Truth commission on US invasion of Panama

[Judi Lynn]

Truth commission on US invasion of Panama

Source: AAP

A truth commission will examine the 1989 US invasion of Panama, the country's foreign minister says.

4 Jul 2015 - 10:54 AM UPDATED 4 Jul 2015 - 3:07 PM

A truth commission will examine the US invasion of Panama, which took place more than 25 years ago and toppled military dictator General Manuel Noriega.

The commission will look at victims of the military operation launched by the United States at the end of 1989, Panama Foreign Minister Isabel Saint Malo said.

The number of people estimated killed in operation Just Cause is more than 3000, including numerous civilians.

But the exact number of victims and their identities isn't known because many bodies were buried in mass graves.

More:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/07/04/truth-commission-us-invasion-panama

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. GHW Bush CIA ties to Noriega/ Iran Contra/ Panama Banks

?55ac53




On Dec. 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to arrest Gen. Manuel Noriega on drug charges. The U.S. news media viewed the assault as a case of Bush seeking justice, but there was a darker back story of U.S. guilt, as Robert Parry reported in 1997.

By Robert Parry (Originally published in 1997)

On the afternoon of Oct. 2, 1987, John F. Molina, a 46-year-old Cuban with the look of a Latin Sean Connery, sauntered from the stylish Panama City offices of the law firm, Sucre y Sucre. Molina and his companion, Enrique Delvalle, had been clearing up business that they had with lawyers who had created shell corporations for an arms supply network for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. The two men stepped out onto the busy street and climbed into Molina’s red Mitsubishi four-wheel-drive vehicle.......

https://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/19/contras-dirty-money-and-cia/


The Vice President's illegal operations

BY HOWARD KOHN, VICKI MONKS | November 3, 1988


The ROLLING STONE investigation – based on congressional and court documents and more than fifty interviews with government diplomats, career military officers and intelligence agents, including key Black Eagle operatives – also found that General Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator indicted in the U.S. on drug charges early this year, played an important part in Black Eagle, making available his country's airfields and front companies to the American operatives. In exchange, Noriega appropriated Black Eagle's fleet of cargo planes to smuggle cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. on behalf of the notorious Medellín cartel of Colombia. Several of those involved with the operation contend that Bush and Gregg knew about Noriega's use of Black Eagle for drug running and that nothing was done to stop it.

Noriega had been brought into the Black Eagle operation by agents of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. It had been Casey's idea to use the Israelis to arrange for the acquisition and shipping of weapons to the contras as a way of distancing American officials and agents from the Black Eagle operation. The Mossad provided cover and gave the American operatives plausible deniability.

Late in 1985, after a falling-out and a near gunfight between Israeli and American operatives, the Black Eagle operation came to an end. By this time North's operation, known as the Enterprise, and a third one, which was called the Supermarket, had been set up. The Supermarket smuggled weapons to the contras for about ten months in 1985, until North, consolidating his power in the shadow government, forced the operation out of business. North's own Enterprise remained in business, with Rodriguez as a logistics officer, until the Southern Air plane was shot down.



the Black Eagle operation,.......................................


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-dirty-secrets-of-george-bush-19881103#ixzz3f6W6P8d2
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook


Octafish

The Tailor of Panama -- Custom Fit for Today's USA.


Based on the book by John Le Carre, The Tailor of Panama stars Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis and many other talents. The picture tells a great story about the spy game and how truth affects people and the course of nations.

The work also reminded me of another film, The Panama Deception,an Oscar winner directed by Barbara Trent and written and edited by David Kasper. It told the true story of Operation Just Cause, George Herbert Walker Bush's invasion of Panama in December 1989 to drive Manuel Noriega from power. The late Elizabeth Montgomery narrated the film.

The Panama Deception also chronicled what Corporate McPravda missed: how Noriega and Bush once were buddies, doing CIA-protected BCCI business like gun-running and money laundering together and in the process of "getting Noriega," thousands of innocents died. Some believe the invasion marked the beginning of the "Bush Doctrine" of invading whoever the U.S. chief executive wants to invade. You can view the film online.

The reason I bring all this up is these films highlight major problems our nation faces. In Panama, about 30 families control the nation's wealth. Similar situations exist in Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador and throughout the Americas..................................



