From: jma@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Movie critic: The Panama Deception
Date: 16 Dec 92 21:28:12 GMT

Extracted from the gopher of Yale University, a movie critic to a
recent film, which I understand is called "The Panama deception".
	We can thank the US government for all the respect it have
for the self-determination and the lifes of the people of Latin
America (lease este ultimo parrafo con sarcasmo)...

Julio Arias
Univ. Florida
jma@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu


From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: REVIEW: THE PANAMA CONNECTION
Keywords: author=Maloney

			    THE PANAMA CONNECTION
		       A film review by Frank Maloney
			Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney

     THE PANAMA CONNECTION is a documentary film directed by Barbara
Trent and produced by the Empowerment Project.  Not rated -- contains
violence and graphic images of corpses.

     THE PANAMA CONNECTION like all good documentary films has passion
and a point of view; it does not pretend to be "objective" reportage.
This is an impassioned argument for the idea that the American people
must know that and how they were lied to about the invasion of Panama,
and not just by the Bush administration and the Pentagon, but by the
network news, by the leading newspapers of the country, by the very men
and women whose jobs are supposedly to present us with the a complete
picture of daily events, and not just parrot official propaganda.

     Like the previous documentary, COVERUP: THE IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR,
Barbara Trent marshals her assertions and her facts in the form of
video, TV clips, newspaper and magazine clippings, press briefings,
speeches, and interviews with experts and with eye-witnesses.  There is
never any doubt about Trent's point of view, but she presents it
powerfully and documents it exhaustively.  She briefly covers the
history of Panama from its U.S.-backed secession from Columbia, through
its Canal Zone days, through the Treaty signed by Jimmy Carter and
denounced by Ronald Reagan that renounced U.S. sovereignty in the C.Z.,
and finally through the rise of Manuel Noriega and of George Bush.  It
documents their long association and their final falling out.  It lays
out the long, orchestrated build-up to the invasion as a U.S. strategy
of dirty tricks to be blamed on Noriega but perpetrated by U.S. agents.
Finally, it tells what it can about the invasion and the way it was not
covered directly by the U.S. media.  There are virtually no videotapes
of the first three days of the invasion and precious little other
documentation of it, thanks to the thorough efforts of the
U.S. military to suppress all efforts by reporters, photographers, and
cameramen.

     In interview after interview, the film builds its case for what
really happened in Panama, of the atrocities by U.S. forces, the
summary executions, the random violence, especially in the poor areas,
the rounding up and interrogation of thousands of civilians, many of
whom were on enemies lists prepared by the U.S.-supported Endara
government.  And most shocking of all, it documents its assertion that
between 2500 and 4000 Panamanians died in the invasion, ten or more
times figures put out by the U.S. government at various times.

     Some of us are not too shocked to find another case of the
government lying to us, especially in the area of foreign operations,
but I for one was shocked to be shown how the U.S. television and
newspaper media did nothing to question the official version of events
in Panama, how they fully and complacently cooperated with the
government to mislead us, how they helped make a demon out of our
long-time tool Noriega, how they valued only American lives, American
deaths.

     Of course, the story of the Panamanian invasion continues today.
The country is still in ruins, still waiting for reconstruction money.
Our puppets are still running the government for us; our soldiers are
still randomly patrolling outside our bases, and the Bush administration
is telling what we want to hear: that democracy was restored to country
that had never known democracy, that the drug trade was impeded when in
fact the drug traffic through Panama has doubled or trebled since the
invasion, that the country is on its feet when 20,000 are still homeless
and living in refugee camps we operate.

     And Bush is running for re-election.

     The indictments in this film are many and far-reaching.  Its
analysis of the reasons for the invasion are especially disturbing, its
forecasts for future U.S. interventions in the Andean nations, launched
from our bases in Panama haunting.

     I strongly urge you to see this film.  You are not going to be
exposed to its point of view anywhere else.  And we all need to be.

     (In the Seattle area, THE PANAMA CONNECTION is playing at the Metro
Cinemas in the University District.  The film opened last month in L.A.,
but it was shown as a video.  The Seattle run is of the only film copy
currently.  The Seattle run is intended to finance the production of
more copies.  It is tentatively booked into 20 U.S. cities, if the
Empowerment Project can raise even money to strike enough copies at
$1600 a copy.  Volunteers are passing the hat and encouraging audience
members to get out the word after each showing here.)

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney