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PAGE 2 — 'Ihe Georgia Bulletin, June 7,1990
Panamanian Civilians File Complaints Against U.S.
BY LAURIE HANSEN
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Luisa de Lee’s
6-year-old daughter Jurisol, blinded in one
eye by pieces of an exploding U.S. missile,
still has bits of shrapnel embedded in her
small body.
As a result of her shock from last
December’s attack on Panama by the U.S.
military, Jurisol screams with fear when
cars pass their apartment building, her
23-year-old mother told Catholic News Ser
vice in a telephone interview from Colon,
Panama.
Mrs. de Lee’s four children were wound
ed in a Dec. 22 explosion of a U.S. missile
that rocked the apartment building in
which her family lives, she told CNS as she
fought back tears.
Five-year-old Eleuterio took a blow to
his cranium that resulted in brain damage.
Shrapnel splintered into 4-year-old Jonny’s
head and abdomen. Four-month-old Isaac
was burned across his body.
“The walls of our apartment are still
bloodstained. We don’t have money, and
haven’t been able to paint yet,” Mrs. de
Lee said. Rain comes through the open
windows, she said.
Mrs. de Lee is one of 70 Panamanian
civilians that have filed complaints
against the United States, saying they suf
fered death of family members, personal
injury or destruction of their homes and
property as a result of the U S intervention
in Panama last December.
The appeals were filed May 10 by the
New York-based Center for Constitutional
Rights with the Inter-American Commis
sion on Human Rights of the Organization
of American States. The complaints ask
the United States to pay $250 million for
damages resulting from the U.S. military
operation in Panama.
They also request that the OAS declare
Operation Just Cause, as the U.S. military
action was called, illegal.
Last Dec. 20, about 26,000 U.S. soldiers
and airmen were sent to Panama to con
duct Operation Just Cause. The attack
came after a year of unsuccessful U.S.
political and economic pressure designed
to force Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel
Antonio Noriega from office.
Noriega, who sought asylum at the papal
nunciature in Panama during the attack,
was eventually taken into custody by
agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Ad
ministration. He is currently awaiting trial
in Florida.
The Bush administration said at the time
that the operation was justified by the need
to “restore the democratic process” in
Panama, protect American lives, secure
the Panama Canal and seize Noriega for
trial in the United States on drug traffick
ing charges.
But Vincentian Father Alan McLellan,
vicar for pastoral affairs in the Diocese of
Colon and pastor of Our Lady of the
Miraculous Medal Parish, said the opera
tion was conducted in an irresponsible
manner.
“These were innocent victims and un
necessarily so,” said Father McLellan.
referring to residents of Colon who filed
the complaint with the OAS.
He said the U.S. forces came into Colon
Dec. 22 in response to sniper fire in the
area.
“The response was totally out of propor
tion. To respond to sniper fire with
missiles in a heavily populated area like
this one” is wrong, said the U.S. priest,
who has worked in Panama 21 years.
Located some 50 miles from Panama
City, the priest said, Colon is about one
mile long by three-quarters of a mile wide
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and is home to about 70,000 people. Colon’s
unemployment rate is 50-60 percent, he
said.
“There was a rumor that Noriega was
inside a two-story apartment building
here. The U.S. Army had trouble getting
some of the doors open. They announced
that everybody had to get out.
“It was the middle of the night and some
60 people —15 families — came out in their
pajamas,” Father McLellan said. “Then
they bombed the building. People were left
with only their pajamas,” he said.
Noriega, it turned out, had not been inside.
Working with the Center for Constitu
tional Rights on behalf of the Panamanian
civilians appealing to the OAS is a
Panamanian organization called the Peo
ple’s Coordinating Committee on Human
Rights of Panama, established four years
ago by Catholic priests.
In Colon the human rights committee
has been holding regular meetings for af
fected Panamanian civilians at St.
Joseph’s Parish, run by Vincentian
priests.
Luis Alberto Banque, president of the
Panama City-based committee, was in
Washington in late May to try to bring
“greater attention of the plight of the
war’s victims.”
“There are 20,000 homeless families.
The U.S. and Panamanian governments
had it in their plans to assist these people.
But it hasn’t happened,” said Banque in a
May 24 interview.
The fact that Congress approved sending
$420 million in long-awaited aid to Pana
ma in late May was not enough, he said.
“If we were certain that this money
would go to the affected families, we
wouldn’t have filed the complaint (with the
OAS),” said Banque.
But, he said, Panamanian officials, in
speaking publicly about how the money
will be used, “never refer to the war
refugees.” The money probably will go to
help pay Panama’s foreign debt, said Ban
que.
Mrs. Lee said she was among civilians
unable to get adequate medical attention
after the violence.
She said she went to a U.S. military *
hospital in Panama and to the U.S. Em
bassy seeking help for her children, but
was turned away. m
“There must be many good hospitals in
the United States that could help,” she
said.
Banque said that immediately after the #
U.S. action, press reports telling of
Panamanians’ happiness with the opera
tion were accurate.
‘ ‘At first everybody thought dollars were .*
going to fall from the sky, and Panama
would be paradise,” he said.
Now, with rising unemployment rates,
Panamanians are frustrated with their *
U.S.-installed government, Banque said.
This is not to suggest that anyone in
Panama liked Noriega, he added.
“He was dictatorial. He was corrupt. He *
tortured people. He was a drug
trafficker,” he said.
But Banque said there exists a signifi
cant number of Panamanians who “didn’t
support Noriega, but nor did they support
(the United States) stepping on Panama
nian sovereignty.”
One of these is Jose Salas Galindo,
whose wife, Dionicia Meneses Salas, 58,
was killed while in her home in Colon
preparing a meal for her family Dec. 22.
“She was seated in the kitchen when the
bombing began,” said Salas in a telephone
interview from Panama. “Her body was
completely destroyed, with one leg here, „
another leg there.” he said.
When he submitted a claim to the U.S.
Army in Panama for his losses, he receiv
ed a one-paragraph reply: “We have«
received your report of your wife’s death
resulting from combat operations during
Operation Just Cause. While the U.S.
government is aware of the damages and •
regrets your loss, there is no legal authori
ty to compensate you for your loss.”
An angry Salas said he deserves
something more. “The gringos are very in- *
telligent; they have a democracy. But they
were bombing like crazy. They ought to
know how to avoid killing civilians,” he
said. *
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