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March 30, 1999 - Bill Cooper
02:03:50
Panama Deception
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And in time, might allow for the broken pieces of your heart to soar with mine.
Aah!
Oof, o-bope!
I got it, hold on!
Oh, oh, oh!
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S-shit!
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Ooh!
Mm!
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Ladies and gentlemen, it has become increasingly evident that the majority of the American
people have descended into such depths of ignorance, stupidity and apathy that I don't
know if there's any coming back from that.
Bye.
All I can do is to continue to try to educate the sheeple so that someday they might become real people.
Ladies and gentlemen, the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.
led to the slaughter by the Judas-goats in whom they place so much of their trust—blind
trust, I might add.
Ladies and gentlemen, the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., is made up of the largest number of
chronic, habitual, and serious liars that probably have ever existed upon the face of
this earth.
They lied to us about World War II.
They lied to us about World War I.
They lied to us about the reasons we got into World War I.
They lied to us about the reasons we got into World War II.
They lied to us about the fact that they said they had no advance warning of the Japanese
attack upon Pearl Harbor, something that has been proven historically false.
They lied to us about the Korean War.
They lied to us about the reason why they fired General MacArthur, who wanted to win the war.
They lied to us about Vietnam, especially those of us who fought in Vietnam.
They lied to us about the war in Cambodia and Laos.
They lied to us about the bombing of North Vietnam.
They lied to us about the mining of Haiphong Harbor.
They lied to us about the Turner-Joyt incident in the Gulf of Tonkin.
They lied to us.
They continue to lie to us.
Every time they come up for election, they lie to us.
Every time we discover that they lie to us, we say never again, and then when they lie to us again, we believe it.
They lied to us about Granada.
They lied to us, ladies and gentlemen, about Panama.
They are lying to us now about the war in Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
They lied to us about Bosnia.
They lied to us about the amount of time our troops were going to be in Bosnia.
President Clinton told us They would only be there one year after he signed the Dayton Agreement, the Dayton Accords as they're called, which specifically state that we are committing troops for a minimum, minimum of five years.
President William Jefferson Clinton has proven to be the greatest liar that has probably lived amongst all of these chronic, serious, and perpetual habitual liars that inhabit That nefarious geographical thing known as Washington, the District of Columbia.
So since Americans have such short memories from lie to lie, tonight, listen very carefully.
You're going to hear the soundtrack from Panama Deception, which is a videotape.
I want you to go out and buy this videotape in huge numbers.
Pass them out to your friends.
Give them to everyone that you know.
Buy tons and tons of this video.
It's called Panama Deception.
Find it.
Buy it.
Buy not just one copy, but several copies and hand them out to everyone that you know.
Ladies and gentlemen, stop believing the lies.
Stop supporting tyranny.
What we are doing in Yugoslavia is committing acts of war against a nation-state which has never in its history attacked us, has always been a loyal ally, held twenty-one German divisions at bay during World War II, and if they had not done that, we could not have won the war.
Don't believe it?
Study the history of World War II and you'll find out if there had been twenty-one more German divisions free to fight us, we would have been rolled back to the beaches of Normandy.
It's not conjecture.
It's fact.
They rescued our pilots.
They took care of them.
They healed them.
They treated them.
And they took them to the lines and turned them back over to the Allied forces.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Serbs for hundreds of years have been persecuted, enslaved, castrated, blinded.
Most of you have no idea of the history of that part of the world.
The Kotovan rebels The KLA is a Marxist-Communist organization that has been funded and that has been turned loose to do what they are doing in order to fraction the nationalist state of Yugoslavia, to create unrest in the region, to test the power of the New World Order, to exert its will over sovereign nation-states by the use of the world police force, which is the United States military forces.
Now listen very carefully and learn from this.
All of the witnesses that you're going to hear tonight are just poor Panamanians.
They've got no axe to grind.
They're not communists.
They're not socialists.
They're not anything.
They're just poor, poor people.
They're going to tell you the truth about what the United States of America did in Panama.
And then you're going to know how bad the lies have been, can be, and will continue to be.
Until you grow up and stop being so damn ignorant, stupid, and apathetic.
You think, if you speak out against this, that you're not patriotic?
Tell me!
Tell me, dummies!
What is patriotic about attacking the nation of Yugoslavia when they have never, ever in their history attacked the United States of America?
Huh?
Duh!
No...
Hey, Sopa!
Hey, Rosa!
Hey, Mami-Tam!
Thanks for watching!
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I don't go running, I go straight to the field, and then I follow the vacuum, in the field, I kill myself.
I don't go running, I go straight to the field, and then I follow the vacuum, in the field, I kill myself.
I'm going to run to my show!
I'm going to run to my show!
I want to dance with you, I want to dance with you And if the drums don't sound, I'll go to the beach
And if the drums don't sound, I'll go to the beach I want to dance with you, I want to dance with you
I want to dance with you in the margarita Mami, I want to dance with you in the margarita
I want to dance with you in the margarita I want to dance with you in the margarita
I want to dance with you in the margarita On December 19th, 1989, while Panamanians were getting
ready for the Christmas holidays, the United States was secretly mobilizing 26,000 troops for
a midnight attack.
The United States was secretly mobilizing 26,000 troops for a midnight attack.
I want to dance with you, I want to dance with you in the margarita
I want to dance with you in the margarita I want to dance with you in the margarita
I want to dance with you in the margarita Thank you.
I saw helicopters approaching.
They were close.
The lights went out and the helicopters began to shoot.
People were running left and right without direction, without knowing where they were going.
It wasn't just machine gun fire.
They were bombed.
The noise was frightening.
Gunfire You could hear gunfire coming from all directions
and a strange noise that we had never heard before.
People were frightened, running, wondering what was going on.
The sky was completely red and there was a tremor you could feel throughout the city.
The invasion was swift, intense and merciless.
When it was over, thousands lay dead and wounded, and the country was in shambles.
Millions of U.S.
US tax dollars were swallowed up in three days of brutal violence.
The strategy was considered a stunning military and political success.
In many ways, the invasion served as a testing ground for the Persian Gulf War one year later.
It is also an indication of the kinds of intervention the United States may undertake in the years to come.
But still, big questions remain.
What exactly happened during the invasion of Panama?
And why?
As the invasion unfolded, Americans stayed glued to their TVs and newspapers for coverage.
But how much of the real picture did the media give them?
U.S. soldiers and Marines launched their attack in the early morning darkness backed by swarms of helicopters.
As the invasion unfolded, Americans stayed glued to their TVs and newspapers for coverage.
But how much of the real picture did the media give them?
The performance of the mainstream news media in the coverage of Panama
has been just about total collaboration with the administration.
Not a critical moment, not a critical perspective, not a second thought.
The story that the White House was pushing was getting the so-called narco-terrorists in a net.
And that was the thrust of all of the coverage.
When are we going to get Noriega?
Have they let Noriega get away?
By late today, they had taken control of much of the country, but their chief target, General Manuel Noriega, escaped.
Manuel Noriega belongs to that special fraternity of international villains, men like Gaddafi, Idi Amin, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, whom Americans just love to hate.
The White House announced a $1 million reward for his... And today, the Justice Department set up a hotline to take in hits on Noriega's possible whereabouts.
They focused on Noriega to the exclusion of what was happening to the Panamanian people, to the exclusion of the bodies in the streets, to the exclusion of the number dead, to the exclusion of what happened to the women and children in that country during this midnight invasion.
In some ways, the 1989 U.S.
invasion of Panama was no surprise.
Given the history of relations between these two countries.
The United States refused to recognize Panama's independence movement throughout the 1800s.
But when the U.S.
proposal to build a canal across the Isthmus was turned down by Colombia, U.S.
policy abruptly changed.
In 1903, the United States provided military backup, enabling Panama to secede from Colombia.
By doing so, The United States secured the right to take over the canal project that had been abandoned by the French.
In a treaty that was negotiated between the French canal investors and the United States, the Americans were granted sovereign control in perpetuity of a 10 mile wide strip of land they called the Canal Zone.
Panamanians were not included in the negotiations and no Panamanian signed the treaty.
The United States immediately placed the canal zone under military control.
Teddy Roosevelt was asked by what right he acquired possession of the canal.
At least, in the honest words of a thief, he said, I took it.
That gives you no right.
The law never has.
And hopefully, never will.
The Canal Project had a dramatic impact on Panama.
The U.S.
imported cheap labor from the Caribbean, India, and Asia, changing the racial makeup of the country.
Thousands of these workers died, and those who remained lived as part of a new racial underclass.
They created an apartheid system in Panama, a system of race and racial segregation, where black people could not live in the same home, where black people could not even use the same water fountain.
the Jim Crow law that was practiced in the southern part of the United States
was implemented in Panama by the United States government.
