From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Date: 23 Jul 92 06:30 PDT
Subject: Children Pay for the Panama Decepti
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1473800094:000:10638
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jul 23 06:30:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Children Pay for the Panama Deception


This article is excerpted from The Monthly Planet, a publication 
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(C) 1992 The Monthly Planet, P.O. Box 8463, Santa Cruz, CA  95061. 
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July 1992 issue -- The Monthly Planet 
Article length: 1526 words 
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Children Pay for the Panama Deception

By Lois Muhly


        On June 11, while on his way to grace the world environmental 
conference in Rio de Janeiro with his presence, our kinder, 
gentler environmental president, George Bush, chose to stop off in 
Panama to again reach into his bag of political tricks. His 
mission this time, as once before, was to bolster his sagging 
image as a political leader in the US and the world. And why not? 
Two and one-half years ago his Operation Just Cause -- the invasion 
of Panama, with the aid of a cheerleading US news media, had 
served to accomplish this end. His plan was to tell his staged 
Panamanian audience that democracy in Panama had been reborn under 
the US-installed president, Guillermo Endara. Unfortunately for 
our president, no one told him that Endara's approval rating was a 
meager 8 percent, perhaps most of whom were in his flag-waving 
audience.
        The world now knows that Bush's four ``just causes'' for the 
invasion, i.e., to ``restore'' democracy; to defend the Panama 
Canal; to save American and Panamanian lives, and to apprehend 
Manuel Noriega, were part of a great deception for which hundreds 
(perhaps up to 3,000) of innocent Panamanian men, women and 
children paid with their lives.
        The true objectives of the invasion were twofold: 1) to wipe 
out all vestiges of the Panamanian fervor for national sovereignty 
which had become a major obstacle to the Bush administration's 
intentions to continue its military presence in the Canal Zone 
beyond the year 2000, (the limit imposed by the Carter-Torrijos 
Treaty), and 2) to groom President Bush for a second run for the 
presidency.
        The destruction of the Panamanian army and its demonized 
leader, the nefarious Manuel Noriega (who had proselytized the 
people's fervor for national sovereignty) served both objectives. 
One cannot forget the headlines in our mainstream press shortly 
after the invasion: ``Bush Hits Political Jackpot with Invasion of 
Panama'' and ``Bush Hits Home Run with Invasion -- Lays Image of 
`Wimp' to Rest.''
        On the morning of December 20, 1989, the military onslaught 
by US forces was most intense in the neighborhood of El Chorrillo. 
This neighborhood housed the Comandancia, the headquarters of 
Noriega and the Panamanian Defense Forces, and the poorest, most 
disenfranchised members of the city's population. Without warning 
the sleeping inhabitants, bombs, rockets, rapid-fire machine gun 
bullets, and cannon fire from helicopters fell upon the people of 
this impoverished neighborhood. Remnants of the Panamanian army 
were soon overwhelmed by the Goliath from the north.
        Those citizens who remained mobile after the first intense 
strike were ordered to evacuate to the count of 30, being allowed 
to take nothing with them. Over their shoulders they could see the 
flames of their homes being burned to the ground as they fled. A 
week of lawless pillaging and havoc followed the attack. Survivors 
were relocated in 10-by-10-foot cubicles in hangars at Fort 
Albrook, where most stayed for almost two years. All of these 
experiences had tremendous impact upon the children of the target 
areas.
        In August of 1991, my husband and I returned to Panama after 
a three-year absence to film and otherwise record the aftermath of 
the invasion. We observed many shifts from the attitude of hope 
for sovereignty and liberty we had experienced on our visit in 
1989, prior to the invasion. We found Panama to be a militarily 
occupied country where there was great fear among those who were 
the leaders in the quest for national sovereignty, even though 
they were not necessarily in support of Noriega.
        In the course of our search for information about the 
invasion and the post-invasion impacts on the people, we met 
Antonella Ponce, one of the teachers displaced by the 40-percent 
cuts to education after Guillermo Endara took over the government.
        Inspired by the United Nations Declaration protecting the 
rights of children refugees of war, ratified in September of 1990, 
she applied to the UN and received a grant to work with the 
kindergarten children of El Chorrillo who had been traumatized by 
the pre-Christmas attack. From January through April, 1991, she 
befriended these children, played games with them, taught them how 
to use the materials of art, taught them songs, talked with them 
