UN General Assembly
1988

When we have seen the destruction of our economy, of the sources of our work, of our means of production and exploitation of our resources, and when supplies of food and medicine for our population have been seriously jeopardized, how can Panama fail to protest in the most energetic terms? How can it fail to protest when its financial negotiations are sabotaged, when public Panamanian funds, which have been withheld, are dealt with in a piratical manner without precedent in history, and in particular when every day may be the eve of a military attack from those United States bases located in our own territory? Allow me now to state the reasons why the Panamian people is increasingly afraid of direct military intervention. We are now experiencing a visible, tangible and permanent threat, as can be discerned from the facts I have given and shall now continue to give because the entire international community needs to know these things.