20 YEARS OF THE INVASION OF PANAMA

By: Felipe Argote

The long night if, one day before the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, became even longer, almost perpetual, for the thousands of people especially Chorrillo who felt 500-pound bombs dropped literally on top of their heads.

You never know, maybe we will never know the names of the murdered innocents. There is not a monument with the names of the killed, so they will not forgotten. No. On the contrary, all governments, starting with that took possession in a foreign military base, have tried to ignore the unfortunate episode in the history of this country.

However, the many innocent people killed for no reason and the dozens who died taking up arms, defending the country, guaranteed with their lives that ten years later not only the soldiers who invaded our territory but all stationed at the bases leave the country and the closure of the Canal Zone. Despite the vast unpopularity of the Noriega dictatorship, although small and great attempts were unsuccessful to overthrow the dictator and pessimism seemed to become master of the population, there were important areas that reacted against the intrusion of the military foreign to elucidate internal conflict. Panamanians were not all as Endara, Ford and Arias Calderon. This was demonstrated with large demonstrations that despite the presence of gringos tanks roamed the streets on May Day, just four months after the invasion, the great manifestations of the Coordinator for the right to life, to whom the puppet government invented the notorious Law 25 and especially the massive march on 20 December 1990.

This patriotic attitude of the committees, especially the families of fallen on December 20, but many others were important to the invader calculated it was better to leave and as a thief who flees to his lair, did not expect the 12's noon on 31 December 1999 instead went to the hill of the administration building of the canal in the middle of the complicity of the night, dropped their last flag and went in the last military aircraft from the base of Howard.

The long list of those who died on 20 December 1989 the sum of the heroes and martyrs who died in 1925 and 1964, with his precious blood that helped cement our free and sovereign country. As we enjoy the beauty of our canal areas and we are proud of our canal, we must not forget that many men and women gave their lives for something that years ago seemed a dream come true.