and, listened.
        During these four months of creative therapy she asked the 
children to draw pictures of their experiences of the invasion and 
to express their feelings which, at last, through her work, they 
could bring to light, in words which were recorded by her on film.
        A book entitled Las Casas son para vivir, Que no vuelva la 
guerra (Houses Are for Living, May War Not Return) was made of the 
children's drawings and explanations, and was published by CELA, 
an arm of the United Nations which works with children refugees of 
war.
        Hector Collado, a Panamanian intellectual and refugee of the 
Chorrillo conflagration, received the National Prize of 
Literature, ``Ricardo Miro,'' in 1990, for the prologue to the book. 
He wrote, ``Death rained suddenly and we are left without country, 
without home. Our lives were estranged for an eternity and a 
rancorous fire was instilled forever in the memories of 2,800 
families.
        ``The children, the drawings, here reunited, testify to an 
hour of anguish, sadness and uncertainty that does not stop 
happening for the unfortunate members of the community of El 
Chorrillo, the `Little Hiroshima,' as it was labelled by agencies 
of the press.''
        The shock of the event left the children unable to speak 
about it with anyone. Collado describes this aspect of the trauma: 
``The child, soon after the event, resists believing it. He/She 
hardens tenderness and says to us, with the drawings shown, there 
is no repose. We must inherit the sequels of `the war of 
December,' that which UNICEF has named `a lost generation, a 
future of men and women whose childhood was assassinated.'
        ``The children know there was a war, a killing: that genocide 
converted many of them into orphans; that the neighborhood was 
scattered and the area reduced to dust and ashes.
        ``I don't wish to speak of death or wilted flowers, but I know 
that in some place in the body of the history of the lives of 
these children they have retained imprinted the ravages of the 
conflict: the destruction of the victim house; the destroyed 
balcony in the fragments of building materials; the porch, the 
window suffocated by smoke and the dramatic vision of the neighbor 
with child in arms devoured by flames.''
        Had President Bush read this prologue, he might have avoided 
stopping in Panama, thus saving our country embarrassment 
additional to that which he caused in Rio. In Bush's pride of 
accomplishment at overcoming this minuscule nation and installing 
his own puppet government, he demonstrates a profound ignorance of 
the seeds of hatred that have been sown among the people of Panama 
by his so deeply wounding this country and its people.
        The recovery of these children is hampered not only by the 
sudden disaster of the invasion, but also by the immediate 
eruption of looting and destruction of the downtown area. The 
``have nots,'' recognizing the tie between the US government and the 
Panamanian upper class which allowed this calamity to happen with 
little resistance, expressed their anger upon the shopkeepers.
        Collado worries that this, too, will have its effect upon the 
development of the children, saying, ``The following disorder, to 
which the community was submitted, places itself squarely in the 
path of the future of our children. For them it constitutes a 
violent blow. -- And is it perhaps that there is no sadness when 
the human race kills itself?''
        Describing the children's art, he says, ``...each picture is a 
peephole into the darkness of the punishment of December; this 
night poisoned by hatred, arrogance and superiority of the 
greatest magnitude. Pictures of children, sons and daughters of 
simple parents, rustic expression, as basically being the saying 
and doing of children, reveal their preoccupation for the 
permanence of the human species and their own affirmation in the 
universe.''
        Two and one-half years after the US invasion ousted dictator 
Manuel Noriega there continues to be widespread drug trafficking, 
money laundering and corruption. The civilian police force, which 
is slowly being supplemented by former army personnel is not yet 
large enough to take care of the crime that now exists. Panama, 
now heavily dependent on US aid, is under pressure to establish 
economic and political stability by 2000, when it takes over 
Panama Canal. Five thousand Panamanians still languish in jails 
for crimes allegedly committed during and subsequent to the 
invasion.
        While Bush callously tries to make political capital out of 
the crime he committed in Panama, the innocent children of El 
Chorrillo are left to confront each day the reality of fear, 
poverty, crime and the psychological scars which are the legacy of 
Bush's ``Just Cause.''


Lois Muhly is a board member and office manager for Children's 
Creative Response to Conflict, and a teacher, retired from the 
Soquel Elementary School District. She is a political activist for 
children and education. Her interests and research have taken her 
to Central America many times.