When General Torrijos died in Cerro Marta on July 31, 1981,
a situation of national uncertainty arose.
Torrijos was not President of the Republic.
Torrijos was head of the government.
So in that transition,
General Noriega takes over the National Guard, called the Defense Forces.
He was the one who ordered the transition.
Poindexter asked General Noriega
to intervene on behalf of the Contras in Nicaragua.
He even asked Noriega
to lend part of the territory of Panama
to train the Contras
to go fight in Nicaragua.
General Noriega said no, he was not going to allow that.
They saw in General Manuel Antonio Noriega an obstacle
to the materialization of those geostrategic and political objectives.
This machete represents the dignity and courage
of the Panamanian people.
It says not one step back.
The Voice of Freedom.
TABLE NO. 44 PROVINCE
TABLE NO. 30 PROVINCE PANAMA
UNOFFICIAL RESULT OF THE PLEBISCITE
The Dignity Battalions were the expression
of an important group of Panamanian citizens
who voluntarily decided to organize themselves as a civil militia,
as a second line of support for the Defense Forces.
What we wanted was to prevent a foreign military intervention from taking place.
My name is Amadís Jiménez Sandoval.
I was a captain in the Defense Force during the time of the invasion.
I have known Benjamín Colamarco for many years,
and like many young men of his time,
he was a very idealistic man.
And I think that he believed a lot in the matter of nationalism
and Panama's sovereignty.
He was the commander of the Dignity Battalions.
THE 'MARINE' KILLED IN PANAMA WAS COLOMBIAN
I was returning home around ten when I received a call
from Captain Moisés Cortizo,
whose base was in Fort Amador.
Captain Cortizo told me,
"Benjamín, strange things are happening."
"We have lost communication with the American counterpart
of the United States Army in Panama."
That night, when we arrived, passing the lights of the checkpoint,
they were broken and there was no soldier in the checkpoint,
neither Panamanian nor American.
And the entire left area of the base, which was where the Americans were,
which was the United States Navy Command area, was dark.
Completely blacked out.
DEFENSE FORCES JAIL - PRISON GUARD
The truth is that the limit between the Panama base
and the United States Army base was the street.
They had to cross a street to invade our country.
Wherever you were in the city, you could see the beam of light
that the fire from El Chorrillo made.
We weren't sure if our house would even still be there when we returned.
It was very, very scary.
On the night of December 19,
I was the commander of the Coco Solo Marine Infantry Company.
I had just been promoted to captain,
and that was the day I took command of this new company.
I didn't even know the unit's phone number.
I didn't know the name of the soldiers I had there.
Soldiers in that unit were very young.
They were 18, 19, 20-year-old kids,
and when the bombing started, they were very scared.
They had us all surrounded.
Then the soldier that was next to me says,
"Do not go outside because you will get killed,"
and I said to the soldier, "The only way is to try to save ourselves,
because the enemy's force against us is far superior."
"So I will try to surrender."
The moment I tried to surrender and get out,
a hand grenade blows up.
The soldier and I went down. He didn't find cover in time
and was hit by the grenade. He died in my arms.
There are reports that in the first hours alone
there were more than 480 bombs detonated
in the capital area, specifically in the area of El Chorrillo.
I was at the Davis prisoner camp.
I did not know that the new president of Panama was President Endara.
President Endara talked with General Cisneros
and asked Cisneros about me.
That is when I met with General Cisneros
in a safe house in Fort Davis.
At the time, I was upset and I told him
that I wanted to go back to the prisoner camp
and that I did not want to participate in absolutely anything.
Cisneros tells me that there was a fire in El Chorrillo,
and that there was a number of people left homeless.
The other American generals wanted to bomb Colón,
and they were planning to bomb Colón that night.
And asked me to help him to get officers and troops in Colón to surrender.
We were on the same page about avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.
Then we made a telephone call together.
They talk to me, they talk to Captain Cisneros,
and he asks them very respectfully, in a very correct manner, to surrender,
that what he wants is to avoid bombing the city of Colón.
A few hours went by and officers started to exit
toward the American troops' checkpoint
and with this, they avoid the bombing of Colón.
There are people who said that when he entered the Vatican embassy,
he was dressed as a nun.
Others say that he was dressed as a woman.
Then there is a third version that says that Father Villanueva
got him into the nunciature. I really do not know.
The United Nations General Assembly
approved Resolution 44/240,
which indicates that the administration of the U.S. government,
at that time, of President Bush,
violated international law
and violated the sovereignty of the Republic of Panama.
What was a real surprise for us, or at least for me,
was that Noriega had worked until the last minute with the CIA.
That I risked my life,
that my military unit almost got killed…
It was bitter to find out that until the very last minute he had been working
for the enemy that was attacking me.
It is very hard to see people next to you die.
What marked me the most is having very clear
that there is no good war, as there is no bad peace.
That is what has marked me the most.
We still don't know the number of deaths that occurred
during the invasion.
We calculate about 2,000 to 3,000 dead.
But there were no records of that.
HOSPITAL ST. THOMAS ADULT MEDICAL EMERGENCIES