frontera        carnet.panama   11:36 pm  Jan 10, 1988

SPEECH BY THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF PANAMA, DR. JORGE ABADIA ARIAS, IN THE
 ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS), 11/13/87

[This document is about half of the original speech.  Frontera News 
edited it for PeaceNet.  For a full copy, or more information, 
contact the Panamanian Consulate, Flood Building, 870 Market #546, 
San Francisco CA 94102, (415) 956-4632.]

Panama comes to this Assembly today with great hopes, but also with 
very grave concerns and warnings, the nature and dimensions of which 
pertain directly, fundamentally and vitally to the "raison d'etre" 
of the Organization of American States..

The Panamanian government has a recognized tradition of seriousness 
in its international conduct and in observance of its commitments 
toward other nations.  Buttressed by that recognition, at the 42nd 
Assembly of the United Nations, I denounced a moral aggression an an 
economic aggression against the Panamanian nation, and I denounced 
the danger that those aggressions could worsen and be exacerbated as 
dark heraldings of military aggression.

The deeds I denounced clearly constitute a violation of basic norms 
of public international law, a threat to the ideals of peaceful co-
existence and reciprocal respect in relations among nations.  Mr. 
President, as the representative of the Republic of Panama, I come 
to this Assembly with the painful mission of conveying to you the 
moral and economic aggression that is being waged against the 
Panamanian state, conceived carefully within a global strategy, 
structured unscrupulously and put in motion without regard to 
resources, without concern for procedures.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

In its structuring, in its development and in its tactics, the 
subversive movement which arose in my country betrays sinister 
similarities to general directives and details of actions of a 
"Manual of Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" that was 
denounced three years ago in the United Nations, but adapted now to 
Panamanian reality.

In 1980, public writings and statements by task forces of 
influential conservative political sectors in the United States of 
American identified Panama as a focal point of subversion.  They 
pointed out Panama's military leadership as inconvenient to the 
national security interests of their country, and they called the 
Carter-Torrijos Treaties a dangerous mistake that was necessary to 
correct as soon as possible and permanently.

With premeditated timing, these sectors described the Panamanian 
government as an extreme left dictatorship, brutally aggressive, 
contrary to the strategic interests of American national security.  
They recommended that if the Carter-Torrijos Treaties failed, the 
Panama Canal should be put under the protection of the Interamerican 
Defense Board in order to assure that the nations of this hemisphere 
would have regular and free access to the Pacific and the Atlantic.

They declared by placing the responsibility for the Panama Canal 
with the signatory countries of the Rio Treaty, who in turn would 
designate the Interamerican Defense Board as their agent, the 
problem of the Panama Canal would be placed on an appropriate 
strategic level.  

Before continuing, I should warn Your Excellencies that these words 
are not mine but rather expressions extracted literally from public 
and official documents which constitute the conceptual basis of 
current policies that are being carried out in some of our 
countries.  Among these documents is that entitled "A New 
Interamerican Policy for the Eighties."

These machinations have not succeeded completely in the last few 
years because their authors did not take into account that a new 
conscience was being born in America and that our peoples were going 
to understand that were these designs implemented with regard to the 
Panama Canal, the vast natural resources of the region would also be 
in danger, becoming eventually a threat for their own status as 
independent and sovereign states.

The "Manual of Psychological Operations" to which we have referred 
has been utilized to try to break up the two decades-old alliance 
between the people and the Defense Forces of Panama, in order to try 
to overthrow the Panamanian government, to try to do away with the 
political constitution of the Republic of Panama, and to make of 
Panama's territory not just a docile, obedient enclave but also a 
vortex of activities designed to undermine the right of the people 
of the American continent to self-determination and independence.

WHAT THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE

Let us now consider what the instructions were and what has 
happened.  let us make a comparison of tactical directives and the 
results that gives us proof of the condemnable means that, in their 
arrogant and unscrupulous blindness, certain sectors of the American 
government have utilized against such a materially weak country as 
Panama.

--A negative image of the Panamanian government must be created.

--The reputation of the leaders must be soiled with crimes that 
  shock social sensitivities.

--All the military must shown as cruel, corrupt people.

--Government figures must be portrayed as a gang of thieves.

--They must be associated with the international Mafia and the 
  international activities of communism.

--The misuse of public funds must be underscored, incriminating 
  everybody.

--They must be insulted so that the people lose respect for them.

In this manner, then, the sinister campaign began that spewed out 
the violent and unfortunate events that occurred in June of this 
year.

On September 22, 1985, with respect to the naming of a commission to 
investigate the murder of Dr. Hugo Spadafora, the then President of 
the Republic of Panama,a Dr. Nicolas Ardito Barletta, in a letter 
which he sent to the Attorney General, stated, "As you are aware, 
the Constitution and the Law that I swore to uphold and defend as 
President do not permit me to do so given that the investigation of 
unlawful acts corresponds exclusively to the Attorney General."

