?
26 times the U.S. troops were here
searching my house.
They would surround everything with tanks
and would take books,
personal documents.
Posters of Torrijos.
They would search it
whenever they felt like it.
Balbina Herrera de Perinan
was the mayor of San Miguelito
and a member of the National Assembly.
After the invasion,
she was subjected to a relentless
campaign of slander and harassment.
The Southern Command put up
wanted posters with my photo.
If you see her, please call such and such
a number at Southern Command.
They interrogated my children,
my three little ones.
They would ask them where their mother was
where their father was.
They would ask them
for information about us.
Escolastico Calvo,
the editor of La Rebblica newspaper,
had been openly critical
of the new government and U.S. invasion.
What I don't understand is that
they've been holding me here 30 days
and no one has talked to me about my case.
About my charge.
This is what we want a decision on.
Is there justice here or not?
Calvo was imprisoned for 18 months.
No charges were ever filed against him.
They arrested close to
7,000 Panamanian individuals.
They arrested almost
every trade union leader
the leaders of the nationalist parties,
of progressive parties,
of left parties in Panama.
They arrested people
who were cultural leaders.
There are still hundreds of Panamanians
who remain in jail,
with no due process,
with no formal charges against them.
As a result of the U.S. invasion,
an estimated 20,000 Panamanians
lost their homes.
Hardest hit were residents
in the poor neighborhoods
of San Miguelito, Colon,
Panama Viejo and El Chorrillo,
The survivors of the invasion
received little assistance
from either the newly installed
Panamanian government or the United States.
Many moved into bombed out buildings
and makeshift shelters.
Several thousand were moved to
Albrook Airfield
and housed in 2 large airplane hangers.
Where many languished
for more than a year.
In hanger nr. 1,
we constructed 506 cubicles.
It's a 10 by 10 foot cubicle
where we host each of the families.
In each cubicles we can put as much as 4
camps and small mattresses for the kids.
Although the Albrook refugee camp was
administered by the Panamanian Red Cross
and the United States agency
for international development,
U.S. military police would
frequently enter the grounds
restrict access to make arrests.
With explicit permission
from the directors of the camp,
our camera crew entered
to interview refugees about their experience
of the invasion and its aftermath.
Even though we had authorization,
U.S. military police and the criminal
investigation division of the U.S. army
tried to stop our crew
from videotaping.
The Marshall's Office just called me and
they said to detain anybody from filming.
I don't think that's right. I think the
world has the right to know the truth.
Sir please, we are the victims.
We lose everything. We lose our families.
So now why the world is not
supposed to know the truth, sir?
I cannot allow you to film.
We are the victims sir. And we want
the world to know the truth.
I do too.
Then why are you against it?
You come in and arrest me
but we have the right to be here.
Were shooting here a Panamanian project
and we have the right of the director.
I'm not stopping, we are not slowing down.
So if you have to bring someone in
to forcibly do that, that's your business.
Why do they want to throw out the
reporters? They came to talk to us.
They want to know the truth. They won't
let them interview us. Why? Why?
Hundreds of angry refugees
surrounded the camera crew
forcing the military to withdraw.
Finally, the refugees were
able to tell their stories.
We are tired of being stuck inside
this hanger. Many old people are sick.
There is no medical attention.
And the children!
When? When are they going
to put an end to this?
We are the victims of Endara's presidency.
Why did it have to be us?
Why didn't they choose
the rich neighborhood?
If they had picked 50th street,
it would have been repaired by now.
Since it was El Chorrillo,
they have forgotten about us!
The people are in bad shape.
They have no clothes, nothing to wear.
I buy them clothes sometimes and
sometimes food out of my own pocket.
But one can't do that every day.
We need to avoid a problem
with the Corrilleros,
in the state they're in
they're liable to start a riot.
There could be more shootings
and more thefts
because the people of El Chorrillo
are very riled up.
If they want us to close up all the streets
in the country, we're gonna do it!
But we want answers!
We wanna get out of this goddamn place.
We are tired of this.
This is not no democracy.
They said they get rid of Noriega, and they are
worse than Noriega, they are plenty worse!
Because with Noriega we used to eat our 3
meals a day, now we're not even eating one!
More than 60 Panamanians are reported
to have died in that...
More than 50 Panamanians were killed. A
doctor at a government hospital in Panama...
..casualties, but we've only had one report
today so we don't know how extensive...
there's no reason to doubt the reports obviously
that we are getting from the Pentagon,
and yet all the information we are getting
from the Pentagon, seems to conflict
with all the eye-witness information that
we were are able to get out of Panama city.
How many people were killed in Panama
and who were they?
These questions may never be answered.
Because the United States military
undertook elaborate efforts to conceal
the number of dead, how they died,
and the location of their bodies.