After the canal was completed in 1913, the United States continued to expand
its military presence and tighten its grip on Panamanian politics.
Violent confrontations between Panamanians and the U.S.
military grew in the decades that followed.
Tensions peaked in 1964 when students tried to exercise Panama's right to fly its flag in the canal zone.
Twenty-one Panamanians were killed and hundreds were wounded in the confrontation.
In 1968, Panama's government was overthrown in a military coup.
Omar Chirios, a colonel in the National Guard, emerged as the new leader of Panama.
Although he used repressive measures to consolidate his power, he became immensely popular.
Torrijos introduced an unexpected period of social reform that benefited Panama's majority population of blacks, Indians, and mestizos.
It created what some people call a populist reformist process.
Humberto Brown, an administrator at the State University of New York, served as a Panamanian diplomat to the United Nations.
He was educated in Panama during the Torrijos period.
We're, for the first time in Panama, getting participation of the non-oligarchical people of the nation.
where people like myself get an opportunity to go to university, get a degree,
where the peasants, where people from the Mestizo, where all the people who were deprived of an opportunity
for once in their life were playing important roles in our nation.
In 1978, Relations between the United States and Panama reached a high point.
Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos negotiated treaties that abolished the 1903 treaty,
establishing a new relationship between the two countries.
The Carter-Torrijos treaties required the United States to vacate its military bases
and withdraw its troops by the year 2000.
Full control of the Canal and the Canal Zone would be turned over to Panama.
Although these new treaties were a source of pride for Panamanians, many conservatives in the United States had vehemently opposed them.
The Panama Canal Zone is sovereign United States territory, just as much as Alaska is, as well as the states carved from the Louisiana Purchase.
We bought it, we paid for it, and General Torillo should be told we're going to keep it.
In November 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in a landslide election victory.
Eight months later, on the night of July 31st, 1981, Omar Chirijos was killed in a fiery plane crash.
The circumstances of the incident are unclear.
Authorities said that his plane crashed into the side of a mountain.
But witnesses said that the plane exploded in flight.
Although his death was officially declared an accident, many suspect that he was assassinated.
Some think that Manuel Noriega may have been involved.
But many are convinced it was the CIA that was responsible.
I'm quite convinced that the CIA killed Torrijos.
And this I know quite well because I worked with Torrijos.
Jose Chuchu Martinez was one of Torrijos' closest aides for many years.
They killed him precisely at the moment they had to kill him.
At the moment that Torrijos was having a big influence over Central America.
Specifically among the revolutionary movement.
They killed Torrijos because Torrijos represented precisely the political solution of the whole Central American problem.
Waiting in the wings for his chance to take power was Colonel Manuel Noriega, the CIA's primary contact in Panama.
Noriega was head of Panama's military intelligence and had a long-standing relationship with the United States.
He had been on the CIA payroll since the 60s.
When George Bush became director of the CIA in 1976, under President Ford, he inherited Noriega as a contact.
Despite evidence that Noriega was involved in drug trafficking, Bush kept Noriega on the payroll.
In fact, he increased Noriega's salary to more than $100,000 a year and eliminated a requirement that intelligence reports on Panama include information on drug trafficking.
Over the last 20 years, since Manuel Noriega was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to be an asset, he has obviously provided Many, many important pieces of information to U.S.
intelligence.
intelligence. Peter Kornbluh is senior analyst at the National Security Archive. The archive has
assembled hundreds of previously classified government documents revealing the details of
Noriega's relationship to U.S. intelligence. They paid him an incredible amount of money,
of American taxpayers' money, and obviously decided that his value to them was so important that his
drug smuggling and other illegal activities would simply be ignored.
I, George Herbert Walker Bush, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
That I will support and defend... After George Bush became Vice President under Ronald Reagan in 1981, he was named head of the administration's anti-drug campaign.
And once again, took responsibility for monitoring Noriega's intelligence activities.
Bush, in fact, seems to have been instrumental, even according to the documented evidence the administration itself has made available, in seeing to it that Noriega was well taken care of.
And, in fact, Admiral Stanfield Turner, the former director of the CIA under Carter, claims that he cut Noriega off, that he removed him from the U.S.
payroll.
Bush put him back on and, in fact, gave him a raise and developed an even closer relationship than it existed before.
With support from the CIA, Noriega was able to outmaneuver his rivals, and in August of 1983, he became commander of
the Tammanian military.
As the Reagan administration expanded its covert war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Noriega
became increasingly helpful.
Working with the CIA and with Israeli arms dealers, Noriega helped coordinate an arms supply network to provide weapons to Contra bases in northern Costa Rica.
It is by now undeniable that the same planes that were carrying arms from Panama into Costa Rica We're also carrying drugs.
And in fact, the people who were the pilots flying those arms to the conference and flying drugs on up, eventually reaching the United States, have been indicted and are now serving time.
This operation essentially gave Manuel Noriega the assurance that they would turn a blind eye to his continued brokering of cocaine deals in return for using his network Noriega's involvement in the drug traffic really increased his importance as a source for the CIA and as someone who was able to conduct dirty tricks in the region for the CIA.
So it's no accident that the CIA became the most prominent defenders of Noriega against the drug charges.
Because that's the sort of thing which CIA clients tend to do.
Time after time, when we install strongmen in the third world,
because we want them to be strong, we want to see them involved with the strongest local economic forces,
which time after time are the drug traffickers.
Despite Noriega's collaboration with many U.S. government officials,
covert operations, he was becoming increasingly uncooperative with U.S.
objectives in Central America.
In 1984, he angered the Reagan administration by hosting Latin American leaders at the Contadora Peace Talk.
The talks called for an end to U.S.
intervention in Central American affairs.
Noriega was not the yes-man that the United States wanted him to be.
He simply didn't like to be pushed around.
He certainly didn't like people like John Foy and Dexter were in the waiting case of coming down to his villa and telling him what he should do and what he shouldn't do.
Then in 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal erupted.
Noriega's primary contacts in the administration were now under intense scrutiny.
Alvin North was fired, Cornelius was forced to resign, and William Chaston fell ill with a brain tumor.
So all three of Noriega's major protectors were out of government, and that led quickly to a shift in U.S.
policy. Sentiments within Panama were turning against Noriega as well.
I'm out.
For three years, Noriega worked with the DEA in a sting operation codenamed Operation Pisces.
In 1987, with Noriega's assistance, authorities arrested hundreds of suspects and froze millions of dollars in Panama's banks, severely disrupting the money laundering business.
The financial community was outraged and Noriega's opponents mobilized against him.
Back in Washington, Noriega's opponent lobbied and testified against him, accusing him of murder, corruption, and drug running.
The U.S.
media quickly turned it into a major story.
...but relations with Panama are under a new cloud tonight because of news reports... ...that the military strongman of Panama, Manuel Noriega, is the number one drug trafficker in the Americas.
Based with increased pressure, both in the U.S.
in Panama, Noriega introduced a wave of brutal repression, attacking protesters in the street
and jailing hundreds of opponents.
The Reagan administration now openly called for his removal.
Okay, we're good.
We do want Noriega out of there and a return to a civilian democratic government.
But behind the scenes, the administration was secretly negotiating with Noriega, promising not to indict him on drug charges if he would cooperate with U.S.
objectives in Central America.
Gabrielle Gemma, Director of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S.
Invasion of Panama, spoke to Noriega about his negotiations with the U.S.
Gerald Noriega told us that there were a number of demands placed on him directly, both at Poindexter and other meetings, where the State Department pressured him to change the Panamanian government's policy on several issues.
He said that by far the most pressing was a demand by the United States that Noriega And the Panamanian government allowed the U.S.
to expand their military presence in Panama and to renegotiate the treaties to allow them to keep control over the 14 military bases that presently exist in Panama.
Noriega refused to agree to the U.S.
demands or to relinquish his power in Panama.
In February 1988, two U.S.
federal grand juries in Florida indicted Noriega, accusing him of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.
It was the first time a foreign head of state had ever been indicted in the United States.
The U.S.
now undertook a systematic effort to overthrow Noriega.
Economic sanctions were stepped up, and additional troops were dispatched to Panama.
The United States and I declared in effect that Panama's General Manuel Noriega is a threat to this country's national security.
Mr. Noriega, the drug-indicted, drug-related, indicted dictator of Panama.
We want to bring him to justice.
We want to get him out, and we want to restore democracy to Panama.
And so when you read these outrageous charges by a drug-related, indicted dictator, discount them.
They are total lies.
Still unable to force Noriega from power, the United States turned its efforts to influencing
the upcoming 1989 Panamanian national elections.
The Bush administration, working through the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy,
funneled more than $10 million into the opposition's slate of candidates.
Presidential candidate Guillermo Indara, a wealthy corporate lawyer educated in the United States, and his vice-presidential running mate, Guillermo Billy Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderon.
