From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: THE PANAMA CONNECTION
Date: 06 Sep 92 21:39:34 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Windows/DOS Users Ed Group

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 passsion 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 marshalls 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 reelection.

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
	"Well, I'm a little muddled." -- Glinda