PANGosaurus
Tue, 19 Nov 2002 20:54:53 -0800
Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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Si algun colisterongo vio esta película que mencionan, ¿me podría decir si
vale la pena buscarla para comprarla o no?
PANGosaurus***********
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The Panama Deception
by Susan Ryan
Cineaste v20, n1 (Wntr, 1993):43 (2 pages).
Produced by Barbara Trent, Joanne Doroshow, Nico Panigutti and David Kasper;
directed by Barbara Trent; written and edited by David Kasper;
cinematography by Michael Dobo and Masnuel Becker; narration by Elizabeth
Montgomery; music by Chuck Wild.
On December 19, 1989, most Americans were glued to their televisions in
disbelief as thousands of U.S. troops prepared to attack Panama with the
stated purpose of ousting the man the media loved to hate, General Manuel
Noriega. By early morning, they were reassured that Operation "Just Cause"
had achieved its goal of hitting twenty-seven targets, thus making Panama
safe for Americans living in that country as well as those safely at home in
front of their televisions. But the media failed to investigate many crucial
issues, including the fate of Panamanian citizens and a detailed explanation
of the just cause' for which American troops were fighting. These are the
questions The Panama Deception sets out to answer, and, in so doing, it
provides a provocative, well-documented analysis of U.S. relations with
Panama and a devastating critique of the mainstream media and its complicity
with the official government line.
For those familiar with the findings of the report of the Independent
Commission of Inquiry see The U.S. Invasion of Panama: The Truth Behind
Operation Just Cause, South End Press, 1991), the film's exploration of the
contradictions between the official reasons for the invasion and the real
motivations will come as no surprise, but for many The Panama Deception will
serve as a shocking illustration of the brutal face of American foreign
policy.
During the attack, the U.S. unleashed a force of 24,000 troops equipped with
highly sophisticated weaponry and aircraft against a country with an army
smaller than the New York City Police Department. With uncanny echoes of
Grenada less than a decade earlier, this illegal invasion against a
sovereign nation was made in the name of "the protection of American lives"
as well as the defense of the Panama Canal, the restoration of democracy,
and the removal of Noriega and his drug trafficking operation - reasons
which might have sounded good at the White House but failed to convince
anyone with a knowledge of the history of U.S.-Panamanian relations.
As a result of the controversial 1977 Carter-Torrijos treaties, the Canal
was scheduled to be turned over to Panama by the year 2000. The treaty
provided for the closure of all fourteen Southern Command bases in Panama by
1999 which would make more difficult U.S. military access to the rest of
Latin America. Seen in these terms, the invasion provided a convenient
justification for continued U.S. military presence in the area as well as
the rationale for the renegotiation of the treaties. From an international
vantage point, the overpowering show of force demonstrated that the U.S.
retained control over its own backyard.'
The Panama Deception explores these contradictions as well as the many other
lies generated to deflect criticism of the attack which violated both the
U.N. and O.A.S. charters. Using archival footage and interviews with a wide
range of both Panamanian and American authorities, the film puts the
invasion in context by showing the troubled history of the Canal's
construction at the beginning of the century, the resulting confrontations
over the years between the U.S. military and Panamanians, and the
problematic relationship during the Seventies with Panama's popular leader,
General Omar Torrijos. The montage of archival images reprising the
historical relationship includes several which foreshadow the events of
1989. Of particular note is the televised segment of a soon- to-be-elected
Ronald Reagan recreating the role of Teddy Roosevelt as he compares the
Canal Zone to the acquisition of Alaska in saying, "We bought it, we paid
for it, and General Torrijos should be told we're going to keep it."
The film also chronicles the rise and fall of Noriega as he was courted,
then rejected, by the American government after he became a political
liability. The sequence on the U.S. media's demonization of Noriega,
including Bush's inarticulate rambling about "Mr. Noriega, the drug-related,
drug-indicted dictator of Panama" would be comical if we didn't know that
this was just the prelude to a bloody confrontation. As an interview with an
ex-CIA analyst reveals, the invasion was intended to "reverse Bush's image
as a wimp," a rather large price for the Panamanian people to pay for the
sake of his political viability.
In addition to analyzing the invasion and filling in many specific details
about the excessive force used, the film also presents the Panamanian
perspective, the side we never saw on the nightly news. Eyewitness accounts
of the bombing and the fear felt by the people as they saw their families
killed, their homes destroyed, and their city devastated, powerfully convey
the human suffering caused by this act of aggression. In contrast to the
images of Panamanians welcoming the Americans as a liberating force which
the mainstream broadcast media presented, the angry voices of Panamians
describe the horror, pain, and continued disruption of their lives. While
some might call it heavy- handed, the ironic juxtaposition of official
commentary by government spokesmen with actual footage of the invasion and
its aftermath succeeds in revealing that lies were created on every level -
the sites of the bombings in civilian neighborhoods, the search and destroy
methods of the U.S. military in the days following the attack, the number of
Panamanians killed, and the continued impact on the people in the form of
homelessness, unemployment, and political instability.
Various regional and international human rights commissions estimate that
between 2,500 and 4,000 Panamanians were killed in the invasion, a far cry
from official U.S. reports of only several hundred. Many of those
interviewed in the film - like Isabel Corro, a Panamanian human rights
worker - continue to raise money for the exhumation of bodies from mass
graves which Pentagon spokesmen deny exist.
As the film makes clear, the U.S. government was not solely responsible for
the deception. The mainstream media was shamefully complicit in passing on
government press releases as news. Interviews with media analysts Michael
Parenti and Mark Hertsgard discuss the total collaboration of the media in
this dress rehearsal of restrictions on the press later repeated during the
Gulf War. Several cleverly edited sequences mesh the images and voices of
Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and other arbiters of information as
they use virtually the same language to describe the invasion and what it
means' to the American public.
In this respect, The Panama Deception is not only a visual analysis of the
events of December 1989, it is also an indictment of the news apparatus in a
society where alternative interpretations of events rarely reach the public
at large. In Panama, the suppression of information included the destruction
of photographs and videotape documenting the high number of civilian
casualties.
Through the efforts of The Empowerment Project, The Panama Deception had
opened theatrically in over sixty cities across the U.S. even before it won
an Academy Award this year. Utilizing their past experience in community
organizing, the filmmakers created a unique distribution strategy in which
post-screening discussion sessions were held in theaters, not only to answer
questions but also to redirect the audience's rage over the invasion into
positive political action, such as appearing on local radio talk shows or
writing letters to the editors of their local newspapers in order to
challenge their own sources of information.
Stylistically, the film has several drawbacks. The continuous use of
voice-over narration to explain most of the imagery assumes that the
audience is not able to make connections on its own. The animated maps and
some of the video graphics seem better suited to a didactic instructional
film than an investigative documentary. Still, these objections are minor in
comparison with the overall significance of The Panama Deception as an
impressive source of information on an event our government would sooner
have us forget.
(C) Cineaste Publishers Inc., 1993.
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