I thought it was thunder. But the
television set me straight. Channel 2,
which belongs to the government, was
announcing, “…attention, attention,
Dignity Battalions: CODEPADI, emer-
gency, emergency, Code Cutarra, get
your guns, emergency.” The U.S.
Southern Command’s Channel 8 was
broadcasting Code Echo-the fifth and
maximum level of alert. The die had
been cast. The invasion was underway.
The seismograph needle at the Uni-
versity of Panama’s Geosciences Insti-
tute marked the first bomb precisely: 46
minutes and 40.3 seconds after mid-
night, December 20, 1989. During the
next four minutes it registered 67 more.
The delicate instrument traced the suc-
cession of explosions for another 13
hours before giving out: A total of 422
bombs fell on the city, some of them
tremendously destructive. A bomb ev-
ery two minutes. The seismograph did
not register the bombardments in other
parts of the country. Nor did it record
the shooting. Nor the toll in human
suffering.
At the stroke of midnight Panama
suffered the twentieth invasion of its
territory at the hands of the United
States. The first occurred 133 years ago
when Jack Oliver, a traveler, refused to
pay Jos6 Manuel Luna the price of a
slice of watermelon. The slum rose up
in insurrection and the United States
sent troops to this small isthmus for the
first time.
How many died during the first days
of the invasion? Dozens? Hundreds?
Thousands? The numbers seem to rise
weekly. The Church claims that 655
Panamanians died, most of them civil-
ians, and more than 2,000 were injured.
But the number of Panamanian dead
could easily rise to several thousand. In
many areas the bodies were buried in
alleys and patios, and information has
been intentionally withheld. Twenty-
three U.S. soldiers were killed.
In Chorrillo, a neighborhood of
wooden barracks built to house the
workers who dug the Canal at the be-
ginning of this century, the invasion hit
like a little Hiroshima. The Central
Headquarters of the Defense Forces lay
in the heart of the barrio; the inhabitants
were awakened by bombs, tracer bul-
lets and flares–night turned into day.
The population was not prepared
for war; there were no shelters, no civil
defense to protect them. The invading
troops were concerned only with mini-
mizing their own losses. They made
use of this opportunity to try out the
supersecret Stealth bomber ($500 mil-
lion apiece), the Apache AH-64 attack
helicopter ($14 million apiece), the
HMMWV jeeps, new vests and hel-
mets, and even a new line of semi-dry
rations.
Some 200 bodies were pulled out of
the area around the Headquarters. They
were in pieces-many dressed only in
underwear. U.S. soldiers paid $6 for
each body recovered.
“The gringos sent a lot of tanks into
Chorrillo that night,” recounted one
resident. “There were about 80 of them.
From where I stood I could count 16
bodies of civilians, burned and bullet-
ridden: Porky Platero and his wife,
Miguel Acosta Gabino, La Sorda…” A
wounded man told of a bus on the
Panama-Chorerra route which was at-
tacked at one in the morning. A tank
destroyed it-along with 26 people in-
side.
A resident of Huerta Sandoval, next-
door to Chorrillo, recalled how U.S.
troops turned a tank’s machine-guns
and bazookas on a group of young men
drinking beer: “One of them, his last
name was Villareal, died instantly.
Three others were injured. One had his
leg severed at the knee. He bled to
death by the side of the road. His name
was Turry Aguilar-the neighborhood
mechanic. We took my brother to the
Gorgas hospital where they operated
on him in the parking lot.”
In the San Miguelito slums at the
city’s edge, a resident described the
situation: “A helicopter bombarded
three houses, destroying them all. One
woman was wounded in the knee. The
bomb entered the side of the house,
blowing the gas tank through the roof.
But worst of all was her daughter, only
months old, who was left with her arm
and head full of shrapnel…”
“It was painful,” he continued,
“agonizing. But most painful of all
was the euphoria [that followed]. Of
course we agree with getting rid of a
dictator who damaged our country. But
the United States with all its power
could have found a better way to re-
move that one person from the city.”
4 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
t
Ci
Sociologist and playwright Ra(d Leis
is the director of the Panamanian Center
for Research and Social Action
(CEASPA).
I _
4 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASRevolution from Outside
Of the objectives the United States
listed to justify the intervention, two
were explicit and immediate: to protect
the lives of U.S. residents, and to kill or
capture Noriega. This was to be done so
as to protect U.S. national security inter-
ests (the Canal and U.S. military bases)
and to create a Panama totally aligned
with those interests. Underneath all this,
the United States sought to make a
revolution of sorts.
Noriega’s Defense Forces (FD) were
the authoritarian axis of national politi-
cal power. They ran into conflict with
the political opposition, and later with
the United States, insofar as they sought
to monopolize control of the country.