It's the same scenario that those elections occurred and had taken place in the United States.
It would have been illegal.
In the United States, accepting money from a foreign government for the purpose of influencing
a domestic election is illegal.
Those elections were irregular from the beginning.
How can you call it a fair election?
The strategy was applied in Panama, it was applied in Nicaragua, and it was applied to every government who disagreed with the U.S.
foreign policy.
They used economic sanction to starve people.
They imposed a vote on these people because people vote to get bread when they're hungry.
And I don't think that's democracy.
The elections were held, the counting of the votes began, it became clear that the PRD would lose the election.
And at that point, and not for the first time in the history of Panama or many other countries in Central America, the military rulers halted the electoral process.
The country erupted in violence as ballot boxes were seized.
The U.S. supported candidates who had been leading in vote tallies were dwindly beaten on the streets of Panama City
in front of rolling TV cameras.
The assailants were alleged to be Noriega's dignity battalions, although none were ever identified.
It was a photo opportunity that crystallized world public opinion against Noriega.
Good evening.
The violence in Panama escalated sharply this evening when government goons attacked Canada to pose as General Manuel Noriega were attacked and beaten up on the streets of Panama City.
Guillermo Andara, one of the opposition presidential candidates, was beaten and injured during the day by backers of military soldiers.
The presidential candidate, Andara, was released from the hospital.
It has been confirmed that he was attacked by goons.
The following day, President Bush ordered 2,000 additional troops into Panama.
I will do what is necessary to protect the lives of American citizens, and we will not be intimidated by the bullying tactics, brutal though they may be, of the dictator Noriega.
After the election fiasco, the Panamanian National Assembly declared a state of emergency and appointed Noriega head of state.
George Bush now openly encouraged the Panamanian military to revolt against Noriega.
I would love to see him getting out.
I would like to see him out of there.
With support and encouragement from the United States, a group of officers from the Panamanian Defense Forces, the PDF, began planning a military coup to overthrow Noriega.
They secretly met several times with the U.S.
Southern Command to coordinate support for the overthrow.
The role played by the United States Army was to block certain roads, make sure that certain airfields were not made available for use by elements loyal to, or potentially loyal to, General Noriega.
With these insurances, the insurgent troops launched the coup attempt.
They quickly overpowered Noriega's guards, seized the CDF headquarters, and captured Noriega.
But the Americans did not carry through on their promises.
Forces loyal to Noriega were allowed to gain entrance and crush the rebellion, freeing General Noriega.
President Bush later denied any U.S. involvement.
involvement in the operation.
I think this is some American operation, and I can tell you that you've got troops.
But I would repeat, and I hope you do today, we're instantly at Panama.
We have no argument with the Panamanian defense forces.
We have no argument with any country related to the Panamanian defense forces.
But investigative journalist Doug Vaughn, who was in Panama during the failed coup attempt,
disputes Bush's claims.
The idea, at least on the American side, was to lead these coup plotters along.
to seduce them into believing that they had the support of the United States
and then at a critical moment abandon them so that then the excuse could be made that we had
to smash the PDF completely, that we couldn't rely anymore on disgruntled officers inside
the Panamanian army to rise up against Noriega and we would have to do this job ourselves.
After the October coup attempt, 1,300 additional U.S.
troops were flown into Panama, and offensive military equipment was secretly deployed.
The U.S.
military stepped up its campaign of intimidation and provocation, setting up roadblocks, confronting PDF forces, and conducting offensive military maneuvers outside of U.S.
jurisdiction.
They have blocked houses here, calling it a security problem.
What security?
The Alemanian people would never threaten them.
They are the ones threatening.
They are the ones who charge at us with a weapon.
What's wrong with that?
They charge the bayonets at us.
They charge the bayonets in order to scare us.
They said not to step onto that area, but they're on our side, those son of a bitches!
It came to an inch that that day, the killing didn't start.
because the tanks and everything were ready to go in to kill the Panamanian people.
In the final months before the invasion, the Army Special Operations Command
sent a highly secret Delta Force team to Panama.
There were numerous actions undertaken by that Delta team which were reported in the United States press as provocations undertaken by Panamanians against the United States.
Infiltrations of United States positions, shots fired in the direction of Sabina Virgo, a national labor organizer, was in Panama just weeks before the invasion.
Provocations against the Panamanian people by United States military troops were very frequent in Panama and They had several results, and in my opinion, probably a couple of different intents.
One, I think, was to create an international incident.
Was to have the United States troops just hassle the Panamanian people until an incident resulted.
And from that incident, the United States could then say that they were going into Panama for the possession of American life, which is, in fact, exactly what happened.
On the night of December 16th, A group of U.S.
U.S. Marines ran a military roadblock in front of PDF headquarters and were fired on by Panamanian
guards.
Lieutenant Robert Bolivar-Paz, a U.S. Marine.
Marine intelligence officer, was killed.
The Marines were reported to be part of a group called the Hard Chargers, known for provoking confrontations with PDF forces.
The Pentagon claims the Marines were unarmed and lost.
But local witnesses said that they were armed and exchanged fire with the PDF headquarters, wounding a soldier and two civilians.
An American serviceman has been killed in a weekend shooting incident.
Another American official called an example of General Noriega's cruelty and brutality.
The death of an American officer, which President Bush condemned today as an outrage.
And in another incident, a Navy officer and his wife were detained.
He beaten and threatened with death.
She threatened sexually.
Another American serviceman also threatening that man's wife.
Strong public support for a reprisal was all but guaranteed.
Four days later, on December 20th, U.S.
troops invaded Panama.
The invasion was codenamed Operation Just Cause.
you Shortly after midnight, U.S.
troops simultaneously attacked 27 targets, many of which were in densely populated areas.
One of the primary targets in Panama City was the headquarters of the Panamanian Defense Forces, located in the crowded neighborhood of El Chorrillo.
U.S.
U.S. troops shelled the area for four hours before moving in and calling to surrender.
Can you surrender?
Do you know?
We are going to the front line.
Each and every soldier.
Surrender now.
About ten minutes after they've been speaking this surrender, surrender,
we start to hear the helicopters.
Start to bomb the quartel.
It soon became clear that the objectives were not limited only to military targets.
According to witnesses, many of the surrounding residential neighborhoods were deliberately attacked and destroyed.
The helicopters were heavily armed.
They were firing powerful machine guns and rockets.
And they were firing indiscriminately.
They weren't just looking for military targets.
They were firing at many civilians.
People were running all over, trying to escape.
They shot at everything that moved.
Without mercy and without thinking whether they were children or women or people fighting.
Instead everything that moved is shot.
We all thought that they would just signal here.
They said that's what they wanted.
They would take him and would destroy everyone else.
Out there, the bombings have been stopped.
They've been going on for a few hours.
The soldiers say, tell everybody to come out with their hands on their head, and they direct us to the church.
When we were in the church about 6 o'clock in the morning, all of a sudden the building
started to burn in front of the church.
The people, as they know, the only thing they have was inside that place.
They tried to run out to get water to house it.
And the American soldiers tell them to get out.
Some people, you know, stubborn, they try to go in, and American soldiers, they shot up in here.
And the people that get here, and they run back.
We saw that the North Americans were denying people access to their homes.
They sent people back and threatened them with their machine guns and forbid anyone to get close to the houses, or walk in or around the alleys leading to the houses.
Then they began to set the houses on fire.
The Panamanian soldiers know each alley, how to go in and how to come out and where to go.
And some, you know, from one street to another street, climb up and go towards Balkan and things.
So, the only way, I think, the American soldiers could get rid of that, that danger, was to burn down the building there.
That way, the Panamanian soldiers would have nowhere to hide.
I'm unaware of any operations by U.S.
military to go through and systematically burn down buildings.
You get fires that are started by weapons, but I've seen any reports of U.S.
military folks going through and setting buildings on fire.
The North Americans began burning down El Chorrillo at about 6.30 in the morning.
They would throw a small device into a house and it would catch on fire.
They would burn a house and then move to another and begin the process all over again.
They burned from one street to the next.
They coordinated the burning through walking chalk.
Althaldía, the old of Torillo, drank the lot in.
The fire was so strong that it burned the whole house.
The Pentagon used Panama as a testing ground for newly developed high-tech weapons, such as the stealth fighter, the Apache attack helicopter, and laser guided missiles.
There are also reports that can't be explained indicating the use of experimental and unknown weaponry.
We have testimony about combatants who died literally melted with their guns as a result of a laser.
We know of automobiles that were cut in half by these lasers, of atrocities committed by weapons that fire poison darts which produce massive bleeding.
I think there's a high probability that there was a use of sophisticated weaponry merely to test it.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S.
