At any historical moment, we are likely to find a conventional
interpretation of the state of the world and our role within it, often gaining
the force of unchallenged doctrine. Another near truism is that reality tends
to depart from established Truth. The present period is no exception.
That significant, even momentous, changes are underway in the world is
clear enough, and has been so for many years. The conventional interpretation
need not be elaborated at length; open an arbitrary journal, and it is laid
out before you. The U.S. has won the Cold War. Righteousness has triumphed
over evil with the victory of democracy, free market capitalism, justice and
human rights. As standard bearer of the cause, the United States now leads the
way to a New World Order of peace, economic development, and cooperation among
those who have seen the light, virtually everyone except for some holdouts
like Cuba which still complains irrationally that the Third World isn't
getting its due -- or Saddam Hussein, despite our dedicated efforts to improve
his behavior by the carrot rather than the stick, an error of judgment soon to
be rectified by the sword of the righteous avenger.
There are various ways to assess the validity of this inspiring picture.
One is to have a look at the traditional domains of the U.S. (and the West
generally), and ask how their people fare at this historic moment, as they
celebrate the victory of their side, a triumph of liberal capitalism and
democracy so final and conclusive, some feel, that we have reached "the end of
history," after which we sink into a sad state of boredom, relieved only by
the occasional technical manipulations needed to deal with questions at the
margin.
The concern that the fun might be over is not quite as novel as Francis
Fukuyama and other devotees of the Hegelian Spirit suggest. At his first
meeting with John F. Kennedy in 1958, Walt Rostow, later to become a top
adviser of the Kennedy administration, warned -- perhaps a shade prematurely
-- that after the astonishing domestic successes achieved by "the nation's
creativeness and idealism over the past ninety years, ...we run the danger of
becoming a bore to ourselves and the world." In Rostow's picture of the world
(shared with Kennedy, according to his account), the basic problems of
American society were then approaching full resolution. No real barriers stood
in the way of economic progress without serious cyclic disorders, "social
equity" for minorities, "the provision of equal educational opportunity," and
"the equitable distribution of income." We knew what was needed, and agreed
that it should be done. The consensus was so broad and the conclusions so
well-founded as to signal "the end of ideology," it was widely held. Like
Kennedy, Rostow felt that with the problems of domestic society largely behind
us, "the great revolutionary transformations going forward in the
underdeveloped world" should now absorb our energies and revitalize "those
basic spiritual qualities which have been historically linked to the nation's
sense of world mission."1
The Third World was soon to experience, once again, these "basic spiritual
qualities," now with the special cast given them by the knights-errant of
Camelot.
Not everyone feels confident that the nature and proper goals of human
society are fully understood, and the problems at home so close to resolution
that only some minor tinkering remains, just as not all share Tom Wolfe's
appreciation of the past decade as "one of the great golden moments that
humanity has ever experienced." One need hardly go as far as a Black teenager
in Harlem to find a slightly different sense of current realities. And even
the most cursory look beyond the borders will locate voices that are not
raised in joy and acclaim for the triumph of their champions -- Central
American human rights workers and priests, for example -- and do not join the
meaningless game of comparing Eastern and Western Europe, or the USSR and the
United States, but rather choose, more realistically and more honestly, to
compare the current state of regions that were at similar levels of economic
and sociopolitical development, with similar endowments and prospects, not
many years ago. And despite much curious rhetoric in media and other circles,
some perceive that the past years hardly illustrate the thesis that democracy
and the free market are the decisive conditions for economic success -- in
Japan and the Four Tigers in its periphery, to take the obvious (but not only)
example.
Let us survey -- all too briefly -- some of the daily experience of those
who should be savoring the fruits of victory. The reasonable course is to
begin the inquiry close to home, in the domains where U.S. influence has been
so overwhelming that the contours of the triumph must be shatteringly clear.
In this first section, I will keep to that, turning in subsequent articles to
a broader view, and to some comments on meaningful comparisons that would be
made, and studies that would be pursued, if human concerns animated the odes
to our virtue that accompany the triumph. I would also like to consider the
shape of the New World Order and the U.S. role within it as seen from a
perspective that departs from reigning conventions, attending to features of
the contemporary world that suggest a rather different conception of where we
are and where we are heading.
The Fruits of Victory
Few regions of the world have been so dominated by a great power as Central
America, which emerged from its usual oblivion in the 1980s, moving to center
stage as the traditional order faced an unexpected challenge with the growth
of popular movements, inspired in part by the new orientation of the Church
toward "a preferential option for the poor" (Puebla Conference of Bishops,
1979). After decades of brutal repression and the destructive impact of the
U.S. aid programs of the 1960s -- an "economic miracle" by statistical
measures, a disaster for most of the population -- the ground was prepared for
meaningful democracy and social change. The mood in Washington darkened
further with the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship and the defeat of his
murderous National Guard despite the best efforts of the Carter
administration, until the end, to ensure that it would retain effective power.
The reaction was vigorous and swift: violent repression, which decimated
popular organizations. The ranks of the small guerrilla organizations swelled
as state terror mounted. "The guerrilla groups, the revolutionary groups,
almost without exception began as associations of teachers, associations of
labor unions, campesino unions, or parish organizations...." with practical
and reformist goals, ex-Ambassador Robert White testified before Congress in
1982. The same point has been made by the assassinated Salvadoran Jesuit
intellectual Father Ignacio Martin-Baro, among many others.
A decade later, the United States and its local allies could claim
substantial success. The challenge to the traditional order was effectively
contained. The misery of the vast majority had deepened while the power of the
military and the privileged sectors was enhanced behind a facade of democratic
forms. Some 200,000 people had been killed, most of them slaughtered outright
in a paroxysm of sadistic terror conducted by the forces armed, trained, and
advised by the United States. Countless others were maimed, tortured,
"disappeared," driven from their homes. The people, the communities, the
environment were devastated, possibly beyond repair. It is truly a grand
victory.
Elite reaction in the United States is one of gratification and relief.
"For the first time, all five of the countries are led by presidents who were
elected in contests widely considered free and fair," Washington Post
Central America correspondent Lee Hockstader reports from Guatemala City,
expressing the general satisfaction over the victory of "conservative
politicians" in elections which, we are to understand, took place on a level
playing field with no use of force and no foreign influence. It is true, he
continues, that "conservative politicians in Central America traditionally
represented the established order," defending the wealthy "despite their
countries' grossly distorted income patterns." "But the wave of democracy that
has swept the region in recent years appears to be shifting politicians'
priorities," so the bad old days are gone forever.2
The student of American history and culture will recognize the familiar
moves. Once again, we witness the miraculous change of course that occurs
whenever some particularly brutal excesses of the state have been exposed.
Hence all of history, and the reasons for its persistent character, may be
dismissed as irrelevant, while we march forward, leading our flock to a new
and better world.
