NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5392

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Subject: NEWS:Noriega Defiant at Sentencing
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Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit


                Noriega defies U.S. at sentencing

On Friday, July 10, two and a half years after the U.S. invasion
of Panama, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, was sentenced to 40 years
in prison in a Miami courtroom. This was the first time in modern
history that a sovereign nation was invaded under the pretext of
arresting the head of state to face criminal charges brought by
the invading country. Despite its historic character, the trial
itself received very little coverage in the media. What follows
are excerpts from Gen. Noriega's speech, published here first by
Workers World. The translation was provided by the Independent
Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama.

Thank you, your honor for allowing me to make this presentation
which is an atom of all that I would have liked to present.

For thousands of years, powerful nations have created
provocations in order to start wars or persecute leaders who were
obstacles to their goals. I overlooked this and fell for the U.S.
provocations which took the form of harassment in my own country.
And once the provocation was launched, then began the media
frenzy in the name of American justice.

This is how you Americans clamored for justice after hearing the
tale of your warships ) under fire in the Tonkin Gulf.

This is how you Americans clamored for justice against Spain when
your battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor.

And this is how you, Americans, clamored for justice more
recently after hearing the tale of Iraqi soldiers murdering
babies in Kuwait. Only later was it learned of the manipulation
of the facts by your leaders, for political objectives.

Unfortunately, you have been used by your government. By refusing
to question the political acts of your government, you have made
yourself an accomplice to these policies.

Yes, Your Honor, the case against General Manuel Antonio Noriega
absolutely and totally political, as you yourself noted when you
first learned of it you said it was, "fraught with political
overtones."

And the people of Panama look upon these last two "Reagan-Bush"
administrations as the signers of the death certificate of a free
and sovereign nation, as Panama must be, and for this reason,
General Manuel Antonio Noriega was an obstacle to their boundless
ambition of keeping the Canal and its territory and to perpetuate
their military bases with the compliance of a U.S. colony.

But the arrogance and the high-handedness does not end there,
Your Honor. They did not merely want to dismember the Treaties,
and expect me to be submissive and follow orders, but they wanted
to impose their influence and power on other independent nations
in the region, such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Argentina, Chile,
Peru, Colombia and Cuba.

In the specific case of Nicaragua, the insulting demand of
Admiral Poindexter--criminally charged for lying in the Iran-
Contra case, which is now beginning to close in on its true level
of responsibility--was that Panamanian troops should establish a
beach-head on Nicaraguan territory to provide a pretext for an
armed intervention by the United States.

Learning by means of this and other high-level emissaries of this
administration the real reason for their protective image, it was
at that moment that I told them no! No! to permitting them to
harm my troops and those of my neighbors. I said No! to harming
the Nicaraguan people. No! Never!

And this "no" is one of the reasons why I find myself standing
before you, for not permitting them to gain their political
objective. That day, December 12, 1986, I heard a threat from
their own mouths that I never imagined would be carried out by a
civilized nation.

Did you know, Your Honor, that from the beginning of May, 1988
until October, 1989, these two administrations were prepared to
dismiss all of the criminal charges against me in exchange for my
handing over the country so that they could impose their own
government, their courts and their administrator for the Panama
Canal?

And I say here and now that to be the world's policeman is a very
costly occupation. For example, those $200 or $300 million that
the invasion of Panama cost, how many domestic problems in this
country, of those needing homes, the unemployed, homeless
families in Los Angeles, in New York, in Miami might have been
solved?

The headlines demonizing General Noriega were designed to prepare
the population psychologically for the necessity of sending North
American soldiers to kill and be killed. However, thoughtful
observers of U.S. foreign policy know that support for corrupt
and dictatorial governments in other countries in Central America
show that there must have been other motives to explain the
decision of the Bush administration to launch a war.

For my part, I accuse George Herbert Walker Bush of:

1. Using his power and authority to influence and subvert the
U.S. judicial system in order to convict me.

2. Of genocide for having given the order for massive bombardment
against the civilian population of Panama causing the death of
more than 5,000 inhabitants.

3. Of experimenting on civilian populations with the war
technology of his invading army such as the "Stealth" Fighter
Bomber, cluster bombs with "flechettes" and special
flame-throwers for the burning of bodies.

4. I accuse him of destroying the homes of 10,000 families in El
Chorrillo and failing to fulfill to promises of indemnization.

5. Of impoverishing the Panamanian people and lying about
economic aid that they know will never be forthcoming.

6. I accuse him of planning the destruction of Panamanian
sovereignty and the Defense Forces of Panama for the purpose of
holding onto the military bases after the year 2000 and not
returning the Panama Canal to its rightful owners.

7. Of creating a crisis in the governments of Latin America who
do not line up with his political demagogy of the "New World
Order."

8. Of being responsible for the covert military and economic
support for the "contras" in Nicaragua.

He is guilty of all this and more. And I denounce and condemn him
here today before the people of the United States and the world!

Thank you, Your Honor.

                               -30-

The full text of General Noriega's remarks as well as other
materials about the U.S. invasion of Panama are available from
the Independent Commission of Inquiry, 39 W. 14th St., Suite 206,
N.Y., NY 10011.

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