Attorney General, has conducted extensive research into the invasion.
Above all, though, there was a use beyond any conceivable necessity of just sheer firepower.
Just an excessive use of force beyond any possible justification.
President Bush wanted to make certain that this was going to be a success, this was going to be his vindication, a denial of the wimp factor in space.
So they sent down a force that wasn't going to encounter any effective resistance, would simply overwhelm the opposition.
And the fact that it would cause tremendous peripheral damage, damage to youth and civilians on a wide scale, was not a concern in the planning.
What we intended to do was to reduce collateral damage.
Collateral damage, that means if the target is right here, you're trying not to have damage to other places.
You're trying to have damage to a specific target because that's a military target.
You're trying to minimize damage outside of the military target.
And they worked.
My God, we were standing in artillery.
and airstrikes against a very heavily populated urban area.
there was absolutely no question that there were going to be immense numbers of civilian casualties.
We walked among the dead and saw the tanks run over and crush our dead.
you you
We saw a great number of civilian cars with whole families inside.
Kids, women and the driver, torn to pieces and crushed by the tanks.
The soldier...
passed the tongues over the people's bodies.
Some of them dead, some of them wounded.
And there are cases that we know, for example, the case of Manuel Carro,
the case of Alexander Yuba, and some others whose bodies were totally destroyed.
During the days and weeks following the invasion, policy of applying overwhelming deadly force continued.
There were many reports of indiscriminate killings and executions of unarmed civilians.
We have eyewitness accounts on the part of a number of Panamanians where soldiers took Panamanians who had been captured after the invasion and executed them on the street.
I have seen no reports of U.S.
soldiers executing anyone in Panama.
We have carefully checked out every such report, and if we think there is evidence that a U.S.
soldier murdered a Panamanian, we will court-martial that soldier.
That sort of behavior would be absolutely unprofessional, totally unacceptable, and illegal.
A community leader from El Chorrillo was taken to the Balboa High School detention camp the morning after the attack.
There were many Panamanian troops at the Balboa concentration camp.
They didn't seem to know what was going on.
They were sitting on the grass with their arms and feet tied with plastic bands.
I, along with many other people from El Chorrillo, Witness their execution right in front of us.
Eight of the soldiers at the entrance were executed by U.S.
troops.
There were many reports of unprovoked killings at U.S.
roadblocks.
One woman told human rights investigators how her brother and four friends were killed at a roadblock on December 23rd, three days after the initial attack.
All five of the passengers were forced out of the car and put face down on the ground.
They were riddled with bullets.
They were simply going to visit family members when they were detained and killed in the street.
Although 19 cases of homicide and alleged executions were filed for the Southern Command,
all but two of these cases were internally reviewed and dismissed.
Stay with us.
More of the documentary, the Oscar-winning documentary, Deadly Deception, in just a few moments.
I'm Kevin Harris.
I'm the station manager here at Channel 9, and this is a special evening.
We're going to air two documentaries that are controversial in content, but the kind of programming that only public television, only KQED, would bring to you.
It's showing a different perspective.
That's why we're here tonight.
That's why we've decided to broadcast both of these programs tonight and ask for your support.
We'd like you to call 864-1100 or toll free 1-800-566-8888.
Music Woo!
During the invasion and throughout the days and weeks that followed, access by the news media was tightly controlled.
The Pentagon flew in a 16-person press pool from the major U.S.
media.
The pool did not reach Panama, however, until after the crucial first four hours of the attack, and were restricted to U.S.
military bases for the next day and a half.
Our regret is that we were not able to use the media pool more effectively.
The goal was to get reporters down there so that they could see for themselves the early hours of the operation.
Now once they got there, we had a breakdown in our ability to move around.
Helicopters that we thought were going to be available had to be pulled off and were needed for the operation itself.
The press pool that went down there was managed from the day they arrived.
They were only taken to see what the government, what the military wanted them to see, and there has been continuous suppression and denial of the extent of damage which was inflicted during that invasion.
Many journalists who tried to investigate on their own were stopped by U.S.
troops from entering areas that were attacked.
One of the few journalists who was able to penetrate the military's restrictions was
Panamanian photographer Julio Guerra.
Bye.
I had already taken photographs in the Chonrio area.
I'd also taken photos of some dead bodies in the street.
When an North American soldier told me I couldn't walk any further, they wanted to take my camera away.
But I didn't let them.
So they made me open the camera and expose the roll of film with the shots of the dead bodies I had taken.
you.
Military folks shouldn't be taking film out of cameras.
You get young guys in combat, they get concerned, they do that sometimes.
I don't think that was the norm.
Another Panamanian journalist, Manuel Becker, a cameraman for a London-based news service, was covering the attack on the night of the invasion when he was stopped by U.S.
troops.
We almost got to the edge of El Chorrillo.
As soon as we were able to, we started videotaping.
But the North American troops took our tapes.
And placed us virtually under arrest until the bombing was over.
A Spanish news photographer, who in the early moments was able to get a picture of bodies lined up in the morgue, was subsequently shot under very strange circumstances.
There was not a conflict, but according to the reports of colleagues and American soldiers,
it's a game and shot him down.
It's a game.
military also targeted the Panamanian media.
Radio stations were immediately taken over and destroyed.
U.S.
forces occupied TV stations and began transmitting their own signal.
Many journalists were either arrested or fired.
One of Panama's largest daily newspapers, La Republica, was raided, ransacked, and closed down by American troops.
The U.S.
military's control over all of the media was so effective that there is almost no video footage of the first three days of the invasion other than what was shot by the military's own camera crews.
It's so ironic that the kind of very tight press control that you used to see in Russia under Stalin and under Brezhnev, and which was finally ending under Gorbachev with Rassel, that we've seen in the United States exactly the opposite phenomenon, a new degree of press control which we never had in Vietnam.
so that the American people didn't really know what had happened until it was all over and it was too late.
During the week of the invasion, more than 18,000 people who fled from the areas of attack
were forced into temporary detention centers created by the U.S. government.
forces.
Intervention!
Intervention, please!
Enter the camp and now!
Don't come looking for us!
It's dangerous!
It's dangerous.
Please, go to the camp.
We are in a dangerous place.
I couldn't see.
They saw me there and I could see.
What did you say?
We are going to the camp.
We are going to the camp.
No, I'm going to the camp.
I'm going to the camp.
It was a war.
It was a battle.
And the way you get it over with is to find the people who are most likely to keep shooting at you and try to detain them.
And that was the goal of that operation.
We arrived at the concentration camp of Balboa, a school.
It was surrounded by barbed wire fence and full of heavily armed soldiers.
When we arrived, they fixed all the men between the ages of 15 and 55 and put us on an army truck.
The women were crying, shouting.
They were pushing us around and we didn't know where they were taking us.
You're listening to WBCQ, Monticello, Maine, USA.
This is the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
You're listening to a special presentation of the audio track of a videotape called Panama Deception, the truth about what the United States of America did in Panama.
This film won the Cannes Film Festival for Best Documentary.
It has been hailed by critics and by researchers around the world.
It is the truth.
Go out, find it, buy it.
Not just one copy, but several copies.
Give copies to your friends.
Send them to your congressmen and senators.
As if that's going to do any good, but at least you'll know that you did your best.
Spend a lot of money.
Let people know that Mr. Milosevic in Yugoslavia Does it hold a candle to the atrocities committed by the liars in Washington, D.C.?
And ladies and gentlemen, don't call me, or write to me, and try to purchase it from me, or from the Hour of the Time, or from Harvest Trust, or from the Independence Foundation Trust.
We are not selling this video.
We are not airing it to make money.
Our purpose is to create thinking individuals who have brains and know
how to use them, not mindless sheep who believe everything that they're told,
who are occasionally cheered and then led to the slaughter behind
the Judas goats that they trusted.
You were submitted to an intense interrogation.
He's not that reliable.
Then they put a card in front of us and took our picture.
So all men between 15 and 55 had to be taken to the hospital.
And they took us to the hospital.
As part of the invasion, the U.S.
forces worked with newly installed Panamanian officials to institute repressive measures that continue in Panama today.
American forces took control of the public buildings, government ministries, and the university.
Almost every organization opposed to United States policy had its offices raided and destroyed.
Thousands of individuals were arrested.
Audios Corduron, Andara, and the Attorney General, Rogelio Cruz, effectively wrote down the names of their political enemies, gave them to U.S.
military personnel, who, going around like stormtroopers, would break down doors Drive people out of their houses.
Take them to detention centers.
Only because their name was given by one of these officials.
And that there was no legal case against these people whatsoever.
I got it!
Government officials had to go underground, many of them, in order not to be arrested, including university professors.
There were former government and diplomatic officials that were arrested and interned at refugee camps and some of them in prisons.
The list runs into the thousands.