The Post news report does not merely assert that the new
conservatives are dedicated populists, unlike those whom the U.S. used to
support in the days of its naivete and inadvertent error, now thankfully
behind us. Serious journalistic standards require evidence for this central
claim, and it is indeed provided. The shift of priorities to a welcome
populism is demonstrated by the outcome of the conference of the five
presidents in Antigua, Guatemala, just completed. The presidents, all
"committed to free-market economics," have abandoned worthless goals of social
reform, Hockstader explains. "Neither in the plan nor in the Declaration of
Antigua' was there any mention of land reform or suggestion of new government
social welfare programs to help the poor." Rather, they are adopting "a
trickle-down approach to aid the poor." "The idea is to help the poor without
threatening the basic power structure," a regional economist observes,
contemplating these imaginative new ideas on how to pursue our vocation of
serving the suffering masses.
The headline reads "Central Americans to use Trickle-down Strategy in War
on Poverty." Quite properly, the headline captures the basic thrust of the
news story and the assumption that frames it: aiding the poor is the highest
priority of this new breed of populist conservatives, as it always has been
for Washington and the political culture generally. The only question is how
to achieve this noble aim. That this has always been our fervent commitment is
a doctrine so obviously valid that it need not be supported with any evidence
or argument, or even formulated explicitly. It is merely presupposed, and we
go on from there. What is newsworthy, and so promising, is the populism of the
conservatives we support, and their ingenious and startlingly innovative
approach to our traditional commitment to help the poor and suffering: a
trickle-down strategy of enriching the wealthy -- a "preferential option for
the rich," overcoming the errors of the Puebla Conference of Bishops.
One participant in the meeting is quoted as saying that "These past 10
years have been gruesome for poor people, they've taken a beating." Putting
aside the conventions, one might observe that the political outcomes hailed as
a triumph of democracy are in no small measure a tribute to the efficacy of
U.S. terror, and that the presidents who hold formal power, and their
sponsors, might have had something other than a war on poverty in mind. There
is also a history of trickle-down approaches to relieving poverty that might
be explored. Such an inquiry might lead us to expect that the next 10 years
will be no less gruesome for the poor. But that path is not pursued, here or
elsewhere in the mainstream.
The Post story captures well the character and dimensions of
the U.S. victory. The satisfaction among the important people is readily
understandable.
While the three-day conference of populist conservatives was taking place
in Antigua, 33 tortured, bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in Guatemala.
They did not disturb the celebration over the triumph of freedom and
democracy, or even make the news.
Nor did the rest of the 125 bodies, half with signs of torture, found
throughout the country that month, according to the Guatemalan Human Rights
Commission. The Commission identified 79 as victims of "extrajudicial
execution" by the security forces. Another 29 were kidnapped and 49 injured in
kidnap attempts. The report comes to us from Mexico, where the Commission is
based so that human rights workers can survive now that the U.S. has succeeded
in establishing democracy in Guatemala.3
In the Costa Rican journal Mesoamerica, a report on the
Antigua meeting observes that "Now that the Sandinistas have been successfully
booted out of office, the pervading attitude among regional and U.S. leaders
with respect to the Esquipulas peace mission accomplished'." The core sections
of the Central America accords that call for social justice and respect for
human rights had been long been consigned to the ashcan, as intended by Oscar
Arias and his U.S. sponsors in high places, who, along with the elite
political culture generally, revealed by their actions their actual attitudes
towards the savage atrocities conducted under the aegis of those with the
right priorities.4
The U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL)
reports that the percentage of the Guatemalan population living in extreme
poverty increased rapidly after the establishment of democracy in 1985, from
45% in that year to 76% in 1988. A study by the Nutritional Institute of
Central America and Panama (INCAP) estimates that half the population live
under conditions of extreme poverty, and that in rural areas, where the
situation is worse, 13 out of every 100 children under five die of illnesses
related to malnutrition. Other studies estimate that 20,000 Guatemalans die of
hunger every year, that more than 1000 children died of measles alone in the
first four months of 1990, and that "the majority of Guatemala's four million
children receive no protection at all, not even for the most elemental
rights." The Communique of the January 1990 Conference of Guatemalan Bishops
reviews the steady deterioration of the critical situation of the mass of the
population as "the economic crisis has degenerated into a social crisis" and
human rights, even "the right to dignity," "do not exist."5
Throughout the region, the desperate situation of the poor majority has
become still more grave with the progress of democracy, American-style. Three
weeks before the Antigua conference, in his homily marking the completion of
President Alfredo Cristiani's first year in office, Archbishop Rivera y Damas
of San Salvador deplored the policies of his administration, which have
worsened the already desperate plight of the poor; the conservative populist
so admired in Washington and New York "is working to maintain the system," the
Archbishop said, "favoring a market economy which is making the poor yet
poorer."6
In the neighboring countries, the situation is much the same. A few days
after the encouraging Washington Post report on the Antigua
meeting, an editorial in a leading Honduran journal appeared under the
headline "Misery is increasing in Honduras because of the economic
adjustment," referring to the new trickle-down strategy that the Post
found so promising -- actually the traditional strategy, its lethal features
now more firmly entrenched. The main victims are "the usual neglected groups:
children, women, and the aged," according to the conclusions of an academic
seminar on "Social Policy in the Context of Crisis," confirmed by "the
Catholic Church, the unions, several political parties, and noted economists
and statisticians of the country." Two-thirds of the population live below the
poverty line, over half of these below the level of "dire need." Unemployment,
undernourishment, and severe malnutrition are increasing.7
The Pan American Health Organization estimates that of 850,000 children
born every year in Central America, 100,000 will die before the age of five
and two-thirds of those who survive will suffer from malnutrition, with
attendant physical or mental development problems. The Inter-American
Development Bank reports that per capita income has fallen to the level of
1971 in Guatemala, 1961 in El Salvador, 1973 in Honduras, 1960 in Nicaragua,
1974 in Costa Rica, and 1982 in Panama.8
Nicaragua was an exception to this trend of increasing misery, but the U.S.
terrorist attack and economic warfare succeeded in reversing earlier gains.
Nevertheless, infant mortality halved over the decade, from 128 to 62 deaths
per thousand births; "Such a reduction is exceptional on the international
level," a UNICEF official said in 1989, "especially when the country's
war-ravaged economy is taken into account."9
Studies by CEPAL, the World Health Organization, and others "cast dramatic
light on the situation," Mexico's leading daily reports.
They reveal that 15 million Central Americans, almost 60% of the
population, live in poverty, of whom 9.7 million live in "extreme poverty."
Severe malnutrition is rampant among children. 75% of the peasants in
Guatemala, 60% in El Salvador, 40% in Nicaragua, and 35% in Honduras lack
health care. To make matters worse, Washington has applied "stunning quotas on
sugar, beef, cocoa, cheese, textiles, and limestone, as well as compensation
laws and antidumping' policies in cement, flowers, and operations of cellulose
and glass." The EEC and Japan have followed suit, also imposing harmful
protectionist measures.10
The environment has shared the fate of those who people it. Deforestation,
soil erosion, pesticide poisoning, and other forms of environmental
destruction, increasing through the 1980s, are traceable in large measure to
the development model imposed upon the region and U.S. militarization of it in
recent years. Intense exploitation of resources by agribusiness and
export-oriented production have enriched wealthy sectors and their foreign
sponsors, and led to statistical growth, with a devastating impact on the land
and the people. In El Salvador, large areas have become virtual wastelands as
the military has sought to undermine the peasant base of the guerrillas by
extensive bombardment, and by forest and crop destruction. There have been
occasional efforts to stem the ongoing catastrophe. Like the Arbenz government
overthrown in the CIA-run coup that restored the military regime in Guatemala,
the Sandinistas initiated a series of environmental reforms and protections.
