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22 January 1998 Edition

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Drugs cover for US military control

Panama scheme designed to prolong army presence



It is no secret that the United States - especially those of its officials who reside within the Pentagon - was always uncomfortable with the terms of the Torrijos-Carter treaty.

The 1977 agreement finally ended the United States `lease' in perpetuity of the Panama Canal. Under the terms of the treaty, the canal zone reverted to Panamanian control in 1977, while control of the canal proper is scheduled to do so on 31 December 1999.

And concurrent with that loss of control is the final removal - by 31 December 1999 - of all US soldiers from their bases in the canal zone. Not surprisingly, Washington's military mandarins were a little unhappy at the prospect of having no military presence in such a strategically vital area.

However, with just under two years to go to the scheduled departure date of the last US soldier, Washington has unveiled a scheme that would ensure its military presence in the canal zone continues indefinitely.

The scheme proposes the establishment of a Multilateral Anti-drugs Centre (MAC) in the canal zone. The proposal has already received the official backing of both the US and Panamanian governments. However, to become a reality, the MAC must also be approved by the senates in both countries, while it will also be the subject of a referendum in Panama.

The proposed site of the MAC would be Howard Base in the canal zone, the largest US military installation in Latin America.

In Panama, the MAC proposal has met with vociferous opposition. Already over 50 popular organisations have banded together in the Frente Unico to oppose the centre's establishment.

Jacinto Gonzalez, a spokesman for Frente Unico, characterised the proposed MAC as no more than a US military base in disguise.

The Panamanian government has insisted the base will be civilian in character, but concedes that there will be an unspecified number of US military personnel among its expected 2,500 staff.

And naturally, such an establishment would also be expected to house high-tech listening and surveillance equipment.

The US is currently seeking the support of Colombia, Brazil and Mexico for the MAC.

The proposed centre mirrors US moves elsewhere in Central America to establish a greater `presence' under the auspices of the `war on drugs'.

Recently, Washington proposed to the government of Costa Rica that it conduct joint patrols of Costa Rican airspace, coastal waters and frontiers.

While it is expected Costa Rica will endorse the idea, opponents point out that the US would be far better served concentrating its efforts within its own borders: it being the single largest consumer of illicit drugs worldwide.


Refugee-maker is lauded


From a source located under deep cover in teletubby land, comes news of a TV advertising campaign being run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The very laudable aim of the campaign is to destroy the myth of refugees and asylum seekers as little more than welfare spongers and workshy fraudsters.

Thus the advertisement cites the example of some of history's more famous refugees, among them the Nobel prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein, who fled Nazi Germany for the US in the 1930s.

However the advertisement comes somewhat unstuck - as does the entire purpose of the ad campaign - with the mention of another famous refugee from Europe, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Perhaps it escaped the notice of those good souls in the UNHCR but Henry Kissinger, during his years in office (1973-77), probably did more to aid the growth of the global refugee problem than any other postwar public official.

In late1974, Kissinger and then US president Ford gave Indonesia's Suharto official approval for his invasion of nearby East Timor. Since then a third of the East Timorese population has been wiped out, while countless thousands were made refugees. And throughout Latin America, Kissinger's support for dictators (such as Pinochet in Chile) ensured that many of the region's citizenry were left with no option but to seek asylum abroad.

Today, Henry runs Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm which uses Kissinger's international `reputation' to open doors for US firms in Latin America and Asia. Henry's contacts in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have proved particularly useful. If Henry represents the UNCHR's model of the `ideal refugee', then heaven help us all.

Church and States plot with Cuban children


In New York, newly-discovered documents reveal the existence of a particularly squalid scheme that was designed to discredit and undermine Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba.

Known as Operation Peter Pan, the plot was hatched by the Central Intelligence Agency in collaboration with Catholic Church authorities in New York, and opponents of the revolution within Cuba.

Operation Peter Pan encouraged and aided the sending of some 14,000 Cuban children (between the ages of six and 16) to the United States. The children belonged to families who opposed the revolution. Once in the US, they were to be used for propaganda purposes, a supposed illustration of the essential heartlessness of Cuba's new regime.

The children were dispatched between 1960-1962. Once in place, their presence in the US was to be used to `demand' their parents' exit from Cuba, thus promoting the appearance of mass emigration and a revolution severely at odds with its citizenry.

Naturally, the subsequent reunions would provide a vast reservoir of `tearjerker' photo-opportunities for the right-wing media.

However, the events now known as the Cuban Missile Crisis intervened, in late 1962. Thereafter travel to and from Cuba was suspended, eventually to be prohibited altogether. Most of the planned `reunions' never took place.

Without their propaganda value, the CIA (and the church) quickly lost interest in the children. Many, the recently-revealed documents now show, were abandoned. Some ended up on the streets, were dispatched to orphanages or were incarcerated in juvenile detention centres. It is unlikely this story will receive much coverage in the Western press.

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