I got a workday so call me whenever you want.
Why aren't they after Bush instead?
He's the one who's killing people all over the place.
Why are they harassing a worker who's defending other workers?
Why are they after him? Why aren't they after Bush instead?
He's the one who's killing people all over the place. Why are they harassing a worker who's
defending other workers?
26 times the U.S. government has been here to register a case against him.
Six times the U.S.
troops were here searching my house.
They would surround everything with tanks and would take books, personal documents, photos of Torrillo.
They would search it whenever they felt like it.
Balbina Herrera de Perignon was the mayor of San Miguelito and a member of the National Assembly.
After the invasion, she was subjected to a relentless campaign of slander and harassment.
The Southern Command put up wanted posters with my photo.
If you see her, please call such and such a number at Southern Command.
They interrogated my children, my three little ones.
They would ask them where their mother was, where their father was.
they would ask them for information about us.
Escolástico Calvo, the editor of La República newspaper, had been openly critical of the new government and the US...
invasion.
What I don't understand is that they've been holding me here 30 days and no one has talked to me about my case, about my charge.
This is what we want a decision on.
Is there justice here or not?
Calvo was in prison for 18 months.
No charges were ever filed against him.
They arrested close to 7,000 Panamanian individuals.
They arrested almost every trade union leader, the leaders of the nationalist parties, of progressive parties, of left parties in Panama.
They arrested people who were cultural leaders.
There are still hundreds of Panamanians who remain in jail with no due process, with no formal charges against them.
As a result of the U.S. invasion of the United States, the Panamanians were forced to flee the country.
invasion, an estimated 20,000 Panamanians lost their homes.
Hardest hit for residents in the poor neighborhoods of San Miguelito, Colón, Panama Viejo and El Chorillo.
The most important thing is to have a good relationship with the people who live here.
The people who live here are the ones who are responsible for the development of the community.
Bye.
Close your eyes.
Watch the ceiling.
Someday our eyes will all be the same.
A house in the sky, a lap in the air.
I wish I could turn back time.
But nothing comes so violently.
Nothing ever truly.
The world is born when you turn that way.
The survivors of the invasion received little assistance from either the newly installed Panamanian government or the United States.
Many moved into bombed out buildings and makeshift shelters.
Several thousand were moved to Albrook Airfield and housed in two large airplane hangars, where many languished for more than a year.
In hangar number one, we constructed 506 cubicles.
It's a 10 by 10 foot cubicle, which holds each of the families.
And in each cubicle, we can put as much as four cats and a floor and mattresses for the kids.
What's going on here?
Although the Albrook refugee camp was administered by the Panamanian Red Cross and the United States Agency for
International Development, U.S. military police would frequently enter the grounds,
restrict access, and make arrests.
With explicit permission from the directors of the camp, our camera crew entered to interview refugees about their
experience of the invasion and its aftermath.
What's going on here?
Is this a training event?
Hello.
But even though we have authorization, U.S.
Military Police and the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S.
Army tried to stop our crew from videotaping.
I don't think it's right.
I think the world is of the right to know the truth.
Sir, please.
We are the victims.
We are the victims.
We lose everything.
We lose our family.
I don't know why the world is not supposed to know the truth, sir.
Yes, ma'am.
Until a public affair is a case of history, I cannot allow you to tell.
We are the victims, sir.
We are the victims.
And we want the world to know the truth.
I've been trained.
I've lived my life while you're against me.
We're in a Panamanian process and we have the right of the president.
I'm not stopping and we're not slowing down.
So if you have to bring someone in for a four-sheet, you gotta wash your paper.
That's our court's decision.
That's our court's decision.
Why do they want to be so after these four heads?
The change is up to us.
They want to know the truth, and they won't let them interview us.
Why? Why? Why?
Hundreds of angry refugees surrounded the camera crew, forcing the military to withdraw.
Oh my god!
Finally, the refugees were able to tell their stories.
We're tired of being stuck inside this hangar, sleeping on a couch.
Many old people are sick.
There's no medical attention.
And the children, when?
When are they going to put an end to this?
We are the victims of Endara's presidency.
Why did it have to be us?
Why didn't they choose the rich neighborhood?
If they had picked 50th Street, it would have been repaired by now.
Since it was El Chorrillo, they have forgotten about us.
The people are in bad shape.
They have no clothes, nothing to wear.
I buy them clothes sometimes, and sometimes food out of my own pocket.
But one can't do that every day.
We need to avoid a problem with the Chorillas.
In the state they're in, they're liable to start a riot.
There could be more shootings and more thefts because the people of El Chorilla are very riled up.
If they want us to close up all the streets in the country, we'd better do it.
But we won't answer!
We want to get out of this goddamn place!
We are tired of this!
This is not no democracy!
They say they get rid of Noriega and they're worse than Noriega!
They're plenty worse!
Because with Noriega we used to eat our three meals a day!
No, we're not divinity in one!
More than 60 Panamanians are reported to have died in that big disaster.
according to a guide and that's...
More than 60 Panamanians were killed.
A doctor at a government hospital in Panama City... We've had many casualties, but we've only had really one report of them throughout the day, so we don't know how extensive... There's no reason to doubt the reports, obviously, that we are getting from the Pentagon, and yet all the information that we are getting from the Pentagon seems to conflict with all the other information that we're able to get out of Panama City.
How many people were killed in Panama, and who were they?
These questions may never be answered, because the United States military undertook elaborate efforts to conceal the number of dead, how they died, and the location of their bodies.
Children died.
Pregnant women died.
Seniors died.
Adolescents died.
Soldiers died.
Victims who had nothing to do with politics, the invasion, or the Moliega regime.
What happened in Panama is a hidden horror.
Many of the bodies were bulldozed into piles and immolated in the slums where they were
collected.
Other bodies were left in the garbage chutes of the poor projects in which they died from the shooting, from the artillery, from the machine guns, from the airborne attacks.
Others were said to have been pushed into the ocean.
When we went down to El Chorrillo, there were still dead bodies inside cars.
There was a man and a woman with a child, all of them burnt up inside a car.
People from El Chorrillo never thought they would see so many dead bodies, even being burned on the beach.
Right on the beach, they're being burned.
In the early hours of the invasion, U.S.
troops took control of the hospitals and morgues.
Many of the doctors and hospital personnel were detained, and thousands of official documents were confiscated.
The truth of the matter is that we don't even know how many Panamanians we have killed.
But we should have more information on what happened.
How many civilians were killed?
The National Human Rights Commission of Panama interviewed hundreds of people in an effort to determine how many had died.
What we have is different testimonies that help us to arrive to the conclusion that for sure there were more than 4,000 people who died.
You have the UN Human Rights Commission estimating 2,500 deaths.
You have the two major independent human rights organizations in the region estimating $2,500, $3,000, $3,500.
You have Isabel Cordova and her organization estimating probably about $4,000.
That's an enormous human toll.
The U.S.
military said 250 civilians were killed.
There isn't a credible source in Panama that believes that's true.
Whether it's ambulance drivers, human rights monitors, doctors who worked in hospitals, neighbors of bombed-out blacks, it's just clearly false.
That story would be so easy to tell for any journalist worth his or her salt, but they're not telling it.
I made a point of reading the European press as well as the American press when the invasion occurred, and immediately I could see that whereas the American press was talking about maybe a couple of hundred civilian casualties.
From the very beginning, the European press was talking about a thousand civilians dead or two thousand civilians dead.
So the real facts are that the American people didn't really know what had happened in Panama.
You would think from the video clips that we had seen that this whole thing was just a monograph.
That the people in Panama were just jumping up and down with glee.
and that our forces have just moved in there and without taking any lives at all
have brought liberty and freedom to these oppressed people.
When they interviewed people in Panama about what they thought of it, they invariably were
interviewing white middle-class people who could speak English.
They didn't really go into the poor neighborhoods where people had been bombed.
Did you see one media actually go into the bombed areas and talk to people who had lost a family?
They focused totally on the invasion as a tactical event.
Was it effective?
Did it work well?
Are we losing many American lives?
Another unit moved in by helicopter.
Five American servicemen have died in the combat today.
Not all the news is good.
American casualties are now put at 15 dead.
We are going to go on to announce that one American civilian has been killed.
That would make a total of 16.
The school teacher apparently hit by stray gunfire.
Gertrude Candy Halen, from Dickson, Illinois, is the 20th American to die in the fire.
They focus with utter ethnocentrism only on American lives.
The only life that was precious, the only life that one could report on, the only life that one could consider as a serious loss, was an American life.
Tonight, as we end this program, we hear from President Bush on the high price these young men paid.
and we say goodbye to them.
Every human life is precious.
Thank you.
And yet I have to answer, yes, I was the mortgage.