These were desperately needed, both in the countryside and near Managua, where
industrial plants had been permitted to dump waste freely. The most notorious
case was the U.S. Penwalt corporation, which poured mercury into Lake Managua
until 1981.11
As in Guatemala 30 years before, these efforts to depart from what the
Washington Post approvingly calls "the Central American mode"
were satisfactorily overcome by U.S. terror and economic warfare.
The foreign-imposed development model has emphasized "nontraditional
exports" in recent years. Under the free market conditions approved for
defenseless Third World countries, the search for survival and gain will
naturally lead to products that maximize profit, whatever the consequences.
Coca production has soared in the Andes and elsewhere for this reason, but
there are other examples as well. After the discovery of clandestine "human
farms" and "fattening houses" for children in Honduras and Guatemala, Dr. Luis
Genaro Morales, president of the Guatemalan Pediatric Association, said that
child trafficking "is becoming one of the principal nontraditional export
products," generating $20 million of business a year. The International Human
Rights Federation (IHRF), after an inquiry in Guatemala, gave a more
conservative estimate, reporting that about 300 children are kidnapped every
year, taken to secret nurseries, then sold for adoption at about $10,000 per
child.
The IHRF investigators could not confirm reports that organs of babies were
being sold to foreign buyers. This macabre belief is widely held in the
region, however. A few weeks earlier, the Honduran journal Tiempo
reported that the Paraguayan police rescued 7 Brazilian babies from a gang
that "intended to sacrifice them to organ banks in the United States,
according to a charge in the courts." The same journal reported shortly after
that an Appeals Judge in Honduras ordered "a meticulous investigation into the
sale of Honduran children for the purpose of using their organs for transplant
operations." A year earlier, the Secretary General of the National Council of
Social Services, which is in charge of adoptions, had reported that Honduran
children "were being sold to the body traffic industry" for organ transplant.
"Fattening houses" for children had been found in San Pedro Sula and
elsewhere.12
A Resolution on the Trafficking of Central American Children, approved by
the European Parliament two months later (November 1988), alleged that near a
"human farm" in San Pedro Sula, infant corpses were found that "had been
stripped of one or a number of organs." At another "human farm" in Guatemala,
babies ranging from 11 days old to four months old had been found. The
director of the farm, at the time of his arrest, declared that the children
"were sold to American or Israeli families whose children needed organ
transplants at the cost of $75,000 per child," the Resolution continues,
expressing "its horror in the light of the facts" and calling for
investigation and preventive measures.13
As the region sinks into further misery, these reports continue to appear.
In July 1990, a right-wing Honduran daily, under the headline "Loathsome Sale
of Human Flesh," reported that police in El Salvador had discovered a group,
headed by a lawyer, that was buying children to resell in the United States.
An estimated 20,000 children disappear every year in Mexico, the report
continues, destined for this end or for use in criminal activities such as
transport of drugs "inside their bodies." "The most gory fact, however, is
that many little ones are used for transplant [of organs] to children in the
U.S.," which may account for the fact that the highest rate of kidnapping of
children from infants to 18-year-olds is in the Mexican regions bordering on
the United States.14
The one exception to the Central America horror story has been Costa Rica,
set firmly on a course of state-guided development by the Jose Figueres coup
of 1948, with welfare measures combined with harsh repression of labor, and
virtual elimination of the armed forces. The U.S. has always kept a wary eye
on this deviation from the regional standards, despite the welcome suppression
of labor and the favorable conditions for foreign investors. In the 1980s,
U.S. pressures to dismantle the social democratic features and restore the
army elicited bitter complaints from Figueres and others who shared his
commitments. While Costa Rica continues to stand apart from the region in
political and economic development, the signs of what the Central
Americanization' of Costa Rica" are unmistakeable.15
Under the pressure of a huge debt, Costa Rica has been compelled to follow
"the preferential option for the rich": the IMF model of free market
capitalism designed for the Third World, with austerity for the poor, cutback
in social programs, and benefits for domestic and foreign investors. The
results are coming in. By statistical measures, the economy is relatively
strong. But more than 25% of the population -- 715,000 people -- live in
poverty, 100,000 in extreme poverty, according to a study published by the
ultra-right journal La Nacion (one feature of Costa Rican
democracy being a monopoly of the Spanish language media by the extreme right
sectors of the business community). A study by the Gallup office in Costa Rica
published in Prensa Libre gives even higher figures, concluding
that "approximately one million people cannot afford a minimum diet, nor pay
for clothing, education or health care."16
The neoliberal economic policies of the 1980s increased social discontent
and labor tensions, Excelsior reports, evoking an "intense attack
by unionists, popular organizations," and others against the Arias
administration, which has implemented these measures in conformity with U.S.
demands and the priorities of privileged sectors. Church sources report that
"the belt-tightening measures of the 1980s, which included the elimination of
subsidies, low interest credit, price supports and government assistance
programs, have driven many campesinos and small farmers off their land,"
leading to many protests. The Bishop of Limon issued a pastoral letter
deploring the social deterioration and "worsening of the problems" to which
"banana workers, in great majority immigrants from rural settings where they
were property owners, have been subject." He also deplored the harsh labor
code and government policies that enabled the growers to purge union leaders
and otherwise undermine workers' rights, and the deforestation and pollution
the companies have caused, with government support.17
Environmental degradation is serious here as well, including rapid
deforestation and sedimentation that has severely effected virtually every
major hydroelectric project. Environmental studies reveal that 42% of Costa
Rica's soil shows signs of severe erosion. "Top soil is Costa Rica's largest
export," the Vice-Minister of Natural Resources commented. Expanding
production for export and logging have destroyed forests, particularly the
cattle boom of the 1960s and 1970s promoted by the government, international
banks and corporations, and the U.S. aid program, which also undermined food
production for domestic needs, as elsewhere in Central America.
