Panama_ Revelations from a secret U.S. document confirm that the true objective of Washington's military invasion of Panama in 1989 was to abolish the Canal Treaties, and that the capture of Manuel Noriega was just an excuse, Prensa Latina reports.
'Our objective is to destabilize the country without risking our presence and influence there, and at the same time to have a legitimate foundation to abolish the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,' says the text of the Secret-Sensitive Memorandum from the National Security Council, on April 8, 1986, which was published by the Panamanian author Julio Yao.
So far, U.S. reactions either confirming or denying the authenticity of the Memorandum, of which Yao claims to have a copy, are unknown.
Yao proves that in addition to keeping control over the Panama Canal, the United States had the objective of keeping Japan away from working on the enlargement of that interoceanic facility, as negotiations were under way with the government of General Omar Torrijos, and they were continued by Noriega.
'We tried to convince him (Torrijos) to renegotiate the Canal Treaty instead of talking with the Japanese. He strongly refused. Then he was killed when the plane carrying him burst into flames as it was connected to a tape recorder laden with explosive. It was undoubtedly organized by the CIA, and many U.S. researchers arrived at the same conclusion.'
Those statements were made by Amy Goodman, from Democracy Now!, in an interview with National Public Radio in the United States, on November 9, 2004, and quoted by Yao, who also recalled that the writer John Perkins assured that former President Ronald Reagan was 'very mad at Torrijos'.
When answering the questionnaire sent to prison in Miami, Noriega explained that 'Japan committed to carrying out the studies on the future Canal, seeking convenient options, which was fostered by the visit of the chairman of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Shigeo Nagano.'
Noriega is currently in an intensive care unit at the Santo Tomas Hospital in this capital, where he is recovering from brain surgery to have a tumor removed, but he is still an inmate who is serving a lengthy prison sentence.
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