In the months following the invasion, Panamanians were shocked to discover the existence of mass graves
where hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies were hastily dumped in the pits and buried by U.S. troops.
troops.
There was a report of what some were calling a mass grave, which I think is a term that is imprecise.
No, I didn't say we had a mass burial.
There was one case of some number, but I cannot quote to you that number.
There have been 15 mass graves that have been identified as a log pattern.
identifies throughout Panama.
The United States military was directly responsible for the killings of the men, women, and children that were in these mass graves and for their burial.
These mass graves exist throughout Panama and some are believed to be on U.S.
military bases, which creates a difficulty in terms of access to these mass graves.
Among these corpses, we found many young people, 15, 16, 18 years old.
We found many young people, 15, 16, 18 years old.
We found people in their 60s and in their 70s.
We found people killed by a shot to the back of their heads.
Dead with their hands tied.
Dead with casts on their legs or arms.
Although the Pentagon insists that no more than 516 Panamanians were killed, they do concede that over 75% of those killed were civilians.
families of the victims continue to demand the full accounting of the missing and the dead.
Who has the right to determine how many people should be killed in an invasion?
I think if one person gets killed in an invasion that is illegal, that it violates all principles of human rights, the number of people, the quantity, the figures, if it's 10,000 or 31,000, it's irrelevant.
The issue that innocent people were killed A lot of people die.
A lot of people die.
Too many people die.
media created a perception of support for the invasion within the United States, the invasion was overwhelmingly condemned in the international community.
If you look at any document in international law, any of numerous treaties, it's clear that this invasion was illegal.
It's not debatable.
The Panama invasion violates the UN Charter and the OAS Charter, which have specific prohibitions against invasions of the sovereign country and invasions of the territorial integrity of other countries.
These prohibitions are very strict and clear under international law.
United States actions in violation of human rights also violate the Geneva Conventions, which protect civilians from indiscriminate acts of violence as had occurred against civilian victims in Panama.
The four biggest, most important papers in this country all endorsed the rightness of the Panama invasion.
That's the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, strong endorsements, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Every one of them.
Now, a little body known as the United Nations had a vote about this.
On December 29, they voted by an overwhelming majority to condemn the invasion as, in their words, a flagrant violation of international law.
So I was interested to see that night on the NBC Nightly News with that great newscaster Deborah Norville.
Absolutely no mention whatsoever of this vote.
Turning to CBS, the bastion of responsible broadcasting, I found a full 10 seconds lavished on that story.
At the United Nations today, the General Assembly adopted a resolution deploring the U.S.
invasion of Panama as a, quote, flagrant violation of international law.
The vote's 75 to 20 with 40 abstentions.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, when did international law change?
Has it changed?
Of course it hasn't.
What we're doing in Yugoslavia right now is the same violation of the same international law.
But by now, they've built up a string of violations of this international law which convinces
the stupid, ignorant and apathetic sheeple of the world that it's okay.
We live with the government because the media are owned by the same interests that are being
defended in Central America by that government policy.
The media are not close to corporate America.
They're not favorable to corporate America.
They are corporate America.
They're an integral part of corporate America.
We are a plutocracy.
We ought to face it.
A country in which wealth controls.
It may be true of all countries, more or less, but it's uniquely true of ours because of our materialism and the concentration of wealth here.
Even our democratic processes are hardly that, because money dominates politics, and we know it.
And through politics, it dominates government.
And it dominates the media.
We really need Desperately to find new ways to hear independent voices and points of view.
It's the only way we're going to find the truth.
The truth about the invasion of Panama remains hidden from most Americans.
Those who have studied the official accounts have discovered many contradictions and have arrived at disturbing conclusions.
I have studied everything that the President has said as the reasons why he ordered the invasion.
And none of those things singly or collectively makes any legal, moral, or constitutional sense.
One of the reasons for the invasion was to take the wimp image off President George Bush.
He had had what now seems to be the necessary blooding of a United States President to show his forcefulness and his machismo.
This was a chance for the military to show what it could do.
If they kill an American Marine, that's real bad.
And if they threaten and brutalize the wife of an American citizen, Sexually threatening the lieutenant's wife while kicking him in the groin over and over again.
This president is going to do something about it.
When he would say that the loss of American life was the last straw, sure there must be something we could have done.
Certainly there must have been papers we could have filed.
We could have gone to the world court.
We could have gone to the United Nations or maybe the organizations of American states.
But invade a country because of this is absolutely ridiculous.
The excuse that of the invasion was to protect American lives is the one that's always given.
The fact is there are 35,000 American citizens there, and none of them were in any danger.
I was there three weeks before the invasion.
There seems to be no evidence, and I don't think the administration has ever bothered to even give any evidence to that statement.
The goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama.
Then President Bush said we had to go to restore democracy in Panama.
Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, democracy is a code word for socialism.
Remember, Marx and Lenin both said that democracy is indispensable to socialism.
And Marx said that democracy is the road to socialism.
And all of their writings led us clearly to the conclusion that the end goal of socialism is communism.
This is a constitutional republic.
Don't you ever forget it.
Don't be conned by this word democracy.
It's a lie.
It will lead you into Socialism, which will take you down the primrose path to Communism.]
It has never existed.
Panama has never been a democracy since we created Panama for our own purposes in 1903.
And all we did was go down to restore American control and dominance in Panama.
The new government installed by the invasion was headed by the U.S.-backed candidates from the aborted national election, Andara, Calderón, and Ford.
Hours before the invasion, they were taken to a U.S.
military base where they were sworn in as the president and vice presidents.
But the new government has enjoyed little popular support within Panama.
Anti-government demonstrations occur regularly, and there have been numerous attempts from within the Panamanian
police force to seize military control of the government.
The Panamanian police force is a large force, and they are often used to suppress and suppress the government.
Red troops were mobilized several times to crush these insurrections.
Every time there's a crisis, the U.S. Navy is the first to respond.
military takes over.
They give orders.
They subordinate that military because they don't trust that military force.
The conflict is still there.
The oligarchy knows that if the United States were not there, they could not rule this country.
But President Indara minimizes the significance of America's military occupation in Panama.
I think we are in a very, very normal life now.
We practically have no occupation at all.
Practically?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
However, there are people here and there, but it's not really an occupation.
Of course he's not going to say that Panama is occupied.
In fact, he might not even call it an invasion.
His cousin is kind, that were killed or massacred.
He lives in the Nice area, in the oligarchical area.
And, you know, his interest is protected.
He's not running Panama.
He's a puppet.
The Bush administration claims that another reason for the invasion was to remove Noriega in order to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
But according to a U.S.
what he's told to do.
The Bush administration claims that another reason for the invasion
was to remove Noriega in order to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
But according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report, cocaine traffic through Panama may have doubled in the two
years following the invasion.
There is also considerable evidence that key members of Panama's new government,
including President Vindara, have been tied to the drug trade
through banks and front companies that launder drug money.
The involvement of the Panamanian economy as a whole in drug trafficking, arms running, various...
Questionable banking practices, in fact, involve most of the Panamanian elite.
Involve most of the people who now run this new US-approved Panamanian government.
Andara and Ford, we all know, and Panamanians know, that they are the real drug traffickers.
They have been, because Panama has a history of the oligarchy, being involved in drug trafficking.
In the years preceding and throughout the invasion, the U.S.
government and the major media consistently portrayed Manuel Noriega as America's most hated and evil enemy.
General Noriega became a mythic figure.
There was an attempt to personify in Noriega all that was evil.
It is very interesting that When General Noriega, when his office was captured, we discovered the red pajamas, the voodoo equipment, and the alleged cocaine that he was using.
And the pornographic pictures in his desk.
Now, I happened to have been in Chile with the United Nations at the time of the overthrow of President Allende.
And it's interesting that that same desk appeared in Chile with the pornographic pictures, the red pajamas and the cocaine.
The whole propaganda against him was to build up a pretext in order to invade Panama and to say we invaded Panama because of Nodega.
I don't know how... I don't know how... I don't know how Americans can be so stupid to believe this.
I mean, how can you be so stupid?
What do you want to bet, folks, that when Melesovic is captured, after we send in ground troops,
that they find the same desk with the red pajamas, the pornographic pictures, and the cocaine?
They had Mediega at one point.
They could have taken Noriega then.
But the Americans didn't want Noriega.
What they really wanted is to destroy the Panamanian Army in order to do with the Chiefs what they wanted, which is what's happening now.
Although the U.S.
government's reasons for the invasion made no mention of eliminating the Panamanian Defense Forces, U.S.
officials later admitted that destroying the PDF was a central part of the plan.
It was not only Mr. Noriega, but his accomplices and underlings.
Who stood for a reprehensible government at the time, and therefore you had to take down not only Mr. Noriega, but take down the elements of his supporting entity in order to reduce the PDF to nothing.