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7685950

[starroute]

9. Panamanian shell companies were an essential part of Iran-Contra

I'd be real interested to know whether Mossack was involved in any of this at the time.


http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-02/news/mn-4258_1_arms-money

The Erria, a Danish-flag freighter that North and two key associates bought last April and put to sea for eight months of derring-do, makes that point. It offers an intriguing and sometimes comical glimpse of how North and his associates tried to cloak the Iran-contra operation in secrecy.

With help from the Tower report, the history of the Erria reveals how North and two associates--retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and Iranian-born California businessman Albert A. Hakim--ran the ship and other parts of the Iran-contra operation like a multinational holding company, right down to the flow charts and balance sheets.

And it hints at how North, William J. Casey, former director of the CIA, and other Administration officials could have allowed private friendships and business relationships to become entwined with their efforts on behalf of the contras.

The unlikely missions of the small ship--gunrunning, attempted ransoms, espionage--have been detailed in recent weeks. Less known, however, is the network that stood behind them: at least three Panamanian shell companies, a CIA front, a former CIA official, Swiss accountants and a lawyer, an unknown number of bank accounts and an otherwise legitimate Danish company that served as a front for the whole adventure.


http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/07/us/iran-contra-witness-testifies-on-bank-account.html

In his testimony, Mr. Zucker explained the intricacies of Swiss banking, how shell companies were formed in Panama and Liberia and how funds were electronically transferred to and from accounts identified by number or by an alias.

Mr. Zucker is the head of a Swiss financial management concern, Compagnie de Services Fiduciaries, or CSF, which supervised the finances of the companies and accounts set up to conduct the secret arms shipments to the contras.

On Wednesday, the Government's first witness, Richard V. Secord, said the CSF records pertaining to the arms sales had been falsified. But Mr. Zucker testified today that the company's documents had been maintained in accordance with standard Swiss accounting procedures.


http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/10/world/saudi-businessman-in-iran-affair-tells-of-playing-games-with-us-aides.html?pagewanted=all

The interviews here and a review of some selected documents that Mr. Khashoggi and Mr. Furmark permitted this reporter to examine indicated that the flow of money in and out of Lake Resources, the Panama-registered shell company used by Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, the former National Security Council aide, and his associates, are far more complicated than previously known.

The records show that a number of previously unpublicized Khashoggi companies were used to transfer money to both Lake Resources and Mr. Ghorbanifar.

Documents in the report of the Tower Commission, which was appointed by President Reagan, indicate that Mr. Khashoggi was at the same time receiving money from both Lake Resources and Mr. Ghorbanifar.

Mr. Khashoggi said Mr. Ghorbanifar asked him in 1986 to raise $100 million for the contras from the Saudi royal family so that he and Mr. Khashoggi could gain ''influence in Washington.'' Mr. Ghorbanifar made the suggestion when the Administration was quietly seeking alternative funding for the contras, after Congress had declined to authorize $100 million in aid.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Christ! I had no idea.

[bananas]

4. The Panama Deception

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panama_Deception

The Panama Deception

The Panama Deception is a 1992 American documentary film that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[1] The film is critical of the actions of the US military during the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States, covering the conflicting reasons for the invasion and depicting the US media as biased. It also highlighted media bias, showing events that were unreported or misreported in the news. It was directed by Barbara Trent of the Empowerment Project and was narrated by actress Elizabeth Montgomery.

The film asserts that the U.S. government invaded Panama primarily to renegotiate the terms of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties. Another allegation made by the film is that the United States tested some form of laser or energy weapon during the invasion. The film also includes footage of mass graves uncovered after the US troops had withdrawn, burned down neighborhoods, as well as depictions of some of the 20,000 refugees who fled the fighting.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. I didn't hear anything of this magnitude occurring from relatives.

Just goes to show you how much they were probably glad to get rid of Noriega. Not a likeable dictator. Torrijos, on the other hand, was liked by the poor, at least.

[Judi Lynn]

7. A man who massacred the poor was LIKED by the poor? Really?

From a post at DU years ago:

dipsydoodle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-31-11 04:05 AM
Original message

'I shot the cruellest dictator in the Americas'


Before his assassination on a dark highway on 30 May 1961, the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ruled with an iron fist for almost 30 years. Tim Mansel meets one of the men who shot him.

Rafael Trujillo's rule is considered one of the most brutal periods in the history of the Dominican Republic. Taking power in 1930, his hold over the country was absolute. He brooked no opposition.

Those who dared to oppose him were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Their bodies often disappeared, rumoured to have been fed to the sharks.