Environmentalists blame government and business for "ecological illiteracy" --
more accurately, pursuit of profit without regard for externalities, as
prescribed in the capitalist model.18
Submissiveness to these demands has yet to meet the exacting standards of
the international guardians of business rights. The IMF suspended assistance
to Costa Rica in February 1990, cancelling credits. U.S. aid is also falling,
now that there is no longer any need to buy Costa Rica's cooperation in the
anti-Sandinista jihad.19
Economic constraints and foreign pressures have narrowed the political
system in the approved manner. In the 1990 elections, the two candidates had
virtually identical (pro-business) programs, in accord with "Central American
mode" approved by U.S. liberal doctrine, and were highly supportive of U.S.
policies in the region ("right on the mark," the eventual victor, Rafael Angel
Calderon, declared in a debate sponsored by the business federation). The
Central Americanization of Costa Rica is also revealed by the increasing
repression through the 1980s. From 1985, the Costa Rican Human Rights
Commission (CODEHU) reported torture, arbitrary arrest, harassment of
campesinos and workers, and other abuses by the security forces, including a
dramatic rise in illegal detentions and arrests. It links the growing wave of
abuses to the increasing militarization of the police and security forces,
some of whom have been trained in U.S. and Taiwanese military schools. These
charges were supported further when an underground torture chamber was found
in the building of the Costa Rican Special Police (OIJ), where prisoners were
beaten and subjected to electric shock treatment, including torture of a
pregnant woman who aborted and electric shock administered to a 13-year-old
child to elicit a false confession. CODEHU alleges that 13 people have died in
similar incidents since 1988. "Battered by charges of corruption and drug
trafficking, the Arias administration receives another blow to its diminishing
reputation as a bulwark of democracy" from these revelations, the
Central America Report observed.20
Arias's image "is about to be tarnished" further, according to reports from
San Jose that investigators of the Legislative Drug Commission discovered that
he had received a check for $50,000 for his campaign fund from Ocean Hunter
Seafood, but had put it in his personal bank account. This Miami-based company
and its Costa Rican affiliate, Frigarificos de Puntarenas, were identified by
U.S. Congressional investigators as a drug trafficking operation.21
I leave it to the reader to imagine Mark Uhlig's sardonic story in the
New York Times if something similar were hinted about a minor
Sandinista official, however flimsy the evidence.
According to official government figures, the security budget increased 15%
in 1988 and 13% in 1989 (spending on education rose less than half that much).
The press has reported training of security officers in Fort Benning, Georgia,
and U.S. bases in Panama, and a Taiwanese military academy, as well as by
Israeli secret police, the army of El Salvador, the Guatemalan army special
forces, and others. Fifteen private paramilitary, vigilante, and security
organizations have been identified, with extreme nationalist and right-wing
agendas. A member of the special commission of the legislature set up to
investigate these matters described the police as an "army in disguise...out
of control." The executive secretary of Costa Rica's Human Rights Commission,
Sylvia Porras, noted that "the psychological profile of the police has changed
as a result of military training," adding that "we cannot talk any longer of a
civilian police force. What we have now is a hidden army."22
Annual U.S. military aid in the 1980s shot up to about 18 times what it had
been from 1946 through 1979. U.S. pressures to rebuild the security forces,
reversing the Figueres reforms, have been widely regarded as a factor in the
drift towards the Central American mode. The role of Oscar Arias has evoked
particular ridicule South of the border. After an Arias article in the
New York Times piously calling on Panama to follow the Costa Rican
model and abolish the army, the well-known Mexican writer Gregorio Selser
published a review of some Costa Rican realities, beginning with the violent
repression of a peaceful demonstration of landless campesinos in September
1986 by Arias's Civil Guard, with many serious injuries. The absence of an
army in Costa Rica, he alleges, has become largely a matter of semantics;
different words for the same things. He cites an Arias decree of August 5,
1987 -- just at the moment of the signing of the Esquipulas accords that
brought him a Nobel Peace prize -- establishing a professional army in all but
name, with the full array of ranks and structure; and a 1989 CODEHU report on
the training of hundreds of men in military academies of the U.S., Taiwan,
Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.23
Little of this has ever reached the United States, except far from the
mainstream. In the context of the Drug War, however, some notice has been
taken. An editorial in the Miami Herald on "Costa Rica's anguish"
cites the comments by Sylvia Porras quoted above on the effects of U.S.
military training, which has changed the "psychological profile" of the
civilian police, turning them to "a camouflaged army." The judgment is not
"hyperbole," the editorial concludes, attributing the rapid growth of the army
and the recent killing of civilians by the security forces to the Nicaraguan
conflict and the drug war -- but with no mention of U.S. pressures, following
the norms of the Free Press.24
Good Intentions Gone Awry
We may conclude this survey of the triumph of free market capitalism in
Central America with a look at Panama, recently liberated by Operation Just
Cause.
In the months following the liberation, the successful affair largely
disappeared from view,25
the normal pattern. U.S. goals had been achieved, the triumph had been
properly celebrated, and there was little more to say except to record
subsequent progress towards freedom, democracy, and good fortune -- or, if
that strains credulity, to produce occasional musings on how the best of
intentions go awry when we have such poor human material to work with.
Central American sources continued to give considerable attention to the
impact of the invasion on civilians, but they were ignored in the occasional
reviews of the matter here. New York Times correspondent Larry
Rohter devoted a column to casualty estimates on April 1, citing figures as
high as 673 killed, and adding that higher figures, which he attributes only
to Ramsey Clark, are "widely rejected" in Panama. He found Panamanian
witnesses who described U.S. military actions as restrained, but none with
less happy tales.26
Among the many readily accessible sources deemed unworthy of mention in the
Times (and the media generally), we find such examples as the
following.
The Mexican press reported that two Catholic Bishops estimated deaths at
perhaps 3000. Hospitals and nongovernmental human rights groups estimated
deaths at over 2000.27
A joint delegation of the Costa Rica-based Central American Human Rights
Commission (CODEHUCA) and the Panamanian Human Rights Commission (CONADEHUPA)
published the report of its January 20-30 inquiry, based on numerous
interviews. It concluded that "the human costs of the invasion are
substantially higher than the official U.S. figures" of 202 civilians killed,
reaching 2-3000 according to "conservative estimates." Eyewitnesses
interviewed in the urban slums report that U.S. helicopters aimed their fire
at buildings with only civilian occupants, that a U.S. tank destroyed a public
bus killing 26 passengers, that civilian residences were burned to the ground
with many apartments destroyed and many killed, that U.S. troops shot at
ambulances and killed wounded, some with bayonets, and denied access to the
Red Cross. The Catholic and Episcopal Churches gave estimates of 3000 dead as
"conservative." Civilians were illegally detained, particularly union leaders
and those considered "in opposition to the invasion or nationalistic." "All
the residences and offices of the political sectors that oppose the invasion
have been searched and much of them have been destroyed and their valuables
stolen." The U.S. imposed severe censorship. Human rights violations under
Noriega had been "unacceptably high," the report continues, though of course
"mild compared with the record of U.S.-supported regimes in Guatemala and El
Salvador." But the U.S invasion "caused an unprecedented level of deaths,
suffering, and human rights abuses in Panama." The title of the report is:
"Panama: More than an invasion, ...a massacre."28
Since its topic is not Kuwait, the report passed without notice here.
Sources at the University of Panama estimated at least 5000 dead; the head
of the School of Public Administration at the University condemned the U.S.
army's "iron control [which] will not allow access to any Panamian institution
to find out the correct number of casualties."29
Physicians for Human Rights, with the concurrence of Americas Watch,
reached tentative casualty figures higher than those given by the Pentagon but
well below those of COHUDECA-CONADEHUPA and others in Panama. Their estimate
is about 300 civilians killed. Americas Watch also gives a "conservative
estimate" of at least 3000 wounded, concluding further that civilian deaths
were four times as great as military deaths in Panama, and over ten times as
high as U.S. casualties (officially given as 23; the U.S. military estimated
civilian deaths at 202). They ask: "How does `surgical operation' result in
almost ten civilians killed (by official U.S. count) for every American
military casualty?" By September, the count of bodies exhumed from several of
the mass graves had passed 600.30
Excavation of mass graves meanwhile continues. By September, the count of
bodies found in these graves alone had reached well over 600.31
The COHUDECA-CONADEHUPA report emphasizes that a great deal is uncertain,
because of the violent circumstances, the incineration of bodies, and the lack
of records for persons buried in common graves without having reached morgues
or hospitals, according to eyewitnesses. note: See CODEHUCA letter to Americas
Watch, June 5, 1990, commenting on the Americas Watch report.} Its reports,
and the many others of which a few have been cited here, may or may not be
accurate. A media decision to ignore them, however, reflects not professional
standards but a commitment to power.
