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U.S. Imperialist Foreign Policy

Modern Communism continues its examination of U.S. imperialist activities around the world since the Second World War.

Panama

U.S. intervention in Panama actually predates the country's existence, which was, in large extent, engineered by a group of American bankers. Anxious to proceed with constructing a canal through which American goods would be able to flow far and wide, the bankers had chosen to build the canal through a section of Colombia. However, they were having problems negotiating with the Columbian government. The Columbians wanted guarantees, some measure of control, and a share of the immense profits associated with operating the Canal. The Americans responded by engineering the secession of Panama from Columbia in 1903, stationing tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the new country and creating a Canal Zone, which, although located within the new nation of Panama, was entirely under U.S. control and administered by Americans.

In the years that followed, Panama, essentially a U.S. protectorate, became a haven first for gangsters and money launderers and, by the 1960s, for drug traffickers from throughout the Americas. Any strikes, protests or other activities organized by Panamanians were immediately crushed, as stability in the area was essential to U.S. interests. Panama also became a base for many of the covert operations carried out by the U.S. in Latin America and the Caribbean in the decades following World War II. In fact, the School of the Americas, which has trained tens of thousands of soldiers, including those responsible for human rights abuses, mass murder and torture throughout Latin America, was established in Panama in 1946. (The School was moved to Fort Benning, Georgia in 1984).

By the end of the 1950s, Manuel Noriega was on the payroll of the CIA and occasionally the FBI, informing on fellow students, members of left-wing movements in Panama and on the activities of soldiers at the Peruvian military academy where he received training. His influence in the Panamanian government rose rapidly and, by the early 1970s, he was head of the intelligence units of the Panamanian National Guard. According to many reports, he used his position to launder drug-trafficking money. Nevertheless, he remained a favourite CIA informant, even meeting with then CIA director George Bush (Sr.) in 1976.

That same year negotiations on the future of the Panama Canal Zone began in earnest, with the year 2000 set as the date that control of the zone would be shifted over to the Panamanians. During the negotiations, Omar Torrijos Herrera, the de facto ruler of Panama, alarmed the Americans with his increasingly nationalist stance and for his seeming support for a wave of anti-American demonstrations by the people of Panama. When Torrijos died in a suspicious1981 plane crash, Noriega was seen as an ideal American ally. With American backing he assumed the head of the National Guard, which in essence made him chief of state. Washington endorsed the 1984 presidential elections won by Noriega's candidate, despite widespread reports of fraud, vote-rigging and the assault, imprisonment and intimidation of members of the opposition parties.

However, the Americans slowly began to sour on Noriega. There were suspicions that while he was feeding the Americans information on Cuba and Nicaragua, he was also feeding information on the Americans to the drug cartels in Colombia. In 1986, an expose was published in the New York Times which put Noriega and other high-ranking Panamanian government and military officials at the center of drug trafficking through the Canal. This was highly embarrassing for the Reagan administration which was in the midst of its much-touted War on Drugs.

By 1988, Noriega had become a liability. This time when his presidential candidate again won rigged elections, the Americans expressed moral outrage and refused to recognize the new government. They quietly offered Noriega a deal under which he would resign and go into exile in Miami. He refused. In 1989, the Bush administration decided to take action. On December 20, U.S. troops launched Operation Just Cause and invaded Panama. Within a week, the largest superpower on earth had crushed the Panama Defence Forces, one of the smallest armies in the Western Hemisphere. General Colin Powell, newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Washington Post there had to be an extreme show of force. "We have to put a shingle outside our door, saying 'Superpower lives here'", he said.

According to official American figures, just over 500 Panamanian civilians were killed by Operation Just Cause, mainly in the first night when American fighter jets bombed El Chorrillo, Panama City's cramped barrio where around 20,000 people lived in a five block radius. Panamanian opposition figures put the number of civilians killed at over 3,000, and point out that within five hours, 15,000 people in the El Chorrillo district were made homeless.

Noriega, who initially hid at the Vatican Embassy, was eventually captured, tried and convicted in Miami for drug trafficking. He is serving a life sentence in the United States.

When a New York Times reporter asked George Bush if it was worth it to send people to their death to capture Noriega, Bush replied: "Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it."