Later, that invisible army of counterfeiters that has been set up by 
the enemies of the Republic of Panama would undertake to make it 
appear as a motive for the resignation of Dr. Ardito Barletta 
alleged pressure on him because he wanted to name a commission that 
he himself had indicated clearly was alien to his rights and his 
rights and his constitutional powers.

This beginning of the campaign was intended fundamentally to 
discredit the Armed Forces and their top command, those who today 
represent the surest and most unbending defense of the national 
liberation program that General Omar Torrijos inculcated in them; 
and in the officer ranks lies the principal obstacle to those who 
seek to re-establish a colonial regime in the territory of the 
Panamanian state.

Our commitment to perfect the democratic process, born of our own 
needs and aspirations, is fully demonstrated by the equanimous, 
measured, patient and highly tolerant manner in which the Panamanian 
President, Eric Arturo Delvalle, has managed the crisis, his refined 
patriotism revealing an exemplary respect for Panamanian law and for 
the norms that govern and guarantee human rights, rights which are 
authentic proof of the desire for democratic co-existence of the 
Panamanian nation.

I turn, then, to relate to you how in a Member State of this 
Organization sedition was planned under the sponsorship and the 
moral and material support of influential and powerful sectors of 
the government of another state that is also a Member of this 
Organization, that also is obligated by the principles and norms 
that govern it.

THE YEAR 1985

The year of 1985 proved propitious to exploit the good faith, the 
ingenuousness and the nobility of the great anonymous majority of 
the American people, and to begin to manipulate public opinion, 
preparing it to accept offensive actions which compromise in 
negative fashion the prestige of the United States of America in the 
eyes of the world.

The Manual of Psychological Warfare warns that the human being 
should be considered as a primary objective in a political struggle, 
and the most critical point of the human being thus conceived is his 
mind.  It explains that as soon as his mind has been affected, the 
"political animal" is defeated without the need for violence.

With precise instructions, it points out that the target of the 
action are the minds of the population, of the entire population, of 
the forces of the Crusade, of the military forces and of the 
civilian population.

In this way then, with the support of the prestige of large 
newspapers [N.B. the New York Times and the Washington Post, for 
example], known throughout the Americans for their tradition of 
honesty and truth in earlier times, began systematically to 
undermine the reputation of key figures in Panamas' political 
leadership, always basing their articles and their slanderous 
reports on alleged reliable sources, on invisible officials and form 
officials of government agencies who asked that their names not be 
revealed; or they were based on alleged confidential reports that 
circulated in the Congress but that no one recognized having seen; 
these actions thereby constructing little by little a sentence of 
culpability without ever presenting proof, showing as irrefutable 
truths all the allegations of the political opposition in Panama 
which, in turn, displayed the slander that appeared in their 
communications media, saying that it was information published in 
the United States of America, supplied by official sources in that 
country.

In this sinister game of mass dissemination of murmurs at the two 
poles of the axis of the plot against Panama, that invisible army 
was constructed a fictitious Panama of its own invention, carefully 
delineated so that it could evoke repugnance and rejection among the 
largest possible number of Panamanians and Americans.


MAY 1986

In May of 1986, with inconceivable reports in a flood of falsehoods 
and slander, the battle began for the victory over the minds of 
Panamanians and Americans.  We were protected by our own truth, but 
the American people were defensless because the only information 
they had was supplied by an army of counterfeiters engaged in war 
against the Panamanian nation.

Following a detailed plan, they later began to develop in Panama 
front organizations which gained influence through the use of 
tactics of internal subjective control, employed by meticulously 
trained elements, and calculating the moment in which they would be 
fused into a single action front to mobilize the masses, an action 
which was conceived to overthrow the legally constituted government 
and replace it with a de facto regime.

Citizens with established reputations in all walks of national life 
were priority recruits at the outset as part of an alleged movement 
of moral rescue of society, apparently apolitical and innocuous, in 
order to then take them gradually toward the larger purpose of a 
great redemptive crusade, and giving them training little by little 
in the most modern techniques of persuasion and propaganda.  Later 
they would extend the contagion more and more to new elements, and 
get ready to form a united front.

From the outset, the principal activists in the mission to 
proselytize were selected on the basis of specific criteria:  their 
knowledge of the mentality of high school and university students; 
their familiarity with the problems and mental barriers of each 
union with regard to trying to infiltrate them; their understanding 
of the feelings and the passions and the aspirations concerning 
attracting elements with leadership skills, and preparing leaders 
who could organize mobilizations on short notice.

