The truth behind US' Operation Just Cause in Panama

[Judi Lynn]

The truth behind US' Operation Just Cause in Panama


The more history that can be exhumed, the harder it will be for the US to hide behind noble intentions in the future.

31 Jan 2016 10:45 GMT


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General Colin Powell, centre, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during the operation, tours the bombed courtyard of the Panamanian Defense Force Comandancia in Panama City (Getty)
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Belen Fernandez

On January 31, 1990, the US invasion of Panama - dubbed Operation Just Cause - officially came to a close. While the US military has consistently lowballed the Panamanian death count of the short-lived affair, other observers have put the number of fatalities at several thousand.

As media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) noted at the time, Just Cause saw the impoverished Panama City neighbourhood of El Chorillo pulverised to the point of being referred to by ambulance drivers as "Little Hiroshima". In other words, no surgical strikes here.

Indeed, the foray into Panama was the largest US combat operation since the Vietnam War. The US government trotted out various noble justifications for the operation, such as improving the lot of the Panamanians by hauling their dictator, General Manuel Noriega, off to the US to face drug trafficking charges.

This was the same Noriega, of course, who had for years been a US favourite, occupying a prominent position on the CIA's payroll despite common knowledge of his involvement in the international drug trade.

A whole lot of birds

In typical fashion, the gringos managed to kill a whole lot of birds with the Just Cause stone. In addition to capturing Noriega - who was driven out of his refuge at the Vatican embassy in Panama by US troops blasting rock music in the direction of the compound - the US also reasserted its power in the area and conducted a trial run of military equipment for upcoming action in the Middle East.

As for the human beings killed by the same stone, Panama is now launching a truth commission to determine just what happened 26 years ago.

More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/truth-operation-panama-160131085323562.html

Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016143172

[Judi Lynn]

1. From Panama to Ferguson: Countering the devaluation of black lives

From Panama to Ferguson: Countering the devaluation of black lives

The 25th anniversary of the US invasion of Panama is a reminder that US state violence is not confined to its borders.

26 Dec 2014 10:04 GMT

Janvieve Williams Comrie

Janvieve Williams Comrie is the executive director of the Latin American and Caribbean Community Centre.

"I was 11 years old when the invasion happened. It did not matter that there were Christmas lights blinking all over the country, or that in many houses the sun-kissed clothing lines filled the air with the fragrant aroma of lavender. What mattered is that for many, something horrible was going to come, despite not being sure what that would be. It could be sensed in the conversations, the empty sidewalks void of young people hanging out, or the lack of Christmas chaos in a tropical country. But no one would know the intensity of the sounds. Sounds many described as the end of the world. Sounds of the explosions, machine guns, hummer tanks, and loud blood curdling screams that would begin and then stop. And after a short, yet long silence, destruction continued. That's when I realised that the devil that we feared all those years, would have done less damage to my soul, my country and my land." Marta L Sanchez, Afropanamanian artist.

Twenty five years ago on December 20, 1989, El Chorrillo, an Afro-Panamanian neighbourhood in the centre of Panama city was the scene of a criminal assault by the military forces of the United States government.

A vigorous assault from the most powerful military body on the planet was unleashed by President George H W Bush to execute an arrest warrant issued by a US court on General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the de facto head of the sovereign state of Panama, and up until that time an obedient servant of US interests in the region.

Significant elements of the outgunned Panamanian defence forces had barracks in the El Chorrillo community and as a consequence it was turned into a free fire zone by the invading forces, despite the fact that the invaders knew that thousands of civilians also lived in the densely populated community.

More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/from-panama-ferguson-counteri-20141223105256345587.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Reporting on Panamanian Truth Commission, Al Jazeera Cites FAIR’s 1990 Work

Reporting on Panamanian Truth Commission, Al Jazeera Cites FAIR’s 1990 Work

Jan 31 2016

Writing in Al Jazeera (1/31/16) about Panama’s establishment of a truth commission to investigate the consequences of the 1989-90 US invasion of that country, Belén Fernández cites FAIR’s 1990 critique of invasion coverage (Extra!, 1-2/90):

As media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) noted at the time, Just Cause saw the impoverished Panama City neighborhood of El Chorillo pulverized to the point of being referred to by ambulance drivers as “Little Hiroshima.” In other words, no surgical strikes here….

Consider a passage from FAIR’s critique of the US media’s leap onto the Just Cause bandwagon—from which vantage point said media determined that Panamanians were, in fact, totally in favour of the death and destruction being rained upon their country:

Few [American] TV reporters seemed to notice that the jubilant Panamanians parading before their cameras day after day to endorse the invasion spoke near-perfect English and were overwhelmingly light-skinned and well-dressed.

More:
http://fair.org/home/reporting-on-panamanian-truth-commission-al-jazeera-cites-fairs-1990-work/

[EdwardBernays]

3. Just another

Link of a long chain of US war crimes and murders in South America.

[Judi Lynn]

5. It becomes a real challenge to the Americas to become strong and unified enough

so this won't keep happening to them, as it never should have, in the first place.

So few US Americans have known anything about it, not by accident. They were kept ignorant deliberately. Now some remain ignorant, having taken over the duties of dumbing themselves down.

[EdwardBernays]

6. forever and ever amen

it's ongoing... Americans have no idea the US is involved in ongoing war crimes in Yemen... somehow no one thinks it's important that we're killing and starving thousands of civilians... while at the same time helping al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen.

That's totally not something worth discussing.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Panama Supports Truth Commission on 1989 US Invasion

Panama Supports Truth Commission on 1989 US Invasion

Panama, Jan 26 (Prensa Latina) The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations system offered today a workshop for representatives of civil society that will be part of the truth commission on the US invasion of Panama in 1989.

A note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it was analyzed the collective construction and development of institutional tools as the basis of what will be the Commission of December 20.

The group's objectives are the discovery of the truth, full knowledge of the number and identity of the victims and the recovery of collective memory, among others.

The Vice President of Panama, Isabel de Saint Malo, highlighted that a roadmap to honor the victims of the invasion was already defined, published the newspaper La Prensa.

Among the actions are included the development of a Truth Report, recommendation of proposals for victims reparation, evaluation of the installation of memorials, research the existence of possible graves, among other issues.

According to Professor Olmedo Beluche there are places, such as El Chorrillo, Corozal, Chepo and Arcoiris, that are still waiting for a through investigation of mass graves.

More:
http://www.plenglish.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4552351&Itemid=1