Children died, pregnant women died,
seniors died, adolescents died,
soldiers died,
victims who had nothing to do with politics,
the invasion or the Noriega regime.
What happened in Panama is a hidden horror.
Many of the bodies were
bulldozed into piles
and immolated in the slumps
where they were collected.
Other bodies were left in the garbage shoots
at the poor projects, in witch they died
from the shooting, from the artillery, from
the machine guns, from the airborne attacks.
Others were said to
have been pushed into the ocean.
When we went down to El Chorrillo,
there were still dead bodies inside cars.
There was a man and a woman with a child,
all of them burned up inside a car.
People from El Chorrillo never thought
they would see some many dead bodies.
See them being burned on the beach,
right on the beach, they're being burned.
In the early hours of the invasion,
U.S. troops took control
of the hospitals and morgues
Many of the doctors and hospital
personnel were detained
and thousands official documents
were confiscated.
The truth of the matter is that we don't even
know how many Panamanians we have killed.
But we should have more information on what
happened. How many civilians were killed?
The national human rights commission of
Panama interviewed hundreds of people
in an effort to determine
how many had died.
What we have is different testimonies
that help us arrive to the conclusion
that for sure there were more
than 4000 people who died.
You have the U.N. human rights commission
estimating 2500 deaths
you have the two major
independent human rights organizations
in the region estimating
2500, 3000, 3500.
You have Isabel Corro
and her organization
estimating probably about 4000
That's an enormous human toll
The U.S. military said
250 civilians were killed.
There isn't a credible source in Panama
that believes that's true.
Whether it is ambulance drivers,
human rights monitors
Doctors who worked in hospitals.
Neighbors of bombed out blocks,
It's just clearly false.
That story would be so easy
to tell for any journalist,
worth his or her salt.
But they are not telling it.
I made a point of reading the European
press as well as the American press
when the invasion occurred. And
immediately I could see that where as the
American press was talking about maybe
a couple hundred civilian casualties,
from the very beginning
the European press was talking about
a 1000 civilians dead
or 2000 civilians dead.
So, the real facts are that
the American people didn't really know
what had happened in Panama.
You would think from the video clips
that we had seen
that this whole thing
was just a Mardi Gras,
that the people of Panama was just
jumping up and down with glee.
And that all forces had just moved in the air
and without taking any lives at all,
had brought liberty and freedom
to these oppressed people.
Does it feel like intervention?
No, it's not intervention.
They came to save us, I thank them.
I love them,
I love the North Americans right now.
When they interviewed people in Panama
about what they thought of it,
they invariably were interviewing white,
middle class people who could speak English.
They didn't really go into the poor
neighborhoods where people had been bombed.
Did you see one media actually going to the
bombed areas and talked to people
who had lost their family or
lost everything they had in the bombings?
They focused totally on the invasion
as a tactical event.
Was it effective? Did it work well?
Are we losing many American lives?
15 American service men have died
in the combat today
Not all the news is good.
American casualties are now put at 15 dead.
The Pentagon also announced 1 American
civilian has been killed to make a total of 16.
is a schoolteacher, apparently hit by stray
gunfire. She is the 20th American to die.
They focused utter ethno-centrism
only on American lives.
The only life that was precious,
the only life that one could report on,
the only life that one could consider
as a serious loss, was an American life.
Tonight, as we end this program
we hear from president Bush
on the high price these young men paid.
We say goodbye to them.
Every human life is precious.
And yet I have to answer:
Yes, it has been worth it.
In the month following the invasion,
Panamanians were shocked to discover the
existence of mass graves, where hundreds,
perhaps thousands of bodies were hastily
dumped into pits and buried by U.S. troops.
There was a report of
what some were calling a mass grave,
which I think is a term that is
imprecise.
No, I didn't say we had any mass burials.
There was one case of some number,
I cannot quote to you that number.
Today, there have been 50 mass graves that
have been identified throughout Panama.
Th U.S. military was directly responsible
for the killings of
the men, women, and children that are
in these mass graves, and for their burial.
These mass graves exist throughout Panama
and some are believed to be on
U.S. military bases,
which create the difficulty in terms of
access to these mass graves.
Among these corpses
we found many young people,
15, 16, 18 years old.
We found people
in their 60's and in their 70's.
We found people killed by a shot
to the back of their heads.
Dead, with their hands tied.
Dead, with casts on their legs or arms.
Although the Pentagon insists that
no more than 516 Panamanians were killed,
they do conceive that
over 75% of those killed were civilians.
Families of the victims
continue to demand the full accounting
of the missing and the dead.
Who has the right to determine
how many people
should be killed in an invasion?
I think if one person got killed
in an invasion that is illegal
and violates all principles of human rights
the number of people, the quantity
the figures
if it's 10.000
or it's just one, is irrelevant
the issue that innocent people were killed!