On September 30, some of this information finally broke into the mainstream
media in a television report by CBS news ("60 minutes").32
Pictures of mass graves were shown, and a Panamanian woman who had worked for
months to have a few of them opened and the remains identified, exhausting her
own resources in the process, estimated civilian deaths at perhaps 4000. The
CBS investigation also revealed new information: secret U.S. army reports
estimating 1000 civilians killed -- not the 202 that were officially reported
-- and urging that damage claims not be considered because the number might
mount too high. There was also a (rare) report of thousands of Panamanians
protesting against the U.S. invasion and occupation.
While Larry Rohter's visits to the slums destroyed by U.S. bombardment
located only celebrants, or critics of U.S. "insensitivity" at worst, others
found a rather different picture. Mexico's leading newspaper reported in April
that Rafael Olivardia, refugee spokesman for the 15,000 refugees of the
devastated El Chorrillo neighborhood, "said that the El bloodbath' during and
after saw North American tanks roll over the dead' during the invasion that
left a total of more than 2000 dead and thousands injured, according to
unofficial figures." "You only live once," Olivardia said, "and if you must
die fighting for an adequate home, then the U.S. soldiers should complete the
task they began" on December 20.
The Spanish language press in the United States was less celebratory and
deferential than its colleagues. Vicky Pelaez reports from Panama that "the
entire world continues in ignorance about how the thousands of victims of the
Northamerican invasion of Panama died and what kinds of weapons were used,
because the Attorney-General of the country refuses to permit investigation of
the bodies buried in the common graves." An accompanying photo shows workmen
exhuming corpses from a grave containing "almost 200 victims of the invasion."
Quoting a woman who found the body of her murdered father, Pelaez reports that
"just like the woman vox populi' in Panama that the Northamericans used
completely unknown armaments during the 20 December invasion." Olga Mejia,
President of Panamanian Human Rights, informed the journal that "They
converted Panama into a laboratory of horror. Here, they first experimented
with methods of economic strangulation; then they successfully used a campaign
of disinformation at the international level. But it was in the application of
the most modern war technology that they demonstrated infernal mastery." The
CODEHUCA-CONADEHUPA report also alleges that "the U.S. Army used highly
sophisticated weapons -- some for the first time in combat -- against unarmed
civilian populations," and "in many cases no distinction was made between
civilian and military targets."33
One case of "highly sophisticated weapons" did receive some attention.
F-117A stealth fighters were used in combat for the first time, dropping
2000-lb. bombs with time-delay mechanisms in a large open field near an
airstrip and barracks that housed an elite PDF battalion. The Air Force had
kept this plane under close wraps, refusing to release cost or performance
data about it. "There were conflicting reports as to the rationale for
employing the sophisticated aircraft, which cost nearly $50 million apiece, to
conduct what appeared to be a simple operation," Aviation Week & Space
Technology reported. The Panamanian air force has no fighters and no
military aircraft were stationed permanently at the base that was attacked.
Its only known air defenses "were a pair of aging small caliber antiaircraft
guns." An American aeronautical engineering consultant and charter operator in
Panama said he was "astonished" to learn of the use of the F-117A, pointing
out that the target attacked did not even have radar: "They could have bombed
it with any other aircraft and not been noticed." The aerospace journal cites
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney's claim that the aircraft were used "because of
its great accuracy," then suggesting its own answer to the puzzle: "By
demonstrating the F-117A's capability to operate in low-intensity conflicts,
as well as its intended mission to attack heavily defended Soviet targets, the
operation can be used by the Air Force to justify the huge investment made in
stealth technology" to "an increasingly skeptical Congress."34
A similar conclusion was reached, more broadly, by Col. (Ret.) David
Hackworth, a former combat commander who is one of the nation's most decorated
soldiers. He described the Panama operation as technically efficient, though
in his judgment "100 Special Forces guys" would have sufficed to capture
Noriega, and "this big operation was a Pentagon attempt to impress Congress
just when they're starting to cut back on the military." Other evidence lends
credibility to these suggestions, including the White House National Security
Strategy report presented to Congress in March 1990.35
If these were indeed among the motives for the exercise, they may have
suffered a slight setback when it turned out that one of the stealth
fighter-bombers had missed its undefended target by more than 300 yards,
despite its "great accuracy." Defense Secretary Cheney ordered an inquiry.36
The nature of the U.S. victory became clearer, along predictable lines, in
the following months. Its character is described by Andres Oppenheimer in the
Miami Herald in June, under the heading "Panama Flirts with
Economic Recovery" -- that is, recovery from the depths to which it was
plunged by illegal U.S. economic warfare, then invasion and occupation. But
there is a qualification: "Six months after the U.S. invasion, Panama is
showing signs of growing prosperity -- at least for the largely white-skinned
business class that has regained its influence after more than two decades of
military rule," the small minority of important people. The luxury shops are
again full of goods, and "Panama's nightlife is also perking up" as "foreign
tourists, mostly U.S. businessmen, can be seen most evenings sipping martinis
in the lobbies of the biggest hotels," which are sometimes "booked solid -- a
contrast to the moribund atmosphere there before the invasion." Newspapers are
filled with ads from department stores, banks, and insurance firms. "The upper
class and the middle classes are doing great," a Western European diplomat
observes: "They had the money in U.S. bank accounts and are bringing it back
to the country. But the poor are in bad shape, because the government is
bankrupt and can't help them." "The Catholic Church has begun to denounce what
it sees as a lack of government concern for the poor," Oppenheimer continues.
An editorial in a Church weekly "lashed out at authorities for devoting their
energies to helping the private sector while breaking their original promises
not to fire low-income public workers."37
Chalk up another victory for capitalism and democracy.