In 1937, Trujillo ordered the racially motivated massacre of several thousand Haitians living in the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13560512

[center]AND [/center]
Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-01-11 12:28 PM
Response to Original message

1. Thanks for posting the Trujillo assassination article, dipsydoodle. Didn't see it 'til today.

Here's a short summary of his stinking career:

Rafael Trujillo was born in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, in 1891. After leaving school he worked as a telegraph operator. At the time Dominican Republic was occupied by the United States. In 1918 Trujillo joined the Dominican National Guard that had been created by the Americans. He made rapid progress in his new career and by the time the US Marines left in 1924 he was the head of the Dominican National Guard.

In 1930 Trujillo ran against incumbent Horacio Vasquez for president. Trujillo was able to use his power to win the election. He afterwards claimed he had won ninety five percent of the vote. After he gained power Trujillo established a secret police force that tortured and murdered the opposition to his rule.

Trujillo used his political control to obtain great personal wealth. He achieved support from the United States by becoming Latin America's leading anti-communists. Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State (1933-1944), defended Trujillo by saying: " He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch."

More:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtrujillo.htm

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
One of Trujillo's crowning achievements, "The Parsley Massacre:"

The massacre that marked Haiti-Dominican Republic ties

By Nick Davis
BBC News, Caribbean correspondent

13 October 2012

Seventy-five years ago, the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was the scene of a mass slaughter that has long burned in Haitians' collective memory but was either unknown or forgotten in the wider world.

It earned the name the Parsley Massacre because Dominican soldiers carried a sprig of parsley and would ask people suspected of being Haitian to pronounce the Spanish word for it: "perejil".

Those whose first language was Haitian Creole found it difficult to say it correctly, a mistake that could cost them their lives.

Historians estimate that anywhere between 9,000 and 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic on the orders of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Bodies were dumped in the Massacre River, ominously named after an earlier colonial struggle between the Spanish and French.

The killings of 1937 changed the relationship between the two countries on the island of Hispaniola and its effects can still be felt today.

Rafael Trujillo was in power from 1930 until his assassination in 1961

From late September to mid-October that year, men, women and children were rounded up, then beaten or hacked to death for just being Haitian.

Even dark-skinned Dominicans were caught up in the purge that became known as "el corte", the cutting.

More:
https://genocidememorialproject.wordpress.com/student-memorial-pages/trujillos-dominican-republic/

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO

President of the Dominican Republic

The US occupied the Dominican Republic in 1916 and created the National Guard to put Rafael Leonidas Trujillo into power. The fact that Trujillo was court-martialed for kidnapping and rape in 1920 did not impede his rise to power or taint his relationship with the US. As dictator of the Dominican Republic for 30 years, Trujillo had a penchant for self-adulation, and put his personal stamp on everything, including the capital, village water pumps, and homes for the aged. Trujillo won the 1930 presidential election with more votes than there were registered voters, but because he was anti-communist, Washington was happy. He invoked anti-communism to justify mass deportations, torture and summary executions. Workers who asked for wage increases were labeled communists, and shot on the spot, as were farmers who tried to stop Trujillo from confiscating their land. He eventually controlled over 80% of the country's sugar plantations, using slave labor provided by neighboring Haiti to keep profits high. In 1937, he decided to blame depressed sugar prices on the Haitian workers, and massacred 20,000 them. Trujillo was finally assassinated by the CIA in 1961 after he attempted to have President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela murdered because of his criticism of Trujillo's brutal regime. It was only then that the Marine Corps made public the fact that our ally Trujillo was a convicted rapist.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Erm, there is a slight geographic deviation between Hispaniola

and the country of Panama. And there is a slight deviation in the spelling of Trujillo and Torrijos.

Omar Torrijos was the military dictator that ruled in Panama before Noriega came into power. In fact, Noriega was next in line when Torrijos died in a helicopter accident. Torrijos was liked by the poor because he built housing for them. We would call them projects, but, it was a roof over their heads. He also presented a fierce independence from the U.S.A. His slogan was, "Siempre de pie, nunca de rodilla" Always standing, never kneeling.

It would not surprise me to hear that the helicopter crash was not an accident. But a dictator, is still a dictator. And corruption is corruption.

[Judi Lynn]

6. That's a superior documentary. U.S. Americans were kept in the dark about this.

The documentary should be seen by as many concerned US Americans as possible. People SHOULD know.

[Nitram]

3. George Bush couldn't let the insubordination of a CIA asset stand.

A message to all CIA assets everywhere - toe the line or else.