% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename:    articles/chomsky.z.victors-part1
% Title:       The Victors, Part I
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: Z Magazine, (Fall) 1990
% Source:      ACTIV-L listserver file CHOMSKY VICTORS1
% Keywords:    Latin America, Cold War, new world order
% Synopsis:    Consequences of the Cold War in US dependencies
% See-also:    

                       THE VICTORS, PART I
                          Noam Chomsky
                       September 30, 1990


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.''  {note: 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.}

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.
{note: Hockstader, _WP_, June 20, 1990.}

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. {note:
_Mesoamerica_ (Costa Rica), July 1990. Detailed updates are
circulated regularly from the Washington office of the
Commission, 1359 Monroe St. NE, Washington DC 20017.}

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. {note: 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_.}

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.'' {note:
_Central America Report_ (_CAR_), Guatemala, Nov. 10, 1989; July
27; April 6; March 2, 1990.}

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.'' {note: AP, _Boston Globe_, June 4, 1990, a
75-word item, which is more than elsewhere.}

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. {note: Editorial, _Tiempo_, July 2,
1990.}

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. {note: Cesar
Chelala, ``Central America's Health Plight,'' _Christian Science
Monitor_, March 22; _CAR_, March 2, 1990.}

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.'' {note: _Latinamerica
press_ (_LP_) (Peru), Nov. 16, 1989.}

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.
{note: _Excelsior_, Oct.  18, 1989 (_Latin America News Update_
(_LANU_), Dec. 1989).}

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.  {note: For a
review, see Joshua Karliner, ``Central America's Other War,''
_World Policy Journal_, Fall 1989.}

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. {note:
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.}

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. {note: _Ibid._}

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. {note: _La Prensa Dominical_,
Honduras, July 22, 1990.}

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. {note: _CAR_,
April 28, 1989. For discussion of these matters, see _Necessary
Illusions_.}

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.'' {note: _CAR_, Dec. 1,
1989.}

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. {note: _Excelsior_, March 24;
_LP_, Feb. 15, 1990.}

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. {note:
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).}

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. {note: _CAR_, March 16; _Mesoamerica_,
March 1990.}

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. {note:
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.}

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. {note: _Mesoamerica_, Sept. 1990.} 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.'' {note: ``Costa
Rica: Arming the country of peace,'' _CAR_, July 27, 1990.}

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. {note: _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.}

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. {note: Editorial, _MH_, July 31, 1990.}


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, {note: In the mainstream, that is.
See, however, Alexander Cockburn, _Nation_, Jan. 29, 1990, and
subsequent articles of his.} 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. {note: Rohter, ``Panama and U.S. Strive to Settle on
Death Toll,'' _NYT_, April 1, 1990.}

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. {note:
_Excelsior_-AFP, Jan. 27 (_LANU_), March 1990; _Mesoamerica_
(Costa Rica), May 1990; _CAR_, March 2, 1990.}

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.''
{note: _Brecha_, CODEHUCA, ``Report of Joint CODEHUCA-CONADEHUPA
delegation,'' Jan.-Feb. 1990, San Jose.}

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.'' {note: CODEHUCA, PEACENET, Feb. 5, 1990.
Panamanian journalist Jose Montano, _LP_ (Lima), Jan. 18, 1990.}

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 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.}

Excavation of mass graves meanwhile continues. By September, the
count of bodies found in these graves alone had reached well over
600. {note: _CAR_, Sept. 7, 1990.}

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''). {note: CBS TV, 7PM EST, Sept. 30, 1990.} 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.'' {note: _Excelsior_
(Mexico City), April 14, 1990; _Central America NewsPak_, Austin
Texas. Pelaez, _El Diario_-_La Prensa_, May 7, 1990.}

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.'' {note: _Aviation Week & Space
Technology_, Jan. 1, 1990.}

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. {note: John Morrocco, _ibid._; Hackworth,
interview with Bill Baskervill, AP, Feb. 25, 1990. March 1990
report, see _Deterring Democracy_ chapter 1.}

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. {note: Michael Gordon, _NYT_, April
11, 1990.}

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.'' {note: Oppenheimer, _MH_, June 20,
1990.}

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. {note:
_CAR_, Aug. 17, 1990.}

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. {note: _LP_, Aug.
30, 1990.}

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). {note: 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.}

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. {note: _CAR_, Aug.
31; _Excelsior_. Sept. 2, 1990.}

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. {note: 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.}

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. {note: Constable, _BG_, July 11, 1990.}

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_. {note: _CSM_, April 9, 1990.}

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. {note:
_Excelsior_, Feb. 28, 1990; _LANU_.}

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.'' {note:
Felicitas Pliego, _Excelsior_, April 29, 1990.}

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. {note:
Commission of Inquiry release, Feb. 17; COHA _News and Analysis_,
May 1, 1990.}

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. {note: Bernal, ``Panama's fight for free
expression,'' _Chicago Tribune_, May 29, 1990.}

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). {note:
_Excelsior_, Aug. 24; _CAR_, Sept. 7, 1990. See my articles in _Z
magazine_, November 1989, March 1990.}

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. {note: _CAR_, April 6;
Andres Oppenheimer, _MH_, Jan. 19, 1990.}

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. {note: _CAR_, Aug. 30, 1990,
citing a recent poll published in _La Prensa_.} 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. {note: Massing,
_NYRB_, May 17, 1990.}

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.