On August 2, the Catholic bishops of Panama issued a pastoral letter
condemning U.S. "interference in the country's internal affairs" and
denouncing the December invasion as "a veritable tragedy in the annals of the
country's history." The statement also condemned Washington's failure to
provide aid to the people who continue to suffer from the invasion, and
criticized the government for ignoring their plight. Their protest appears in
the Guatemala City Central America Report under the heading
"Church Raises Its Voice" -- though not loudly enough to be heard in
Washington and New York. The same report quotes the Mexican daily
Excelsior on U.S. military maneuvers in the mountains of Panama, and
the high visibility of U.S. troops throughout the capital and other areas of
the country.38
In April, President Endara had appointed a commission (the Panamanian
Commission for National Reconstruction) to deal with the problem of
reconstructing the economy that had been devastated by the U.S. economic
sanctions, then the invasion and its aftermath. Its report, issued in August,
proposed a three-point plan: a truce, political amnesty, and the end of
"occupation of the State and its territory" by U.S. troops. Special emphasis
was placed on the consequences of the U.S. invasion, and the demand for the
end to the military occupation and reestablishment of Panamanian sovereignty.39
In the British journal Race and Class, Joy James reviews some
relevant history. The White (European) sector, which owns most of the land and
resources, is estimated at about 8% of the population. The "two decades of
military rule" to which the Miami Herald refers had some other
characteristics as well. The Torrijo dictatorship had a populist character,
which largely ended after his death in 1981 in an airplane accident (with
various charges about the cause), and the subsequent Noriega takeover. During
this period, Blacks, Mestizo, and Indigenous Panamanians gained their first
share of power, and economic and land reforms were undertaken. In these two
decades, infant mortality declined from 40% to less than 20% and life
expectancy increased by nine years. New hospitals, health centers, houses,
schools and universities were built, and more doctors, nurses and teachers
were trained. Indigenous communities were granted autonomy and protection for
their traditional lands, to an extent unmatched in the hemisphere. For the
first time, Panama moved to an independent foreign policy, still alive in the
1980s to an extent, as Panama participated in the Contadora peace efforts (one
of the main reasons why Noriega was transmuted from good guy to devil). The
Canal Treaty was signed in 1977, theoretically awarding control over the Canal
to Panama by the year 2000, though the prospects are doubtful. The Reagan
administration took the position that "when the Carter-Torrijos treaties are
being renegotiated" -- an eventuality taken for granted -- "the prolongation
of the US military presence in the Panama Canal area till well after the year
2000 should be brought up for discussion" (State Department).40
The post-invasion moves to place Panamanian military forces under U.S.
control may be motivated by more than just the normal commitment to this
doctrine. It will probably be argued that Panama is not in a position to
defend the Canal as the Treaty requires, so that U.S. bases must be retained.
The U.S. sanctions largely dismantled the reforms of the Torrijo period.
Poverty rose rapidly, and the unions virtually collapsed. The invasion and the
U.S. post-invasion rule are likely to administer the coup de grace to these
populist efforts.
In August, government economists warned that more than 300,000 Panamanians
are unemployed or underemployed, some 40% of the population. One leading
economist and former high government planning official reported that 44% of
the population lives in poverty, 24% in "extreme poverty," and that 93,800
infants and pre-school children live "in misery," while 35% of infants are
malnourished. To check rising unemployment, he estimates, 190,000 jobs new
jobs will be needed this year alone.41
The problems faced by the usual victims are described out of the mainstream
by labor journalist Daphne Wysham. She reports that the U.S. invasion
virtually completed the destruction of the Panamanian trade unions. The
general secretary of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers
(ORIT), Luis Anderson, condemned the invading troops for arresting three top
Panamanian labor leaders. "Many union offices have been raided and sacked. The
journalists union has been banned." These steps by the occupying forces are
part of a more general attack on independent politics. In an interview before
the invasion, one Panamian labor leader later detained by U.S. troops reported
that he and other union leaders were informed by the State Department that
they were on a list of people who would be eliminated if they didn't "get
their feet in support of the opposition" to Noriega. Union activists
interviewed by Joy James report similar pre-invasion threats by the AFL-CIO,
which, they say, is now working to create a new "parallel organization" that
will be better-behaved, following its traditional union-busting policies..
Teresa Guttierez, a spokesperson for former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey
Clark, who heads a Panamanian inquiry commission, reports that new labor laws
disallow the right to hold union meetings, the right to protest, and the right
to strike, and that trade unionists are rounded up on a regular basis and held
without charges.42
The same picture emerges from the occasional reports in the mainstream
media. Pamela Constable reports that "bankers and business owners" find that
things are looking up, though "a mood of anger and desperation permeates the
underclass" in "the blighted shantytowns." Vice-president Guillermo Ford says
that "The stores have reopened 100 percent, and the private sector is very
enthusiastic. I think we're on the road to a very solid future." Under his
"proposed recovery program," public enterprises would be sold off, "the labor
code would be revised to allow easier dismissal of workers and tax-free export
factories would be set up to lure foreign capital."
Business leaders "are bullish on Ford's ideas," Constable continues. In
contrast, "Labor unions are understandably wary of these proposals," but
"their power has become almost negligible" with "massive dismissals of public
workers who supported Noriega and the unprecedented jobless rate." The U.S.
emergency aid package approved by Congress is intended largely "to make back
payments on Panama's foreign debt and shore up its creditworthiness with
foreign lending institutions"; in translation: it is a taxpayer subsidy to
international banks, foreign investors, and the important people in Panama.
The thousands of refugees from El Chorillo, now living in what some of them
call "a concentration camp," will not be returning to the devastated slum. The
original owners, who had long wanted "to transform this prime piece of real
estate into a posher district," may now be able to do so. Noriega had stood in
the way of these plans, allowing the poor to occupy housing there rent-free.
But by bombing the neighborhood into rubble and then levelling the charred
ruins with bulldozers, U.S. forces overcame "that ticklish legal and human
obstacle" to these intentions, Constable reports.43
With unemployment skyrocketing, nearly half the population cannot meet
essential food needs. Crime has quadrupled. Aid is designated for businesses
and foreign banks (debt repayment). It could be called the "Central
Americanization" of Panama, correspondent Brook Larmer aptly observes in the
Christian Science Monitor.44
The U.S. occupying forces continue to leave little to chance. The Mexican
journal Excelsior reports that the U.S. forces have established
direct control over ministries and public institutions. According to an
organization chart leaked to the journal by political and diplomatic sources,
U.S. controls extend to all provinces, the Indian community, the Town Halls of
the ten major cities, and the regional police offices. "Washington's objective
is to have a strategic network in this country to permanently control all the
actions and decisions of the government." With the establishment of this
"parallel government" closely controlling all decision-making, "things have
returned to the way they were before 1968 in Panama." The journal scheduled an
interview with President Endara to discuss the matter, but it was cancelled
without explanation.45
The report provides extensive details, including names of U.S. officials
and the tasks assigned them in the organization chart. All of this could
easily be checked by U.S. reporters, if home offices were interested. They are
not. "The information that we reveal here," Excelsior reports,
"is supposed to be known only to very restricted groups" -- not including the
U.S. public.
The regime put in power is to be a well-behaved puppet, with no populist
heresies or thoughts of independence. That is the firm policy goal. It might
well have been the policy goal of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, had international
sanctions not been applied in outrage over his nefarious aggression. The
efficient way, after all, is to rule through locals who can be trusted, with
ample force on the ready, just in case.
The occupying forces are not only dedicated to restoring the rule of the
traditional European oligarchy and its foreign associates, but also to
ensuring that the project is not troubled by such irritants as freedom of
expression. Excelsior reports that "United States intelligence
services exercise control not only over local information media but also over
international news agencies," according to the president of the Journalist
Union of Panama. He adds that the goal is to make the world believe that there
is freedom and democracy, whereas in reality broadcast stations have been
taken over and placed "in custody" and dozens of journalists have been fired.