The U.S. goal was not solely to remove
the top brass, but to make the institution
disappear altogether-“To change its
ideology,” a Southern Command offi-
cial declared on television. The new
Public Force (FP) is to work as an aux-
iliary to U.S. troops in defense of the
Canal and to guarantee internal secu-
rity. In civilian affairs it takes orders
from the government (in turn aligned
with the United States) and in military
matters from the Southern Command.
But transforming an army is not
accomplished through sleight-of-hand
nor an act of war. The surviving offi-
cers-80% of whom are now in the
FP-were not converted, but humili-
ated and obliged, stripped of their au-
thority and privileges. Beside the U.S
soldiers with their state-of-the-art
combat gear, the new FP troops move
like shadows, in old ill-fitting me-
chanic’s overalls, carrying clubs or at
most revolvers. A television commer-
cial for a fast-food chain shows, ap-
provingly, a U.S. soldier picking up a
Panamanian girl. A local paper runs
photos of dead U.S. soldiers under the
headline: “They died for Panama.”
The Panamanian military is defeated
and disliked. Those who resisted the in-
vasion are not considered heroes or
martyrs, but criminals who defended
Noriega.
“History repeats itself. Once again
a small nation is born under the protec-
tion of the United States…” wrote a
columnist in the daily Panamd Amirica.
The new government was the ace up the
Bush Administration’s sleeve. It de-
rived legitimacy from its electoral
“It will be difficult to convince them
not to cross the street again”
triumph in May 1989, even though it
was bom with the original sin of having
been imposed by foreign troops.
Those who have assumed the reins
of government with the support of U.S.
forces are inspired by the worldview of
the New Right: They perceive Pan-
ama’s crisis as one of political and
moral authority, eroding the hegemony
of the proper order of things. And they
believe that reactivating entrepreneurial
spirit will resolve it. They are not only
anticommunist, they are against any
policy which regulates or interferes with
the free market. Theirs is a crusade,
rooted in indivisible-under-God Ca-
tholicism.
The nation’s economic powers-that-
be would like to repair the falling out
between business and the state that oc-
curred after President Nicolds Ardita
Barletta was ousted in 1985. They hope
the invasion and occupation will give
birth to anew unity of economic, politi-
cal and military power, and a new ideo-
logical hegemony under the protection
of the United States.
Six major actors collaborate in this
process: the business lobby, National
Council of Private Enterprise (CNEP);
the “civic” Church, a sector of the
hierarchy, clerics and lay, particularly
in Panama City, that gave moral sup-
port to the opposition and the invasion;
and four political parties-the National
VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 6 (APRIL 1990)
_E
0
Civic Crusade (CCN), the Christian
Democratic Party (PDC), “Amul-
fismo,” and the Nationalist Republi-
can Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA).
The National Civic Crusade, led by
middle-class businessmen, occupies the
vacuum created by the lack of a grass-
roots popular movement. CCN’s vis-
ible struggle against the dictatorial
aspects of Noriega’s government gave
it legitimacy and appeal to a wide spec-
trum of society. The Christian Demo-
cratic Party, with its polished rhetoric
and international support, is the best
prepared of the parties in power. It re-
ceived more votes than any other in the
1989 elections-though many of them
were from supporters of the Pan-
amefiista Party, which was kept off the
ballot-and thus will have a majority in
the new National Assembly. It controls
the government and justice ministry, the education ministry and others.
“Amulfismo,” the political move-
ment founded by the late legendary
caudillo Arnulfo Arias Madrid, is cur-
rently without a party, but that is un-
doubtedly a question of time. It has the
largest social base and the deepest po-
litical appeal. President Guillermo
Endara belongs to this movement. Fi-
nally, MOLIRENA is the most conser-
vative of the four, the product of an
alliance of family-based oligarchic
parties. It controls economic policy
through the planning, labor and treas-
ury ministries, and occupies the minis-
tries of health and foreign relations.
This New Right alliance, born out of
shared opposition to Noriega, is not
homogeneous, and some aspects of it
are held together only by spit and a
prayer. It is now enjoying a post-inva-
sion honeymoon, but what will happen
when the champagne goes flat? When
the Endara government strengthens
Panama’s adherence to IMF structural
adjustment and privatization policies
(which Noriega never questioned) and
living standards fail to improve, a new
sort of opposition will likely emerge.
Not from the ranks of Noriega support-
ers, but out of new struggles on the
horizon.
More than ever before, the character
of Panama’s politics will be determined
by the presence of U.S. military forces, which hangs like Damocles’ sword over
the nation, blocking the natural unfold-
ing of Panamanian society. U.S. troops
5are the mentors of the new government
and army. And they are belligerent
forces in Panama’s political process.
Even when the occupying troops are
withdrawn, half or more will remain
stationed in the Southern Command.