A lot of people died.
Too many people died.
Although the U.S. media created a perception
of support for the invasion within the U.S.,
the invasion was overwhelmingly condemned
in the international community.
If you look at any document in
international law, any numerous treaties,
it's clear that this invasion was illegal.
It's not debatable.
The Panama invasion violates
the U.N. charter and the OAS charter
which have specific prohibitions against
invasions of a sovereign country.
And invasions of the territorial integrity
of other countries.
These prohibitions are very strict and
clear, under international law.
The U.S. actions are in violation of human
rights also violates the Geneva conventions
which protects civilians from
indiscriminate acts of violence
as had occurred against
civilian victims in Panama.
The four biggest, most important papers
in this country
all endorsed the rightness
of the Panama invasion.
That's the Washington Post,
the Los Angeles Times, strong endorsements.
The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal. Everyone of them.
Now, a little body known as
the United Nations had a vote about this.
On December 29 they voted
by an overwhelming majority
to condemn the invasion as, in their words,
a flagrant violation of international law.
So, I was interested to see that night on
the NBC nightly news with Deborah Norville,
absolutely no mention what so ever
of this vote.
Turning to CBS,
the bastion of responsible broadcasting,
I found a full 10 seconds
lavished on that story.
At the United Nations today, the general
assembly adopted a resolution deploring
the U.S. invasion of Panama as a, quote,
flagrant violation of international law.
The vote 75 to 20 with 40 abstentions.
The media was so cooperative
with the government.
Because the media are owned
by the same interests
that are being defended in Central America
by that government policy.
The media are not close
to corporate America.
They are not favorable
to corporate America.
They are corporate America. They are
an integral part of corporate America.
We are a Plutocracy. We out to face it.
A country in which wealth controls.
Maybe true of all countries more or less.
But it is uniquely to of ours,
because of our materialism
and the concentration of wealth here.
Even our democratic processes,
are hardly that,
because money dominates politics,
and we all know it.
And through politics it dominates
government. And it dominates the media.
We really need desperately to find new ways to
hear independent voices and points of view.
It's the only way
we're gonna find the truth.
The truth about the invasion of Panama
remains hidden from most Americans.
Those who have studied
the official accounts
have discovered many contradictions and
have arrived at disturbing conclusions.
I have studied everything
that the president has said,
as to reasons why he ordered the invasion.
And none of those things,
singly or collectively
makes any legal, moral
or constitutional sense.
One of the reasons for the invasion
was to take the 'wimp' image
of president George Bush.
He had had the, what now seems to be,
the necessary 'blooding'
of a United States president to show
his forcefulness, and his 'machismo'.
This was chance for the military
to show what it could do.
If they kill an American marine,
that is real bad.
And if they threaten and brutalize
the wife of an American citizen,
sexually threatening the
lieutenant's wife, while kicking him
in the groin, over and over again
this president is
gonna do something about it.
When he would say that the loss
of American life was the last straw,
sure there must be something
we could have done.
Certainly there must have been papers
we could've filed.
We could've gone to the world court.
We could've gone to the United Nations,
or maybe the
organizations of American states,
but invade a country because of this?
Is absolutely ridiculous.
The excuse of the invasion
was to protect American lives,
is the one that is always given.
The fact is there are 35,000 American citizens
there, and none of them were in any danger.
I was there 3 weeks before the invasion.
There's simply no evidence.
I don't think the administration has ever bothered
to even give any evidence to that statement.
The goals of the United States have been
to safeguard the lives of Americans,
to defend democracy in Panama.
Then president Bush said we had to go
to restore democracy in Panama.
How is the world do you restore that
which has never existed?
Panama has never been a democracy since we
created Panama for our own purposes in 1903.
And all we did was go down to restore
American control and dominance in Panama.
The new government
installed by the invasion,
was headed by the U.S.-backed candidates
from the aborted national election.
Endara, Calderon
and Ford.
Hours before the invasion
they were taken to a U.S. military base
where they were sworn in
as the president and vice presidents.
But the new government has enjoyed
little popular support within Panama.
Anti-government demonstrations
occur regularly
and there have been numerous attempts
from within the Panamanian police force
to seize military control
of the government.
U.S. troops were mobilized several times
to crush these insurrections.
Every time there is a crisis,
the U.S. military takes over.
They give orders,
they subordinate that military,
because they don't trust
that military force.
The conflict is still there.
The oligarchy...
knows that if the United States were not
there, they could not rule this country.
But pres. Endara minimizes the significance
of America's military occupation in Panama.
I think we are very normalized now.
We practically have no occupation at all.
You don't see them in the streets.
I don't see them in Panama.
However, there are a few, here and there,
but it's not really an occupation.