An opposition activist alleges that the first Panamanian publishing company,
ERSA, with three daily papers, was occupied by U.S. tanks and security forces
"in order to turn it over to a businessman who had lost it in a lawsuit," a
member of an oligarchical family that "favors the interventionist line of the
United States."46
According to Ramsey Clark's Independent Commission of Inquiry, the offices
of the daily La Republica "were ransacked and looted by U.S.
troops the day after the newspaper reported on the large number of deaths
caused by the U.S. invasion." Its editor was arrested and held for six weeks
by U.S. troops, then sent to a Panamanian prison without charges. The
publisher of one of the few opposition voices was arrested in March on charges
of alleged misconduct when he was a government minister, and the government
closed a radio station for broadcasting editorials critical of the U.S.
invasion and the government it established.47
Miguel Antonio Bernal, a leading Panamanian intellectual and anti-Noriega
activist, writes that "freedom of press is again under siege in Panama."
Vice-president Ricardo Arias Calderon has proposed a new law to restrict press
criticism of the government, saying that "We will not tolerate criticism." He
has also urged stockholders of Panama's largest newspaper, La Prensa,
to fire its editor and founder Roberto Eisenman because of the journal's
criticism of the government, and has called on members of his Christian
Democratic Party to work for Eisenman's ouster. Describing such acts, the
increasing terror, and the reconstruction of the military with Noriega
associates who were implicated in drug running and corruption, Bernal asks why
the U.S. is "turning the same blind eye" as in the past to these developments.48
Bernal's question is surely rhetorical. Latin Americans know the answer
very well, though the question could hardly be addressed in the fanatically
ideological intellectual culture to the North.
Not only the military, but the bankers and businessmen restored to power in
the December invasion as well had close links to the drug trade. Justice
Department and Senate inquiries had identified Panamanian banks as major
conduits for drug money in the early 1980s, when Noriega was still a great
friend, and high officials of the new government, including President Endara,
were closely involved with banks charged with money laundering as directors or
in other ways. In September, the U.S. Embassy "implicated President Endara in
a money laundering scheme" (Central America Report, Guatemala).
DEA officials accused 7 Panamanian banks of laundering drug money and
protecting the accounts of drug-traffickers, including the Interbanco,
directed by Endara until he took over the presidency in January 1990, which
was charged with protecting millions of dollars belonging to Colombian
druglord Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (since killed). U.S. Ambassador Hinton
charged further that the "Colombian mafia" continues to use Panama for drug
shipment to Europe and the United States. At the heart of the controversy is a
U.S. demand for access to information about bank depositors in Panama, which
the financial community there claims would undermine the international banking
sector by eliminating confidentiality (and might be used for the U.S. for its
own purposes under a drug cover). The alleged U.S. concerns about drug
trafficking might be a bit more credible if we were to witness raids by Delta
Force on the executive headquarters of the U.S. corporations that supply the
drug cartel with the chemicals they need for cocaine production -- or if the
U.S. government were not applying strong pressures on Asian countries to
remove barriers on advertising and marketing of lethal addictive drugs
produced in the United States (tobacco, a far worse killer than cocaine).49
Those not restricted to the quality press here will also learn that
President Endara's government received "one of its worst diplomatic setbacks"
on March 30, when it was formally ousted from the Group of Eight (now
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela), what are
considered the major Latin American democracies. Panama had been suspended
from the group in 1988 in reaction to Noriega's repression, and with the
further deterioration of the political climate under foreign occupation,
Panama was ousted permanently at the March meeting of foreign ministers. The
Group of Eight, now Seven, issued a resolution stating that "the process of
democratic legitimation in Panama requires popular consideration without
foreign interference, that guarantees the full right of the people to freely
choose their governments." The resolution also indicated that the operations
of the U.S. military are affecting Panama's sovereignty and independence as
well as the legality of the Endara government. This decision extends the
pattern of strong Latin American opposition to the earlier U.S. measures
against Panama and the invasion, from the outset, when the Organization of
American States condemned U.S. moves by a vote of 17-1 (U.S. opposed) in July
1987. As the media here barely noted, President Endara's inaugural address
four weeks after the invasion was boycotted by virtually all Latin American
ambassadors.50
The Washington-media position is that the Endara government is legitimate,
having won the 1989 elections that were stolen by Noriega. Latin American
opinion commonly takes a different view.
In 1989, Endara was running against Noriega, with extensive U.S. backing,
open and covert. Furthermore, the elections were conducted under conditions
caused by the illegal U.S. economic warfare that was demolishing the economy.
The United States was therefore holding a whip over the electorate. For that
reason alone the elections were far from free and uncoerced, by any sensible
standards. Today, the political scene is quite different -- or would be, if
the U.S. were to tolerate political activity and free expression. On these
grounds, there would be every reason to organize a new election, contrary to
the wishes of Endara and his U.S. sponsors. Polls in Panama show that over
half the population would vote for a new party or new alliance if elections
were to be permitted.51
The official position is offered by Michael Massing in the New York
Review of Books. Reporting from Panama, he writes that Endara's
willingness to "go along" with the U.S. request that he assume the presidency
"has caused the leaders of some Latin American countries, such as Peru, to
question his legitimacy." "The Panamanians themselves, however, have few such
qualms," because his "clear victory" in the 1989 election "provided Endara
with all the credentials he needs." Citation of Peru for dragging its feet is
a deft move, since President Garcia was an official enemy of the U.S. who had
been recalcitrant about Nicaragua, had restricted debt payment, and in general
failed to observe proper standards; best to overlook the rest of the Group of
Eight, however, among "some Latin American countries." As for the views of
"the Panamanians themselves," no further indication is given as to how this
information was obtained.52
Massing reports on the police raids in poor neighborhoods, the protests of
homeless and hungry people demanding jobs and housing, the reconstruction of
Noriega's PDF, the restoration of the oligarchy with a "successful corporate
lawyer" at the head of a government "largely made up of businessmen," who
receive U.S. corporate visitors sponsored by OPIC (which ensures U.S.
investments abroad) "as if they were visiting heads of state." The business
climate is again "attractive" in this "land ruled by merchants, marketers, and
moneylenders." "The government is drafting plans to revive Panama's banking
industry, relax its labor laws, expand the free trade zone, and attract
foreign investors," and to privatize state enterprises and "radically cut
public spending."
Drawn from the "tiny white elite" of under 10% of the population, the
government has been accused of "wanting to turn the clock back to 1968, when a
small rich group ruled the country" -- namely, exactly the group now restored
to power. But "the charge is unfair," Massing comments -- much like the charge
that the conservative populists swept into office in the democratic wave of
free elections in Central America might have something on their minds other
than helping the poor when they opt for a trickle-down strategy. The proof
that the charge is unfair, Massing explains, is that when employees from Air
Panama fearful of losing their jobs held a vigil outside his office, President
Endara "sent them coffee and made a point of talking with them." What is more,
while fasting in the Cathedral in an effort to expedite U.S. aid (or to lose
weight, some unkind locals quipped), "he invited striking sanitation workers
in for a chat and eventually negotiated a settlement." Furthermore,
Vice-President Arias Calderon has said that he wants the government to correct
disparities created by the market. True, no projects that might illustrate
these plans "are in the works" and the Endara government "opposes the idea" of
using U.S. aid for such purposes, "determined to leave virtually everything to
the private sector." But that proves nothing, in the face of the powerful
evidence showing that "the charge is unfair," just reviewed in its entirety.
