Panama leftist with anti-US past to run for president

Source: Reuters

Panama's ruling party on Sunday elected a leftist with an anti-U.S. past as its candidate for next year's presidential election, which is likely to be fought over inflation and the big wealth gap.

Balbina Herrera, a former housing minister once linked to former military strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega, easily won the nomination of the Revolutionary Democratic Party, or PRD.

Following a vote by party members, she beat Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro.

Navarro conceded with more than 50 percent of the votes counted, giving Herrera 48.8 percent and Navarro 39.1 percent. Another candidate trailed in third place.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0733063220080908

nice

wonder if she was involved with his drug running

The Real Drug Lords

A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade

by William Blum

~snip~
1970s and 1980s, PANAMA
For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly
paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities
as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking
and money laundering. Noriega facilitated ''guns-for-drugs" flights for the
contras, providing protection and pilots, as well as safe havens for drug
cartel otficials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including
then-ClA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega
letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against
competitors of his Medellin Cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned
against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general
once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans
and Sandinistas. Ironically drug trafficking through Panama increased after
the US invasion. (John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, Random House, 1991;
National Security Archive Documentation Packet The Contras, Cocaine, and
Covert Operations.)

1980s, CENTRAL AMERICA
The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the
interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the cocaine cartels.
Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua,
Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the
traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee)
concluded a three-year investigation by stating: "There was substantial
evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual
Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots mercenaries who worked with the
Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region.... U.S. officials
involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of
jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.... In each case, one or
another agency of the U.S. govemment had intormation regarding the
involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter....
Senior U S policy makers were nit immune to the idea that drug money was a
perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." (Drugs, Law Enforcement
and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and Intemational Operations, 1989)

In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras
(Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different ClA-contra
networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the
Meneses-Blandon operation detailed by the Mercury News, and Noriega's
operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's
border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and
other ClA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George
Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to
giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders. In 1989,
after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a
DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami,
via Haiti. The US repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull
back to Costa Rica to stand trial.
Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Amencans
whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long
been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra planes and a
Costa Rican-based shnmp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move
cocaine to the U.S.
Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence
service -- closely associated with the CIA -- harbored many drug traffickers,
according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway.
Additionally, the Medell!n Cartel's Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez,
testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through
long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force
Base in El Salvador.
The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots,
airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these ClA-linked drug
networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug
trafficking received US govemment contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to
the contras. Southern Air Transport, "formerly" ClA-owned, and later under
Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. Cocaine-laden
planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other locations, including
several militarv bases Designated as 'Contra Craft,'' these shipments were
not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't clued in and made an arrest,
powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal,
reduced sentence, or deportation.

More:
http://www.csun.edu/coms/ben/news/cia/970504.hist.html

Looking for more information on the Cuban "exiles" mentioned in the article posted above, in this paragraph,

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Amencans
whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long
been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra planes and a
Costa Rican-based shnmp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move
cocaine to the U.S.

a search led to the following information concerning something else worth examining:

Fatal Secrets (Part 2)
author: Ginger Thompson and Gary Cohn, posted by voline

In 1995 the Baltimore Sun published a series of articles, called "Fatal Secrets", that exposed the widespread kidnapping, torture, and murder by the Honduran government of the early '80s -- and the complicity in those crimes of the US government and Ambassador Negroponte in particular. Here are those articles . . .

~snip~
Torturers' confessions
Now in exile, these CIA-trained Hondurans describe
their lives -- and the deaths of their victims
TORONTO - Jose Barrera gulped down a double shot of Sambuca before he began to talk about his past as a torturer and murderer.

He recalled how he nearly suffocated people with rubber masks, how he attached wires to their genitals and shocked them with electricity, how he tore off a man's testicles with a rope.

"We let them stay in their own excrement," he said, his gold front tooth reflecting the dim lamplight. "When they were very weak, we would take them to disappear."

Images such as these cast a shadow over the lives of Barrera and other men who served in Battalion 316, a CIA-trained military unit that terrorized Honduras for much of the 1980s.

At a time when Honduras was crucial to the U.S. government's war on communism in Central America, the battalion was created and trained to collect intelligence. But it also stalked, kidnapped, tortured and murdered hundreds of Honduran men and women suspected of subversion.

At least 184 of the battalion's victims are missing and presumed dead. They are called "desaparecidos," Spanish for the "disappeared."

In hours of interviews over two weeks in Toronto, where they live in exile, Barrera and other former members of the battalion - Florencio Caballero and Jose Valle - told The Sun how the unit operated.