The incentive, the source of permanent encouragement, was a 
statement contained in the Manual of Psychological Warfare which 
reads, "When internal subjective control has been developed in 
parallel fashion along with other activities, any leader can shake 
the governmental structure."  Simultaneously, a massive and 
systematic effort was being developed to exacerbate political 
sensitivities in order to relate government administration to all 
life of society, so that even the intimate problems would be 
unconsciously viewed as governmental activity and all potential 
hatred, discontent or natural antipathy or spontaneous hostility 
could be targeted toward the authorities, toward the established 
powers.

On the basis of a studied system of cell formation, immediate 
reaction mechanisms were being introduced in a sector of the 
population by means of a scientifically prepared vocabulary, giving 
the words a different meaning from the true one, gradually 
falsifying in order to avoid problems of acceptance, beginning with 
skillful sophisms and without ever going into deep explanations.  
The objective was to have the words "democracy," "justice," 
"liberty," "human rights," "moral," "Christian conscience," 
"patriotism," "resistance" and "crusade" produce the desired effect 
of rejection of civil authority and the Defense Forces of Panama, 
the desired effect of longing for a change of government as an 
urgent individual need and, in addition, as a noble goal, as a 
higher mission.  This is all evident in their writings.

They were organizing discussion groups, dinners, meetings of 
elements with common activities, under any pretext, using anything 
from intellectual curiosity to cravings for expansion of social 
contacts, and even through pseudo-mystical and occult sects.

In this manner they introduced beachheads and the means to mobilize 
in groups, associations, clubs and political parties, because the 
objective was to create a national conscience of falsified reality, 
to stimulate acceptance or an organized lie and, with profound 
knowledge of the tactics of subversion, undermine all strata of 
society, preparing an insurrectional mobilization that could have 
the effect of paralyzing the national economy.

As the seditious contagion grew, the vocabulary had to be molded 
with the goal of making it more seductive in the eyes of American 
public opinion, and expressions were being spread in daily talk that 
previously were only used in necessary instances and very rarely, 
such as "civil liberties," "due process," and human rights."  For 
Panamanians, freedom of thought is a secular custom with deep roots 
in our history and in our way of life.  We call the absence of 
justice cleanly and plainly injustice or denial of justice, and we 
called violations of human rights outrages long before the 
expression became fashionable, and "civil liberties" for us have 
always been "individual guarantees."  But the important audiences 
were no longer just Panamanians but rather the people and the 
Congress of the United States and the international community, 
utilizing sectors of foreign communications media.

It is sad and shameful to have to recognize that a considerable 
number of Panamanians expanded the ranks of that army which for 
several years has been limiting its actions and its words strictly 
to the directives of a policy of psychological warfare.  On the 
other hand, it is reassuring that national majorities have turned 
their back on them when they tried to convince the population that 
what they were doing was to protect the people and not themselves, 
that their excesses were acts of a democratic movement and that 
their higher mission justified them, because the final objective of 
the insurrection was a free and democratic society in which those 
acts would no longer be necessary, and that the attacks on the 
national economy were a necessity because of the system of 
oppression, and that this would be changed when the forces of 
justice assumed.

Today we see that they succeeded in leaving us a divided country.  
But that division is between Panamanians who defend the patriotic 
truth of national liberation and those Panamanians who, having 
failed in their attempts, have thrown themselves into the streets of 
the world to shout lies that reactionary and fascist forces grab up 
to join in with them.  But that minority that is trying to hand over 
the destiny of the fatherland to foreign interests continues to 
have, nonetheless, a great capacity to do harm; and the lesson that 
we Panamanians are learning today we denounce here so that no other 
sister nation will ever suffer it.

Now, besides all the foregoing, I want to call the attention of this 
Assembly to other aspects of the aggression that has been mounted 
against the Panamanian state.  If we have signed a Charter with 
principles and norms which should govern relations among American 
states, it is not possible for a Member state of the Organization 
unilaterally and capriciously to interpret those principles and 
those norms without introducing an element of grave danger for 
peaceful co-existence on our continent.

In the Permanent Council of OAS and in the United Nations General 
Assembly, the Republic Panama denounced a long list of actions which 
constitute interference in our internal affairs.  We shall never 
forget the support received from our sister nations.  We refer again 
here to those denunciations because there are those who persist in 
interfering in our internal affairs while alleging supposed 
justifications.

I wonder, furthermore, if it is not a grave danger for the Member 
states that in the Congress of the United States of America a draft 
bill is circulating entitled "The Democracy in Panama Act of 1987" 
and in which requirements are established that the Government of 
Panama must meet in order to be acceptable to said body?

For one state to exist, does it have to receive the approval of the 
Congress of another state?  Can the Congress of one state impose a 
change of government on another state?

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