Subject: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO PANAMA
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 Written 4:22 pm Feb 25, 1991 by christic in cdp:christic.news 


   WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO PANAMA IS A DIFFERENT STORY 

  Project Censored: Nomination for the "Ten Best Censored Stories of 1990" 


  According to a variety of non-mainstream but authoritative sources, the 
U.S.  invasion of Panama on December 20, 1989, received inadequate and 
erroneous news coverage. It now appears that the legal implications of the 
invasion, the Bush-Noriega relationship and the actual post-invasion 
conditions in Panama have all been misrepresented to the American people. 
But perhaps the most fraudulent news coverage dealt with the true numbers of 
civilian and combat fatalities.  

  Official accounts spoke of 202 dead Panamanian civilians, 314 dead 
Panamanian soliders, and 23 dead Americans.  

  The press was oddly silent two months after the invasion when a Southern 
Command official acknowledged to the L.A. Times that only 50 Panamanian 
soldiers died. And, American soldiers reported that at least 60 to 70 
Americans were killed, possibly many more. Apparently some combat deaths 
were disguised as accidental deaths unreleated to the invasion. The new 
findings indicate that the U.S. lost more soldiers than Panama. Physicians 
for Human Rights (PHR) has challenged the government figure of 202 dead 
civilians and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has put the figure 
at 3,000, using the phrase "conspiracy of silence" to describe efforts to 
bury the true civilian death toll. The official U.S. report was based on 
unconfirmed battlefield observations and mortuary and hopital statistics. 
PHR's investigation tallied burial sites, mortuaries, hospital records, and 
interview with officials.  

  In addition to Stealth Bombers dropping 2000-pound bombs, U.S. soldiers 
are reported to have directly fired upon civilian homes with machine guns, 
rockets, and tanks in the barrio of El Chorillo surrounding Noriega's 
headquarters.  U.S. soldiers evacuated apart- ments and summarily burned 
them to the ground.  Witnesses reported U.S. troops killing wounded 
civilians with either gunshots or rifle-butts to the head.  

  CBS's "60 Minutes," in a September 1990 expose, reported the existence of 
at least six yet-to-be-exhumed mass graves to conclude that Panamanian 
civilian deaths could run as high as 4,000. The findings of many watch 
groups support the "60 Minutes" casualty report. Peace and Justice in 
Panama, The Central American Human Rights Commission, Panamanian National 
Human Rights Commission, Panamanian Episcopal Commision and the National 
Lawyers Guild all calculate the death toll to range from two to four 
thousand.  

  The actual death toll has been obscured through U.S. military practices of 
incineration of corpses prior to identification, burial of remains in common 
graves prior to indentification, and U.S. military control of administrative 
offices of hospitals and morgues, as well as the removal of hospital and 
morgue registries from their original sites. The U.S. retained direct and 
full control of Panamanian media until mid-February. And U.S. journalists 
were sequestered in military barracks for the first 36 hours of the invasion 
and then saw only official authorized sites.  

  SOURCES: Panama Delegation Report, 3/1/90, by the Central American Human 
Rights Commission; SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN, 9/26/90, "The hidden body 
count," by Jonathan Franklin, p 29; CBS NEWS, "60 Minutes," 9/30/90, 
"Victims of Just Cause," by Mike Wallace; WASHINGTON POST, 6/30/90, "How 
Many Died in Panama, letter con't.," by Joanne Heisel; THE NATION, 6/18/90, 
"The Press and the Panama Invasion," by Marc Cooper, pp 850-852.  


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