Each of the men said he was trained by instructors from the CIA, sometimes together with instructors from Argentina, where a campaign against suspected subversives left more than 10,000 dead or disappeared in the 1970s.

Some training was conducted at an army camp in Lepaterique, a town 16 miles west of the capital, Tegucigalpa, the men said. Other sessions were held at a base in the United States whose location was kept secret even from them.

In separate interviews, they described the courses in the same way: CIA officers taught them "anti-guerrilla tactics" - how to stake out suspects' homes, use hidden cameras and tap telephones, and how to question prisoners.

The training of battalion members in the early 1980s was confirmed in 1988 by Richard Stolz, then-CIA deputy director for operations, in closed-door testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The testimony was recently declassified at the request of The Sun.

More:
https://publish.portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287416.shtml+Santiago+Alvarez+contra+drugs+shrimp+company+CIA&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us">~~~~ link ~~~~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3472846&mesg_id=3472846

Just the latest news in drug trafficking

and you had the CIA or whatever alphabet soup agency involved but does that absolve him from the fact that Panama was used to transport drugs from South America?

it doesn't

you know-two wrongs don't make a right

and you do realize that he was dictator?

some people on here seem to like dictators, like the Cuban ones

The Panama Deception (1992) - 91 min -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-446387292666223710

~~~~~~~~~

1993 Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature

A riveting Academy Award-winning critique of the government's history of militarization, made all the more timely by the current war on terrorism.

The Panama Deception documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama; the events which led to it; the excessive force used; the enormity of the death and destruction; and the devastating aftermath. The Panama Deception uncovers the real reasons for this internationally condemned attack, presenting a view of the invasion which widely differs from that portrayed by the U.S. media and exposes how the U.S. government and the mainstream media suppressed information about this foreign policy disaster.

The Panama Deception includes never before seen footage of the invasion and its aftermath, as well asinterviews with both invasion proponents like Gen. Maxwell Thurman, Panamanian President Endara andPentagon spokesperson Pete Williams, and opponents like U.S. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY.), Panamanian human rights workers Olga Mejia and Isabel Corro and former Panamanian diplomat Humberto Brown. Network news clips and media critics contribute to a staggering analysis of media control and selfcensorship relevant to any news coverage today, particularly during times of war.

Among the film's excellent reviews are: "meticulously researched" (Hal Hinson, Washington Post);"outstanding" (Betsy Sherman, Boston Globe); "tough....provocative....moving....beautifully edited" (Vincent Canby, New York Times); and "lays out simply and forcefully the case against the 'official' version" (Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times).

The Empowerment Project (EP) worked on this production for two years. EP first came to prominence in 1988 with the release of the equally acclaimed Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair. EP is a non-profit media resource center committed to democratizing the media. Each year, hundreds of independent filmmakers use EP's edit facilities and other services. EP has recently moved its offices out of New York and California. The new headquarters for all operations is now in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Since its August 1992 release, The Panama Deception has played in 80 cities, including an eight-week runin Seattle and a five-week holdover in New York City. The film appeared in video stores in August 1993. It was cablecast on Cinemax in the United States during October of that same year and currently, Bravo-the IndependentFilm Channel retains the rights to cablecast the film. Many local affiliates of PBS have broadcast the film butnational PBS, however, has refused to broadcast the film despite the Congressional mandate explicitly requiringthat both sides of controversial issues be included in PBS's overall programming. Internationally, the film has been broadcast in Australia, Canada, Poland, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Portugal, the U.K., Iran, Israel, Finland,Switzerland, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Norway, the People's Republic of China, S. Korea, Italy, Turkey, Russia,S. Africa, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Algeria, Malaysia, and Czechoslovakia. A ban on the film originally imposed by the Panamanian government was lifted in March 1993, following strong internal and international pressure.

http://www.empowermentproject.org/pages/panama.html

On edit:

I'd like to mention I never saw this important video until a DU'er posted it, informing DU'ers it can be viewed online now. Since then have seen it multiple times, shared it with others. It's most surely worth your time. As you will discover, we were completely kept in the dark concerning this adventure in malicious, murderous thuggery, in which our corporate news sources were totally complicit.

Why DO our Republican pResidents do so much behind our backs? Because they know what they are doing is ####ing WRONG.

Panama's ruling party begins to elect presidential candidate
www.chinaview.cn 2008-09-08 10:20:01