Of course he is not going to say
that Panama is occupied,
in fact he might not even
call it an invasion.
It wasn't his kind that were killed,
or massacred.
He lives in the nice area.
In the oligarchical area.
His interest was protected.
He is not running Panama.
He is a puppet of the U.S. government.
The U.S. government is running Panama.
They are running all of the ministers
in Panama.
He is only abiding by
what he is told to do.
The Bush administration claimed that another
reason for the invasion was to remove Noriega
in order to stem the flow of drugs
into the United States.
But according to
a U.S. general accounting office report,
cocaine traffic through Panama may have
doubled in the 2 years following the invasion.
There is also considerable evidence that
key members of Panama's new government,
including president Endara,
have been tied to the drug trade through banks
and front companies that launder drug money.
The involvement of the
Panamanian economy as a whole
in drug trafficking, arms running,
various questionable banking practices,
in fact involves
most of the Panamanian elite.
Involves most of the people who now run this
new U.S. approved Panamanian government.
Endara and Ford, we all know,
and Panamanians know,
that they are the real drug traffickers.
They have been,
because Panama has had a history
of the oligarchy
being involved in drug trafficking.
In the years preceding
and throughout the invasion,
the U.S. government and the major media
consistently portrayed Manuel Noriega
as America's most hated and evil enemy.
General Noriega became a mythic figure.
There was an attempt to personify in Noriega
all that was evil.
It is very interesting. That, when general
Noriega, when office was captured,
we discovered the red pyjamas,
the voodoo equipment
and the alleged cocaine
that he was using.
And the pornographic
pictures in his desk.
Now, I happen to have been in
Chile with United Nations
at the time of the overthrow
of president Allende.
It is interesting that
that same desk appeared in Chile
with the pornographic pictures,
the red pajamas, and the cocaine.
The whole propaganda against him
was to build up a pretext
in order to invade Panama, and to say:
We invaded Panama because of Noriega.
I don't know how Americans can be so stupid,
to believe this. How can you be so stupid?
Like for example, at one time,
they had Noriega at gunpoint.
They could have taken Noriega then.
But the Americans didn't want Noriega.
What they really wanted is
to destroy the Panamanian army.
In order to do with the treaty what they
wanted. Which is what is happening now.
Although the U.S. governments
reasons for the invasion
make no mention of eliminating
the Panamanian Defense Forces,
U.S. officials later admitted that destroying
the PDF was a central part of the plan.
It was not only Mr. Noriega
but his accomplices and underlings.
Who stood for a reprehensible government
at the time. And therefor
you had to take down, not only Mr. Noriega
but take down the elements
of his supporting entity
in order to reduce the PDF to nothing.
One of the objectives of the invasion.
The main objective,
was to destroy the PDF.
Why?
The treaty, the Panama Canal Treaties.
It states clearly that the year 2000
Panama will be responsible for
the security, the safety, of the canal.
To be responsible for the safety of
a nation you need to have an army.
The elimination,
the liquidation of the PDF,
means the extension, the continuity
of the United States presence
as the only military force, in our nation.
Which historically is
the United States position.
What they really want is to stay in Panama
after the year 2000.
And that is what they have achieved.
To destroy the Panamanian Defense Forces,
to impose a government
complacent with U.S. interests,
and to make Panama the control center
for all of Latin America.
The invasion sets the stage for the wars
of the 21st century in South America.
The 2000 mile invasion
from Washington to Panama City
took place primarily with bases
from the United States.
The essential value of the Southern Command
is to get another 2000 miles
of intervention capability,
which takes us right into the heart
of the Andean coca producing region.
Where the wars of the next decade
are entirely likely to take place.
Panama is another example
of destroying a country to save it.
And it's another case of how the U.S.
has exercised a 'might make right' doctrine
among the smaller countries
of the third world.
It has long been U.S. practice
to invade these countries,
get what we want, and leave the people
that live there to kind of rot.
Our country has been ruined,
our homes have been destroyed,
and we still have no real answers.
So what's left but to take to the streets.
Since we didn't lose our lives in the war,
we're willing to risk fighting for our rights.
George Bush, may his children be spared
what my daughter has been subjected to.
My daughter who doesn't want to live.
May his generation be spared
what our generation is living through.
He should ask God for forgiveness for all
the damage caused to many families down here.
One year ago the people of Panama lived
in fear under the thumb of a dictator,
today democracy is restored.
Panama is free.
In march 1991, president Guillermo Endara,
proposed a constitutional amendment,
that would for ever abolish
Panama's right to have an army.
Later that year,
a law was passed by the U.S. Congress
to renegotiate the Panama Canal Treaties
to ensure
continued U.S. military presence in Panama,
on the grounds that Panama was no longer
capable of defending the canal.