That man, ladies and gentlemen, was a high-ranking American general, a puppet.
He had no idea what General Noriega was.
He was told what General Noriega was supposed to be, and that's what he parroted to legitimize his military action.
You have to understand, ladies and gentlemen, that according to military regulations in all of our military services, an officer cannot proceed to be promoted beyond a certain point unless he has combat experience.
Therefore, when the political machinery in Washington, D.C.
decide to have a war, the military will never object.
And they will never object because, according to their own rules and regulations, they cannot promote officers into certain positions unless they have combat experience.
It also gives them the ability to test their new weaponry.
It gives them the ability to see who is good at command and control.
It gives them the next generation of high-ranking military officers.
I have the objection of invasion.
The main objective was to destroy the PDF.
Why?
The treaty, the Panama Canal Treaty, it states clearly That the year 2000, Panama will be responsible for the security, the safety of the canal.
To be responsible for the safety of a nation, you need to have arms.
The elimination, the liquidation of the PDF means the extension, the continuance of the United States present as
the only military force in the United States, historically the United States position.
What they really want is to stay in Panama after the year 2000.
And that is what they have achieved.
To destroy the Panamanian defense forces, to impose a government complacent with U.S.
interests, and to make Panama the control center for all of Latin America.
The invasion sets the stage for the wars of the 21st century in South America.
The 2,000 mile invasion from Washington to Panama City took place primarily with bases
from the United States.
The essential value of the Southern Command is to get another 2,000 miles of intervention
capability, which takes us right into the heart of the Andean co-producing region, where
the wars of the next decade are entirely likely to take place.
Panama is another example of destroying a country to save it.
And it's another case of how the United States has exercised a might-make-right doctrine among the smaller countries of the third world.
It has long been U.S.
practice to invade these countries, get what we want, and leave the people that live there to kind of rot.
Our country has been ruined, our homes have been destroyed, and we still have no real answers.
So what's left but to take to the streets?
Since we didn't lose our lives in the war, we're willing to risk them fighting for our rights.
George Bush.
May his children be spared what my daughter is being subjected to.
My daughter who doesn't want to live.
May your generation be spared what our generation is living through.
We should ask God for forgiveness for all the damage caused to many families down here.
God will forgive us.
One year ago, the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator.
Today, democracy is restored.
Panama is free.
In March 1991, President Guillermo Indara proposed a constitutional amendment that would
forever abolish Panama's right to have an army.
Oh Later that year, a law was passed by the United States Congress to renegotiate the Panama Canal treaties to ensure continued U.S.
military presence in Panama on the grounds that Panama was no longer capable of defending the canal.
Panama.
I'm not gonna shut my eyes till I go down.
I'm not gonna shut my eyes.
I'm already...
...review from American Independent Filmmakers.
And that's it, ladies and gentlemen.
The same thing is happening in Yugoslavia.
An invasion by the United States of a sovereign nation which has never attacked the United States of America.
How do you know who's going around committing the so-called atrocities that the controlled press and the lying bureaucracy in the United States government claims is being committed How do you know these are not United States Special Forces troops dressed as Serbian forces?
How do you know these are not KLA, Kosovo Liberation Army troops dressed as Serbian Army troops?
How do you know that these are not CIA operatives dressed as Serbian troops?
How do you know these refugees are not fleeing because of the bombs that are falling all around them, and trying to take a propaganda advantage by claiming that genocide is being committed?
How do you know?
What do you know?
And why are you believing what you are being told when the history of the bureaucracy of Washington, D.C.
is a history of lies?
520-333-4578 is the number.
520-333-4578 is the number.
We're going to continue with this.
5-7-8 is the number. 5-2-0-3-3-3-4-5-7-8 is the number. We're going to continue with this.
We're going to prove that Washington, D.C., doesn't have the moral high ground over the
Yugoslavian government.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Uh, yes Bill, this is Denise in Southern Nevada.
Hi Denise.
Hi, I noticed that when they took over in Panama they shut down the TV stations and radio stations.
And I've noticed for the last week I was getting very good... You were getting what?
Hello?
Oh, Denise, call back.
I'm sorry.
I was trying to fix the telephone so it wouldn't ring, and I accidentally cut you off.
But I know what you're saying.
In Panama, they did the same thing.
They cut off the radio and television, and they cut off the newspapers, and by golly, they did the same thing in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
520-333-4578.
Good evening.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Excuse me, I need you to talk a lot louder.
I can barely hear you.
OK.
The Vic does not want to play ball with a one world government.
And that's what this thing's about.
You're absolutely right.
The Serbians have always been nationalists.
They have always wanted their own nation state because of the tremendous oppression and enslavement they've suffered through hundreds of years.
At one time, This is what the people of the world don't understand.
At one time, all of the men, all of the Serbian men in that whole area were rounded up, castrated
and blinded so that they could be the slaves of what we now call the ethnic Albanians.
Now, here's another thing.
There was a Serbian that called into a 50,000 watt radio station here in Omaha, and he stated
that Tito made an agreement with the Albanians, unbeknownst to the Serbian people, to turn
land over to the Albanians.
The Serbians had no idea this was going on.
Secondly, they started moving the Albanians in, and they were teaching Albanians in their own, the children, In school, in their own native language, the Albanian language, whatever that is.
Sound familiar?
To begin to split up the nation.
Kind of like America, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
And it's splitting up America, too.
You're either American or you're not.
And why would you come here if you don't want to be American?
NATO is now an offensive organization.
They are attempting to enforce international law That has nothing to do with international law.
They're attempting to force their will against international law.
Well, but... No, no, no, no.
This is against international law.
They are not enforcing international law.
they're forcing their will against international law which says that nation states and international
organizations do not attack sovereign countries unless that sovereign country attacks someone
outside their borders.
OK, but NATO made a... OK, let's back up here.
Get it.
NATO made an agreement with the Albanian government.
What Albanian government?
Well, with the Albanians.
with the Albanians.
Yeah, they have nothing to do with Yugoslavia or Kosovo.
I understand that.
Well, then that's not international law.
He made a secret agreement, okay?
Now, if it's secret, how do you know about it?
Well, that's what this Serbian guy said.
They found out about it later.
Okay, that's what you've got to tell us, because when you say it's secret, then you couldn't know about it.
Well, this is alleged.
We don't know that that's true.
Now, let's draw a little parallel here.
How many people in this country have read NAFTA and GAAP and all the side agreements attached to NAFTA?
Oh, come on.
Not even the people that passed it in Congress ever read it.
Alright, suppose that the people of America start waking up to the fact that they are surrendering their sovereignty and their land to international organizations and they decide that they're going to do something about it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Will NATO then come and attack us?
Absolutely they will.
Exactly.
Absolutely they will, because NATO is the police force of the New World Order.
It's all outlined in State Department Publication 7277.
I've outlined it and revealed all of it on this broadcast for the last six and a half years, and I've quoted it right out of the law, and there is no doubt about it.
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, except for the sheeple.
They can't see anything.
That's because they've got their head up their ass, and that's why they can't see anything.
No, that's baloney.
The sheeple don't know anything about the law.
All they know is what they're told, and they believe it blindly because they have their head up their ass.
They don't know what the law is.
They never have.
It doesn't matter whether it's the law in Deuteronomy or anything else.
Even most of the Christians who pretend to be Christians and go to church really aren't, don't know a thing about it, and couldn't quote you one verse out of Deuteronomy if they had to.
But that's why they can't see it, because they're not following the law laid down for them in Deuteronomy.
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
And they can't.
Why?
Because they've got their head up their ass!
It's God's promise.
They don't follow the law.
In Deuteronomy, one of the curses is that ye will be blinded.
Well, they're certainly blinded.
Well, they're certainly groping in darkness.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
But hey, uh, you know, it kind of makes me, you know, it really turns me off that, uh, I mean, I was watching MSNBC over the weekend.
Uh-huh.
They were saying that all this genocide was going on, but I mean, with their little satellites, they can see my face from space, Bill.
Yes, they can read a license plate.
Or possibly even a paper.
Now, why can't they show us pictures?
Well, they can't because it's not happening.
And what little bit is happening is being staged in order to create the political reason for doing this.
There are no pictures.
That's what I just said.
There aren't any.
It's not happening.
Saddam Hussein, the world's boogeyman... It's just like in Oklahoma City.
How many satellites do you suppose were over Oklahoma City taking pictures of Oklahoma City when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown up?
Do you know that I've submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to all of the agencies of government that would have those pictures and not one single one of them can produce a picture?
Not even a weather satellite?
Incredible, isn't it?
It's impossible.
Now, here's another thing.
Saddam Hussein, the boogeyman of the world, the armpit of the world, supposedly, stated that we had CIA spies in that U.N.
inspection team, and the media and our own government laughed, didn't they?
