My book has an exceptionally relevant chapter. For context, the excerpt below is based on my visit to Panama less than a year after Operation Just Cause.
Ten months after the invasion, I went to Panama to report on the aftermath and get to the bottom of 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 was grappling with the daunting task of strengthening an economy debilitated by years of corrupt governance and the substantial damage Operation Just Cause had left in its wake.
“The only thing that changed is that some of my neighbors are dead,” said Francisco Torres, a janitor and El Chorrillo 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 that things will change.”
Administration officials I interviewed before traveling to Panama described the portly 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 yet 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 onto the 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 arrived with a variety of estimates in hand. The US Army initially said 516 Panamanians had been killed, but an internal study concluded that the actual 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 horrors of the invasion 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.”
At the time, the United States had provided Panama with $130 million off arrears on its $5 billion foreign debt. An additional $70 million in direct aid was received. “What we’re giving them is not even equal to direct damages caused by the invasion,” former ambassador Ambler Moss told me.
Dependent on imported oil, Panama faced a global surge in petroleum prices. In the coming year, the nation would face nearly a doubling of petroleum prices, from $20.20 in 1990 to $38.28 per barrel in 1991. “The economy is strangled,” said comptroller Rubén Carles.
Operation Just Cause was officially meant to deal a blow to drug trafficking; instead, the flow of drugs continued under Endara.
Since the start of the Endara administration, more than 13,000 pounds of cocaine—worth $153 million wholesale—had been seized. “One can only surmise that if this much is being seized, a lot more is moving,” said Deane Hinton, the US ambassador to Panama, when I was there. Money laundering, which supported the drug trafficking, continued unabated.
However, Endara resisted any move to make banking in Panama more transparent. American officials sought access to accounts they suspected were linked to criminal activity. But Endara’s associates claimed that it would destroy the nation’s banking industry. And he also reimposed the oligarchic practice of handing out jobs to family members and cronies, all of whom were white. Rabiblancos, the wealthy white elite, would once again run the country, as it was during the pre-Torrijos years. Despite their grave faults, Torrijos and Noriega had revolutionized the country by giving jobs to blacks and mixed-race Panamanians.
As for Noriega, he would serve time in American, French, and Panamanian prisons. The ex-dictator was to live the rest of his life in prison. His term ended, however, after surgery for a brain tumor, when he died on May 29, 2017, at the age of eighty-three.
Contemporary Panama is on a much more solid economic footing than it was in 1990. The nation’s annual economic growth rate is among the highest in the world. Panamanians are the second-richest Latin Americans, and the Panama Canal generates approximately $2 billion in yearly revenue. However, strong economic performance has not translated into broadly shared prosperity, as Panama has the second-worst income distribution in Latin America, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. And Panama is still plagued by corruption. The Panama Papers scandal in 2016 proved that Panama’s leaders were content to have the nation used as a giant tax haven and money-laundering center. The 2015 release of more than 11 million files from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca exposed a complex web of tax shelters and money laundering.
Operation Just Cause had targeted money laundering, but over the years, the shady industry came to flourish once again. In an ironic twist, the candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the party Torrijos had founded, and Noriega later controlled, was elected president in May 2019. The party is reported to have re-made itself into an honest and truly democratic party. In taking office in July 2019, President Laurentino Cortizo vowed to root out corruption and tackle income inequality.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 