Ileana Takes on Panama and Torrijos

LA ALBORADA: Ileana Takes on Panama

Ileana Takes on Panama
La Alborada - May 9

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) has taken to task Panama's
president, Martin Torrijos, because of what she sees as his misbehaviors.
Torrijos was in Washington to promote the US' Plan Merida and a free trade
agreement between the two countries. Previously he had expressed a wish to
expand relations with Cuba. She wanted Torrijos to stop talking with Cuban
leaders and to instead support the dissidents that she funds. She also told
Torrijos to maintain relations with Taiwan, and complained about Panama's
votes on Israel in the UN.

That appears to be at least her version of a telephone conversation with
him. Torrijos, head of a small country historically dominated by the US,
probably listened diplomatically and thanked her for her comments.

A short review of history is needed to understand just how strange this call
was.

Panama came into existence when the US pried if off Colombia, stationing
gunboats offshore, in order to build the Panama Canal. The Colombian
government had not been willing to sign the treaty the US wanted, so
stronger measures were called for.

Within 16 days, and while all of Latin America opposed the breakup of
Colombia, the US signed a treaty with the French engineer who earlier had
been attempting to build the canal for the French. The latter said he was
representing Panama. In fact, a Panamanian ambassador was at the time still
on a steamship on the way to Washington.

The canal divided Panama physically into two parts, and the center of the
country became a US base, provoking constant complaints and demonstrations
on the part of the Panamanians. Itl remained US property until the
presidency of Jimmy Carter, who negotiated a new treaty with the father of
Torrijos, a strong nationalist who died in a mysterious airplane
explosion--possibly, say some, a CIA action to maintain US control of the
canal.

Which ties into Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA agent, who did cause a Cuban
airliner to explode in mid-air, killing 73 people. His last attempted act
of terrorism took place in Panama, where he planned to blow up a university
auditorium where Fidel Castro was to speak. The plan would have killed or
wounded great numbers of Panamanians. Posada is a hero for the
Congresswoman, as is Posada's partner, Orlando Bosch.

Posada and his gang of assassins were arrested and tried in Panama. In the
end, they were found guilty of minor charges and sent to prison.
Ros-Lehtinen and her Miami colleagues then wrote to the president at the
time, Mireya Moscoso, asking that the terrorists be pardoned. On November
5, 2003, they wrote again, asking for Posada's freedom. In December, Colin
Powell flew to Panama for a personal meetng with Moscoso.

On August 25, 2004, six days before concluding her term, Moscoso signed a
pardon of the terrorists. Early the next day, the prisoners were taken
directly to an airport and left the country, leading to Posada's eventual
arrival in Miami.

That is the kind of behavior that Ros-Lehtinen expects of the presidents of
small countries, even, in the case of Panama, from the son of the man who
restored the canal to his country. She is unlikely to break up Cuba-Panama
relations with one phone call, but publicizing her criticism of Torrijos is
a cost-free way of shoring up her standing with some of her constitutents in
South Florida. She is facing opposition in the coming elections, and the
people she appeals to have just given a party in Miami to Posada Carriles.

It's all an indication of the kind of government she would like to see in
Cuba.

http://www.cubamer.org

She found a crack in the universe which she could stomp through and take her place with her male fascist Republican counterparts. She's an opportunist, a vicious, treacherous, violence-craving asshole of the highest order. Where ELSE would she live but South Florida?

Here's what John Perkins, who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hitman had to say about Torrijos' father, Omar, and how he met his untimely death, from a Democracy Now! interview:

November 09, 2004


Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
We speak with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.

~snip~
AMY GOODMAN: You’re actually called economic hit men—e.h.m.’s?

JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it was a tongue-in-cheek term that we called ourselves. Officially, I was a chief economist. We called ourselves e.h.m.‘s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know? And, so, we went to Saudi Arabia in the early seventies. We knew Saudi Arabia was the key to dropping our dependency, or to controlling the situation. And we worked out this deal whereby the Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia—new cities, new infrastructure—which we’ve done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they’ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we’ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn’t buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn’t work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had—His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how Torrijos died?

JOHN PERKINS: Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama. Omar Torrijos had signed the Canal Treaty with Carter much—and, you know, it passed our congress by only one vote. It was a highly contended issue. And Torrijos then also went ahead and negotiated with the Japanese to build a sea-level canal. The Japanese wanted to finance and construct a sea-level canal in Panama. Torrijos talked to them about this which very much upset Bechtel Corporation, whose president was George Schultz and senior council was Casper Weinberger. When Carter was thrown out (and that’s an interesting story—how that actually happened), when he lost the election, and Reagan came in and Schultz came in as Secretary of State from Bechtel, and Weinberger came from Bechtel to be Secretary of Defense, they were extremely angry at Torrijos—tried to get him to renegotiate the Canal Treaty and not to talk to the Japanese. He adamantly refused. He was a very principled man. He had his problem, but he was a very principled man. He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which—I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There’s no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most—many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man



The Miami answer to the Mad Bomber,
Cuban "exile" Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

I expect that Panama's President Torrijos pays enough attention to note that while Ros Lehtinen is in the same US political party as the gang of crooks that controls the US Executive Branch, he's probably well aware that Ros Lehtinen's party not only suffered a severe electoral setback in 2006, but looks likely to take an even worse beating in 2008.

It is also likely that Ros Lehtinen's political party will lose control of the White House in January, 2009. I suspect that Torrijos knows that as well as anyone else.

If Cuba held truly free and fair elections (And not the sort of elections that certain DU cheerleaders CLAIM are free and fair), neither Ros Lehtinen, the Diaz Balart brothers, or lesser luminaries like David Rivera could hope to get elected even to a lowly post like municipal dog-catcher. I doubt that anyone IN Cuba could stand them, and island Cubans outnumber their emigre counterparts ten-to-one.

As for Ros Lehtinen, I suspect that she's going to have to learn to be ignored by Latin American and Caribbean political leaders and be ignored with style and grace--if she can manage it.