PANAMA CITY, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Panama's ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) opened polling stations on Sunday to elect its presidential candidate for the general election scheduled for May 3, 2009.

Nearly 670,000 PRD members cast their ballots. Voting centers opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (1200 GMT) and were to close at 4:00 p.m. (2100 GMT).

There are 13 "pre-candidates" for the presidential candidate, with the front-runners being former Housing Minister Balbina Herrera and Panama City's mayor Juan Carlos Navarro.

Preliminary results would be announced at 7:00 p.m. (2400 GMT).

Herrera, 53, is an agronomist engineer. She entered politics in1979,and had served as mayor of the San Miguelito district, president of the Assembly and the housing minister.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/08/content_9847000.htm





Oh, she's dangerous, all right! A leftist, after all! Someone forgot to slaughter her during the dirty invasion of Panama in 1989, apparently, although they were able to polish off lots of unarmed poor people.

you're the shit, I must say. Kudos for trying to educate people on the modern political trainwreck that the region is because of US policies. I don't have the time to do it, or I certainly would join you!:hug: :toast:

astonishing, when you think of it.

They're close enough for US right-wing megalomaniac pResidents to prey upon, attempt to control, conduct massive, violent covert ops, fund genocidal operations by death squads, buy into their national news media using taxpayer dollars in order to control their political perceptions, but not close enough to be regarded as neighbors, only our "backyard."

Creepy, isn't it?

whose family owned much of Veraguas Province and ran cattle for sale exclusively to the U.S.

Hopefully, Herrera will win.

It may take a while. My first dive into the internetS came up very light in details:

Ricardo Martinelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Ricardo Martinelli (born 11 March 1952, in Panama City) is a Panamanian leftist politician and businessman.

He is the owner of Importadora Ricamar, S.A. (Super 99) Panama's largest chain of supermarkets (and the country's largest private company) and several other business interests.

During the presidency of Ernesto Pérez Balladares (1994–1999) he served from September 1994 to July 1996 as Social Security Director.

He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Panama Canal Authority and Minister for Canal Affairs from September 1999 to January 2003, during the presidency of Mireya Moscoso (1999–2004).

In the 2004 Panamanian presidential election he was the candidate of the Democratic Change party (CD), of which he is its President.

In October 2004, Ricardo Martinelli founded The Ricardo Martinelli Foundation, of which he is its fundraiser and gives more than 5,000 scholarships to poor students with good scholastic average.

He is the Opposition leader of Martin Torrijos Government. Ricardo Martinelli announced that he will run for President of the Republic of Panama, in May 2009.

He received a Master Degree in Business Administration and Marketing from University of Arkansas <1>, and an MBA from INCAE Business School.

He is married with Marta Linares de Martinelli, with three children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Martinelli

~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'll look around some more when I get some time later this evening. I'm curious now you've mentioned a possible connection.

32 of them in Panama, has acquired another recently, owns 2 "Mega Depot" stores, whatever that is, and graduated in Bidness from the University of Arkansas. (So many Latin American politicians went to college in the U.S. Wierd, isn't it?)

People don't seem overly impressed by the guy. Ran into article after article ridiculing him. He's seen as the "distant" fourth place candidate.

He appears to have a less than spectacular history of public service. From an article in the Panama News:

~snip~
When Martinelli headed the Social Security Fund during the Pérez Balladares administration, there was a rash of 11 sudden deaths of kidney dialysis patients, most likely caused by using bad chemicals in the machines. By the time that the problem was discovered, any evidence that might have identified the cause had been removed and the doctors and technicians weren't talking. Endara's wife, Ana Mae Díaz de Endara, criticized Martinelli for failing to get to the bottom of the situation and the latter charged her with criminal defamation (calumnia e injuria). That prompted the former president to call Martinelli a "maricon" (homosexual), whereupon Martinelli charged him with defamation. The former first lady was acquitted, the former president was convicted but pardoned, and there isn't a lot of love lost between Mr. Endara and Mr. Martinelli.

Recent polls suggest that most Panamanians disapprove of the present administration's performance, think that the country is on the wrong track and are likely to vote against the PRD in the May 2009 general elections. But Panama has first past the post presidential elections and since 1989 no presidential candidate has been elected with a majority of the vote. In 1994 Ernesto Pérez Balladares was elected with few votes beyond the PRD base, winning just over 33 percent in a seven-way race. Most political analysts believe that if Martinelli and Varela split the opposition vote about evenly, the PRD candidate will win. However, both Martinelli and Varela are counting on a shift of opposition voters to the strongest-looking PRD opponent as Election Day approaches. That polarization has yet to begin.

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_14/issue_14/news_04.html



"What you staring at?"
Ricardo Martinelli