Massing is not pleased with the outcome, particularly, the restoration of
Noriega's PDF, "despite all the good intentions" of the United States (taken
as given, in accordance with the norms of the intellectual culture), and its
efforts "to atone for its past misbehavior." The problem does not lie in the
U.S. military aid programs, which have trained security forces that "have been
guilty of horrible excesses" in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and
Noriega's Panama (and other cases unmentioned). Rather, the problem lies in
what the U.S. "had to work with." It's those folks who are bad, not us,
please.
The consistent effects of our military training, the policies of which it
is a part, the documentary record explaining the reasons -- all may be put
aside, irrelevant, along with all of history. We are always willing to admit
that there were aberrations in the past. But at every moment of time, we have
changed course and put the errors of the past behind us.
We are Good, our intentions are Good. Period.
Go to
Part II
Notes
1 Rostow, The Diffusion of Power
(Macmillan, 1972). For sources not cited here, see my Deterring
Democracy (Verso, forthcoming), from which much of this material is
excerpted.
2 Hockstader, WP, June 20, 1990.
3 Mesoamerica (Costa Rica), July 1990.
Detailed updates are circulated regularly from the Washington office of the
Commission, 1359 Monroe St. NE, Washington DC 20017.
4 Ronna Montgomery, Mesoamerica, June
1990. On the demolition of the accords, and the role of Arias and U.S. doves,
see my Culture of Terrorism (South End, 1987), chapter 7;
Necessary Illusions (South End, 1989), chapter 4 and Appendix IV, sec.
5; regular articles in Z magazine, and Deterring Democracy.
5 Central America Report (CAR),
Guatemala, Nov. 10, 1989; July 27; April 6; March 2, 1990.
6 AP, Boston Globe, June 4, 1990, a
75-word item, which is more than elsewhere.
7 Editorial, Tiempo, July 2, 1990.
8 Cesar Chelala, "Central America's Health Plight,"
Christian Science Monitor, March 22; CAR, March 2,
1990.
9 Latinamerica press (LP)
(Peru), Nov. 16, 1989.
10 Excelsior, Oct. 18, 1989 (Latin
America News Update (LANU), Dec. 1989).
11 For a review, see Joshua Karliner, "Central
America's Other War," World Policy Journal, Fall 1989.
12 Anne Chemin, Le Monde, Sept. 21,
1988; Manchester Guardian Weekly, Oct. 2. Tiempo,
Aug. 10, 17, Sept. 19, 1988. Dr. Morales, Report on Guatemala,
July/August 1989.
13 Ibid.
14 La Prensa Dominical, Honduras, July
22, 1990.
15 CAR, April 28, 1989. For discussion
of these matters, see Necessary Illusions.
16 CAR, Dec. 1, 1989.
17 Excelsior, March 24; LP,
Feb. 15, 1990.
18 Karliner, op. cit.; CAR,
March 16, 1990. See Douglas R. Shane, Hoofprints on the Forest: Cattle
Ranching and the Destruction of Latin America's Tropical Forests (ISHI,
1986); Tom Barry and Deb Preusch, The Soft War (Grove, 1988); and
for background, William H. Durham, Scarcity and Survival in Central
America (Stanford, 1979).
19 CAR, March 16; Mesoamerica,
March 1990.
20 Elections, CAR, Jan. 26, 1990.
LP, Dec. 7; CAR, April 28, July 27; Excelsior,
April 30; COHA Washington Report on the Hemisphere, Sept. 27,
1989. For several examples of repression in the late 1980s of the kind that
aroused great fury when reported in Nicaragua, see Necessary Illusions,
249, 268; for a much worse case, see Culture of Terrorism, 243.
21 Mesoamerica, Sept. 1990.
22 "Costa Rica: Arming the country of peace,"
CAR, July 27, 1990.
23 Ibid. COHA, "News and Analysis,"
Aug. 18, 1988; Washington Report on the Hemisphere, Sept. 27,
1989. Selser, La Jornada (Mexico), Jan. 23, 1990, citing Arias's
NYT Op-Ed on January 9.
24 Editorial, MH, July 31, 1990.
25 In the mainstream, that is. See, however,
Alexander Cockburn, Nation, Jan. 29, 1990, and subsequent
articles of his.
26 Rohter, "Panama and U.S. Strive to Settle on
Death Toll," NYT, April 1, 1990.
27 Excelsior-AFP, Jan. 27 (LANU),
March 1990; Mesoamerica (Costa Rica), May 1990; CAR,
March 2, 1990.
28 Brecha, CODEHUCA, "Report of Joint
CODEHUCA-CONADEHUPA delegation," Jan.-Feb. 1990, San Jose.
29 CODEHUCA, PEACENET, Feb. 5, 1990. Panamanian
journalist Jose Montano, LP (Lima), Jan. 18, 1990.
30 See Physicians for Human Rights, "'Operation Just
Cause': The Medical Cost of Military Action in Panama," Boston, March 15,
1990; Americas Watch, Laws of War and the Conduct of the Panama
Invasion, 1990.
31 CAR, Sept. 7, 1990.
32 CBS TV, 7PM EST, Sept. 30, 1990.
33 Excelsior (Mexico City), April 14,
1990; Central America NewsPak, Austin Texas. Pelaez, El
Diario-La Prensa, May 7, 1990.
34 Aviation Week & Space Technology,
Jan. 1, 1990.
35 John Morrocco, ibid.; Hackworth,
interview with Bill Baskervill, AP, Feb. 25, 1990. March 1990 report, see
Deterring Democracy chapter 1.
36 Michael Gordon, NYT, April 11, 1990.
37 Oppenheimer, MH, June 20, 1990.
38 CAR, Aug. 17, 1990.
39 LP, Aug. 30, 1990.
40 James, "US policy in Panama," Race & Class,
July-September 1990; State Department letter to Jesse Helms, stating that the
Department "shares your view" on the matter in question, March 26, 1987, cited
by James.
41 CAR, Aug. 31; Excelsior.
Sept. 2, 1990.
42 Wysham, Labor Action, April-May
1990; James, op. cit. On these and other matters discussed here,
see also Martha Gellhorn, "The Invasion of Panama," Granta,
Spring 1990.
43 Constable, BG, July 11, 1990.
44 CSM, April 9, 1990.
45 Excelsior, Feb. 28, 1990; LANU.
46 Felicitas Pliego, Excelsior, April
29, 1990.
47 Commission of Inquiry release, Feb. 17; COHA
News and Analysis, May 1, 1990.
48 Bernal, "Panama's fight for free expression,"
Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1990.
49 Excelsior, Aug. 24; CAR,
Sept. 7, 1990. See my articles in Z magazine, November 1989,
March 1990.
50 CAR, April 6; Andres Oppenheimer,
MH, Jan. 19, 1990.
51 CAR, Aug. 30, 1990, citing a recent
poll published in La Prensa.
52 Massing, NYRB, May 17, 1990.