According to the Canal Treaties, they
may stay “on the other side of the
street” until the year 2000; and they
have all the support they need to remain
beyond that date, should they wish. It
will be more difficult than ever to con-
vince them not to cross the street again.
The Other Invasion
In the midst of the horror, people
raised barricades and looted the busi-
nesses where they work and shop. Then
a wave of accusations and acts of venge-
ance flooded the country. People ea-
gerly turned in their neighbors-mili-
tary and paramilitary personnel, as well
as normally law-abiding citizens-to
U.S. troops, acclaimed as the bearers of
order.
How things have changed since the
1970s, when the country was united
and defiantly proud of Gen. Omar
Torrijos for demanding that the Canal
be returned to Panama! The 1980s be-
came a decade of gradual decomposi-
tion of consensual rule. Nationalism
does not work when it is divorced from
democracy, isolated from an organic
program, and separated out from the
concrete social and historical progress
of the poor. Noriega’s nationalism,
which demobilized the majority and
failed to offer a credible path to a better
society, was nothing but empty rheto-
ric. Its vitality was sapped by the lack of
popular sovereignty and by illicit en-
richment at the top-a clean flag in
dirty hands.
The process initiated by Torrijos
and brought to a close by the invasion
was characterized by a profound dis-
trust of autonomous organizing by the
poor. Demobilization, and the co-opta-
tion and corruption of leaders were the
result. This was nowhere more evident
than in Noriega’s plans for defense, the
Dignity Battalions, which never con-
templated grassroots participation.
Noriega, with all the power in his
hands, did not approve a single substan-
tive law in favor of the poor who might
have supported him. When university
students finally achieved an anti-impe-
rialist alliance, the Defense Forces inter-
vened and murdered one of them, Luis
Gonzales, in cold blood. Noriega not
only feared the United States. He feared
his own people even more.
The opposition to Noriega took up
people’s legitimate democratic aspira-
tions, and Panamanians’ long history of
nationalist sentiment was transcended
by the dichotomy of democracy and
dictatorship. Indeed, people came to
live a reality in which democracy was
irreconcilable with nationalism; the in-
vading army became an army of libera-
tion.
On another level, people experi-
enced the invasion as a catharsis. Ev-
eryone projected their own guilt onto
Noriega, washing their hands of any
responsibility for the nation’s crisis.
Noriega became the evil doer, the occu-
pying troops the avenging angel. Primi-
tive instincts triumphed over the Chris-
tian values of a believing people.
It was not only in the wake of the
invasion that all social classes partici-
pated in the looting of their own cities.
They had been doing it all along. The
years of crisis were fertile ground for
the yearning to “get what you can.”
The economy based on commerce and
services spawned a Phoenician syn-
drome. A country of consumers. A little
Hong Kong. “Get out of my way.” “If
they do it, so will I.” “I am what I
have.” Others, meanwhile (the United
States) carried out the dirty work of
bringing down the dictatorship. The old
slogan, long used to slander
Marxists,’ ‘”The ends justify the means,”
was Panama’s national motto.
Amid all of this was the growing
desire for foreign objects and foreign
New Right crusaders in office: Vice President Ricardo Arias Calder6n,
President Guillermo Endara, Vice President “Billy” Ford
INIACLLA KrrkUK 1 UiN I1. AN In,It A
culture. A Panamanian mother tells her
son not to be afraid: “Say hello, touch
it, it won’t hurt you. Can’t you see it’s
like a G.I. Joe?” And that was pre-
cisely the most popular television se-
ries and the best-selling toy in Panama.
Father Te6filo Cabrestrero calls it “the
drug from up there.” It is the invasion
that came long before the troops–creat-
ing idols, and blocking consciousness.
Today nationalists are suspect and
dangerous. Democrats enshrine the
paradigm of the United States. The
Southern Command is no longer a
hostile power, but a friendly army that
ought to remain. Latin America’s vote
in the OAS to censure the invasion is
viewed as treason. This is the logical
outcome of military nationalism.
The recent past is a tale of peoples
who have struggled long and hard to
throw off authoritarian regimes, using
peaceful means as in Eastern Europe,
Iran or the Philippines, or armed insur-
rection as in Nicaragua. The paths were
diverse, but there was only one actor:
the people.
No one should feel proud that some-
one else pulls your chestnuts from the
fire. We Panamanians had yet to use all
our strength, nor had we exhausted all
our possibilities. And the one who came
to do the job for us did not come out of
good will, but to defend his own inter-
ests. A Kuna Indian summed up Pan-
ama’s plight: “It’s as if we had a house
full of mice eating our bread and rice.
We use poison and traps. But we tire of
that, so we get a cat. Now the cat
doesn’t want to leave, and throwing it
out will not be easy: The mice will
come back, and the cat has very sharp
claws.”
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