Remember Noriega?
As many of purported experts, politicians and just regular Americans subscribe to the notion that Mexican drug mafias are mostly to blame for the fentanyl crisis, a scourge that caused 112,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States.
But wait. Don’t drug consumers have some responsibility in causing their addiction and deaths? Putting poisons into one’s body is, of course, a choice.
Some crazy people in our nation believe bombing and even militarily invading Mexico would drive the narcos into the ground.
The December 1989 U.S. military invasion of Panama, “Operation Just Cause,” saw that idea violently put into effect. George H. Bush in ordering the action repeated the allegation that our erstwhile ally had become a narco state, national security threat because military leader an de facto ruler was permitting Columbian safe passage through Panama. Noriega was receiving many millions of dollars for this courtesy extended to the narcos.
Through much of 1989, I reported on unofficial State Department efforts to cajole Noriega into exile. He would be allowed to live peacefully in Spain and criminal charges in the U.S. quashed. With the talks sputtering in May invasion preparation began.
Here is another excerpt from my book. It is about my visit to Panama after the invasion.
Ten months after the invasion, I went to Panama to report the aftermath and get at what really had happened when the American military might came crashing down on a miniature nation. The mood in Panama City was uncharacteristically somber when I arrived on November 15, 1990. Burned-out and heavily damaged buildings stood as grim reminders of the invasion. I found widespread discontent with the Endara government. It grappled with the daunting task of strengthening an economy debilitated by years of corrupt governance and the substantial damage Operation Just Cause left in its wake.
“The only thing that changed is that some of my neighbors are dead,” said Francisco Torres, a janitor and El Chorillo resident. The impoverished district in central Panama City was heavily damaged during the invasion. “When the Americans attacked, it felt like the world was ending—explosions and fire everywhere. Thank God we weren’t hurt, but a lot of people were killed. This government does not talk about that,” said Torres. “For the poor like us, life has always been hard. Honestly, I don’t have much hope things will change.”
Administration officials I interviewed before traveling to Panama described the portly American-installed President Guillermo Endara as well-meaning but not particularly well-suited to transform the nation into a stable democracy. I was left with the impression that Endara’s rapid and unconventional installation was another Washington misstep.
The city of Colón was emblematic of the country’s woes. Once a prosperous port of call for cruise ships, Panama’s second-largest city had become a collection of rotting tenements, beset by an unemployment rate of some 30 percent, rampant drug use, and violent crime. I met with Father Carlos Aziz, Colón’s bishop. When I told him I wished to take a walking tour, he warned against it: “You will be beaten and robbed, for sure.” I had parked two blocks from his church, but he urged me to move my car to church grounds so it would not be stolen. I told Aziz that when I visited Colón in 1984, there was no danger in walking the city streets. “We had Noriega’s people to keep some order. That is gone now.”
During my five days in Panama in 1990, I tried to pin down the number of dead and wounded caused by the invasion. I had arrived with a variety of estimates in hand. The US Army initially said 516 Panamanians had been killed. Still, an internal study concluded that the accurate figure was more likely about 1,000. Depending on the source, somewhere between 300 and 3,000 were killed. Twenty-four American soldiers were killed.
In Colón, according to Aziz and several residents with whom I spoke, more than 80 were killed. Some died in an apartment building that was hit by helicopter rocket fire. The building had a huge gaping hole.
Aziz said locals were trying to put the invasion horrors behind them. At the same time, they were looking to the government for economic help and job creation. “We thought maybe this government would remember us,” said Aziz. “Instead, the government says it has no way to help.”
As of today, Panama is a prime drug distribution and money laundering center.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 