the legacy of former President George H.W. Bush and the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama
José Luis Morín talking:
My first day on the job was to get on a plane to be part of a delegation to investigate the reports of civilian victims of the U.S. invasion. And this was a delegation of the National Lawyers Guild. I was there as part of—as an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. And among the persons that joined us was attorney Gilma Camargo, who has continued to be the attorney for the victims, after I left the Center for Constitutional Rights.
– It’s taken almost 30 years for a judgment on what happened in Panama to come out from an international body
when you’re going against the most powerful country in the world, there’s going to be pushback. And clearly, the United States, at every stage of this case, attempted to claim that the Inter-American Commission didn’t have the competency, that we had not exhausted all remedies, as required under international law and the procedures of the commission. And so, at every stage, the United States was—and it continues to deny its responsibility.
El Chorrillo is a poor neighborhood located in Panama City. And it is also the site of the Comandancia, the headquarters of the military. What the United States claimed is that it was doing a surgical strike, but it became very obvious that a whole neighborhood was put up in flames and was being destroyed in the invasion. And that meant that civilians were being targeted indiscriminately. And that’s what’s important about the commission’s findings, is that they did find civilians having been targeted indiscriminately and that the United States was not taking the precautions necessary. It was acting in a very reckless and arbitrary way in how it was trying to meet its military objectives. And under international law, that’s prohibited.
– Panama also became the place where the United States tested some of its newest weaponry. Wasn’t the B-1—the stealth bomber was first used in combat in Panama,
that also struck fear in the population, because there was all this unusual weaponry that was being used. It was also the first time that the Humvee was being used, as well, which replace the military jeep. There was all sorts of ways in which the population was being intimidated as part of this process. And because so many of these neighborhoods were the poorest, were the places where, you know, black and brown Panamanians live, they could be ignored, and they could be marginalized.
José Isabel Salas Galindo, is the lead petitioner in this case. We had a total of 272 cases that were filed with the commission. His case was quite compelling, because not only did he suffer injuries, but his wife, Dionisia, who was at home at the time, in a building that’s known as a 15-story building, was struck with artillery fire. She was in the kitchen at the time. Her body was destroyed—I mean literally destroyed—in that attack, while she was at home, and in ways that were just indescribable. People described that they had—because her remains were scattered in the kitchen, had to be shoveled into a body bag. The other family members, also in that attack, also suffered injuries, and they’re part of the case.
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José Luis Morín
international human rights attorney, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and chairperson of the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Department.
— source democracynow.org | Dec 04, 2018