They not only laughed, but they lied.
They lied, and they lied, and they lied again, and the sheeple believed it, and chastised, and libeled, and slandered Saddam Hussein, and then guess what came out?
It was true.
I'm going to let you go, because I've got to get some more people in here.
That's right.
Talk to you later.
Thank you.
520-333-4578 is the number.
When are you going to wake up, ladies and gentlemen?
When?
When are you going to wake up?
Are you going to die stupid, apathetic, ignorant?
Are you going to contribute to the enslavement of your own children?
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hi, good evening, Mr. Hoover.
Can you hear me okay?
Well, I could stand you to speak a little louder, but that's getting there.
That's where they try to hide it.
I wanted to tell you I found your book recently in the new age section at Walden.
That's where they try to hide it.
I'll tell you.
Yeah, anyway, I wanted to tell you about, I've been listening to a frequency 7.180 and
I was hearing some, I think it was like Moscow or something like that, but they were broadcasting
in English.
This was the night of the bombing initially last Wednesday.
And immediately after that night, their signal got very, very weak.
And last night, I was listening to a frequency of 7.180 and I was hearing some, I think it
was like Moscow or something like that, but they were broadcasting in English.
This was the night of the bombing initially last Wednesday.
And immediately after that night, their signal got very, very weak.
And last night, I was listening to a frequency of 7.180 and I was hearing some, I think it
was like Moscow or something like that, but they were broadcasting in English.
And immediately after that night, their signal got very, very weak.
And last night, on 7.185, five kilohertz off from that, they had Voice of America broadcasting
in Romanian.
Well, I tried to tell you guys that Voice of America is the propaganda arm of the Central
Intelligence Agency, and anybody that tells the truth is going to get stomped on by Voice
of America.
Yep, because they've never been on that frequency before, to the best of my knowledge.
They were never on this frequency before until the hour of the time purchased airspace on WBCQ.
Well, I was told personally by DOA when I called them that they've been allocated to broadcast on 7415 for some time.
Well, they're lying to you.
They are allocated to broadcast on 7415, but only within the continent of Africa.
I thought I'd let everybody know that they might want to keep their ears peeled on that frequency and see what's going on.
Because apparently there's something on 7180 that they don't want the American people to hear.
Well, probably is.
Listen, I'm going to let you go and get somebody else in here.
Take care.
520-333-4578 is the number if you'd like to call in and put in your two cents.
What do you think about what's going on?
I am sick of the lies.
I am sick!
of the lies.
I am sick of the lies.
Good evening.
Good evening, Bill.
Denise again.
Hello, Denise.
I'm sorry.
You know, it's my fault I accidentally cut you off.
Go ahead with what you were saying.
I was basically going to say the same thing the last gentleman did, except for I was referring to Greek radio at 15.5.
Isn't that funny?
Greek is a part of the NATO Pact and Washington says that they have 100% consensus and everybody is aligned to be doing this and yet the reports that we're getting from all these countries is that that's a lie.
Another lie.
It's not true.
Last Thursday and Friday, Greece was proclaiming their sovereignty.
And then from Sunday, Deutsche Welle was broadcasting over the top of it.
And the last two days it's been BBC.
Yeah, how about that?
This is a perfectly clear channel.
And how about the British?
How do they get the guts to dare to chastise Melissa Vick?
And the Serbians after the genocide and the entire elimination of all peoples that the British have committed in their history.
And how dare the American government talk about supporting the independence movement of ethnic Albanians when they have done everything in their power, even today, to destroy the Native American Indian population in this country.
Absolutely.
I'll get off and let somebody help him.
Thank you.
Good night.
520-333-4578.
And I have Native American blood in me, ladies and gentlemen, and I am incensed about that even today the United States government is destroying the American Indian.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello, Mr. Cooper.
It's been a long time since I've talked to you.
I saw a Serbian TV broadcast on C-SPAN last night.
And they were comparing CNN coverage of the refugees and European coverage.
They had people walking in green grass and people walking in the snow.
So I watched today.
I watched as many channels as I could.
And there it was.
They were walking in snow and green grass at the same time.
How does that happen?
Now which is it?
Which is it?
That's right.
Which is it?
Well, they are looking at it.
They just can't see because they're stupid!
Stupid!
They do not possess the ability to form an original thought based upon information put in front of their eyes.
It's amazing, isn't it?
Stupid.
Cheaple.
Ignorant.
Apathetic.
Dumb.
Animals.
Why aren't they crying out for the Oh, all you're ever going to see is the ones that go down the chimney.
Just like in Desert Storm.
It's a propaganda thing.
It's just amazing.
Well, I can barely hear you.
Your voice is dropping off.
Let's get somebody else in here real quick.
Thank you.
Thank you.
520-333-4578 is the number.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah, Bill.
I just had to step away from home to answer the door.
They sent that police force that shot that black guy the other day and all that protest going on about a month or so back.
Their whole job is to drive around in old cars and jump out and frisk people they suspect of having guns.
I mean, that's a little bit.
That's a police state right there.
But I can comment about the stealth.
I don't know if you noticed or not, but it sure had a lot of bullet holes in it.
Looked like small caliber rounds right through the wings.
Oh, there's no doubt it was shot down.
No, but I mean, I think it was shot down by small arms fire.
Doesn't matter how it was shot down.
It was shot down.
How about the other one that was in Italy today?
I mean, in Yugoslavia, the Italian press had it, apparently, it was crashed in Yugoslavia, pardon me, not Yugoslavia, but in Bosnia, and it was being guarded by an American soldier in uniform, and some crash remains.
It was on the Italian press.
I'd just like to tell you about what they did in New York, though.
They just drive around the cars, and if they think you have a gun, they just jump out and Yeah, that's Gestapo.
That's not American police.
That's Gestapo.
Absolutely.
We live in a total police state.
Wake up, America.
Well, what if America woke up and started eliminating Gestapo?
I'm afraid that might happen sooner than we expect.
I think it needs to happen, and that's what everybody has always said that should have happened in Germany.
If every time a Gestapo agent went out into the community, he disappeared, there wouldn't be any more Gestapo agents, would there?
Well, that's it folks.
or whatever land excuse they gave, but I always wondered why the people just didn't stand
up and...
Can't let it happen.
If they're violating the Constitution, if they're Gestapo, if this country is going
the way that Germany went, if Bill Clinton is another Hitler, which he is without any
doubt whatsoever, then we need to begin to fight back.
Absolutely agree with you, Bill.
Have a nice evening.
Thank you.
Well, that's it, folks.
Good night.
And God bless each and every single one of you.
Thank you.
And remember, ladies and gentlemen, I have given up my whole life.
I don't have any money.
I'm not getting rich from this.
In fact, the only thing that's happened to me and my family is we have been destroyed.
I'm doing this because I love the principles and ideals which made this country the greatest nation on earth.
Even though I may call the vast majority of American people stupid, apathetic, and ignorant, it's because they are.
But I know that if somehow we can get them out of that, they will become once again the greatest people that's ever lived upon the face of this earth.
And I do all of this out of love.
I'm telling you this because I want you to know it, because I don't have long to live.
What I am doing now makes me the biggest target in America.
William Jefferson Clinton did not call me the most dangerous radio host in America because he loves me.
And one of these days you're going to tune into this frequency and you will not hear a thing.
And when that happens, I want you all to dig out all the old tapes of my broadcasts And I want you to get on whatever radio stations, legal, illegal, micro, FM, AM, shortwave, ham, I don't care, and play them over and over and over and over and over again.
Because it's the only truth that anybody in this world is going to hear today.
And by now, you all know that that's the truth.
All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, there's a loud knock on your door.
Hey honey, something's not right.
You're out of your mind.
Things can't go on faster than this.
We're here for the betterment.
We're here to help you.
And I'm from the IRS, with a power to tax.
If you've got a complaint, then you're the best!
Get out of this house, so I can apologize.
Give me your coat, and you can go play if you want to go.
Dance with us and do what you're told.
Ilarisa Lawler, Reno Janet Dykes, reading the words of General Albert Pike,
demonic founder of the Ku Klux Klan, engineer of the Masonic Master Plan.
Bye.
Tomorrow night, ladies and gentlemen, you're going to hear the truth about what happened in Waco, Texas, from the Branch Davidians themselves.
The world has never heard this statement.
Tomorrow night, ladies and gentlemen, you're going to hear the truth about what happened
in Waco, Texas, from the Branch Davidians themselves.
The world has never heard this statement.
Some of you have, but the world has not.
And tomorrow night you will hear their story from their own mouths.
Genocide in America.
Genocide of an entire church.
An entire church made up of 50% black people.
The Nazi doctors didn't die.
Come on, get hit.
They came here with the OS...
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