Among the many offices I've worked (some by choice, others by curiosity and the more out of necessity), is the "black." For those not accustomed to the bookstore or letrosa jargon, a "black" is one that is offered as a "ghost writer"-usually This occurs when one is young and has a win imperative to learn the craft and is willing to do whatever it takes to do so, the assistant to a connoted (or not so) "authority" in the subject. And what begins as a game, the truth is quite fun to see the texts of one published in newspapers, magazines or books under the name of others, ends up becoming frustrating, because who you are to comment on this or that issue if "to you or who you know. Or to see where are your posts?" Looking
stories from a friend who offered me to edit for several years and always postponed for unforeseen eternal, "I found a floppy disk containing some items more than 10 years.
wrote the foreword for a book of testimonies about the U.S. invasion of Panama. The deal is that I receive payment for it (uh) and a copy of the book (which so far I have not seen the cover). For whatever reason, I show it as I wrote, I believe that subsequent amendments was my slave and I am not concerned that some idle find the book in question and that gives rise to some gossip; it is safer to pass as time: totally unnoticed by the multiple cheating: not only that my slave and I did - your audience and not only this editor, but multiple newspaper publications, literature and countless naive who thought they had "some words of his idol" - to proceed in this way for almost two years, but I think I naively that confounded the other, if only I betrayed myself to impersonate another identity.
fragmented history
The city was filled with warriors huddled together.
had not dared to expect each other out of town for a long time and recognize who had fled or killed during the battle.
The Iliad. Homer
had not dared to expect each other out of town for a long time and recognize who had fled or killed during the battle.
The Iliad. Homer
In Panama City at the end of a pier on the Pacific Ocean, a statue of the priest José María Morelos Mexican guerrilla. In this green bronze statue, Morelos Bonapartist adopts a pose (with their hands up to the stomach), as if aware of what Napoleon Bonaparte said of him: "Give me fifteen Morelos and conquer the world."
Carlos Fuentes, born in Panama, says that when asked to Panamanians who owned the statue, he responded that it was (perhaps by the head scarf) of the English pirate Henry Morgan.
say that when the pirate Morgan struck for the first time this land, made just a handful. The governor at that time was so surprised that he asked a musket as a memento of the feat. The Buccaneer, English at the end of the day, granted the request, before handing the weapon he warned: "I will return for him in a year." Two years later, in 1671, entered the city with two thousand men armed to the teeth, were destroyed and burned as it passes. The city was reduced to ashes so they had to be rebuilt on another site, which currently occupies. Before he left with their boats full of gold and precious jewels, Morgan, English to after all, ordered the governor to apologize for the delay of his visit. That does not stop (or start) the history of this "thin waist of suffering" as Pablo Neruda was appointed to the Central American isthmus.
'From heaven, infinity, leaving a light, a tongue of fire that fell on the houses and set fire ... invisible plane was describing our children and did not believe them ... "
" Mom, this is war. "
"We believe in false alarm, as usual. Already 20, who was expected size surprise? "
" We realized it was not by bombs and fire ... "
" A nobody told us. "
"It was the invasion and did not know what to do ..."
the night of December 19, 1989 began a more than U.S. invasion of Panama City. Right in the bombing, were read ultimatums in a Central American English speakers from helicopters: "Attention attention, attention ... Why do you continue to resist the inevitable? Your resistance is futile ... their lives are being sacrificed by a corrupt dictator ... that has dragged this country into a useless war. United States has nothing against you or your people. You and your compatriots are being used as pawns in a personal plan ... to stay in power. Drop your weapons and join us to fight for freedom ... help us help them ... win its freedom and democracy ... "
" We preferred to throw us down the building before going down ... "
Yes do not surrender, we will have to destroy the city and massacre the entire civilian population ... "
Before you're dead, Visit Panama.
Cole Porter.
Cole Porter.
Panama's history, like the rest of Latin America, is full of grievances, mishaps and injuries that never seem to close. Maybe that's why the Uruguayan historian Eduardo Galeano thus entitled Open Veins of Latin America.
pain, blood, tears, helplessness, cries, anger and (yet) hope, bear witness to this story.
says a popular adage that "history is written by the victors, not losers." And against that maximum official history besides the reality that overwhelms us, something is still not open to criticism: the collective memory.
Nobody has more right to speak on the history that those who have suffered: the voices of survivors of the disaster, the testimonies are more accurate than any news story for the simple reason that they are experience.
Now, with advances technology, can be transmitted "real time" events anywhere in the world at the moment they happen. That "a picture says a thousand words" has been realized at the speed of the video. Photographs are also frozen moments of time that also tell stories. Despite the speed with which an event can be followed, these media can also be used to distort the context of events for the benefit of a few. So it was with the invasion of Panama, which anywhere in the world is a slaughter and a violation of sovereignty, "contextualization" of the media, became in a "just cause." The campaign was so aggressive that even in Panama after the invasion, many people went out to greet U.S. forces with banners and placards: "Thanks for saving us." The Miami Herald , and most U.S. news media, said the funeral ceremony (with honors) at the Marines who died for the fatherland. " In contrast, Panamanians never knew where their families were: the bodies were placed in plastic bags and thrown into the sea from helicopters to "depth charges" or buried in mass graves, to date, where they were unknown. In addition, villagers claim that they used "chemical weapons" because they lifted the bodies, the skin of the dead "seemed to gel." It is estimated that between seven and eight thousand dead
"Nobody was to collect one."
"The gravedigger, whom the Yankees paid him six dollars for each body to collect in the Central Headquarters, gave 1200 dollars ... How much comes out? "
" In these areas people know more about the nickname for their names and registered them, for example: Platero and his wife. "
In the "just cause" (as he called former President George Bush), involved about 40,000 troops by the United States, not counting mercenaries and "military" in Honduras and El Salvador. There are witnesses who confirmed the participation of Mexicans. The Panamanians had just four thousand people within their forces just days before the invasion, were disarmed by the attempted coup in October of that year. The weapons with which they tried to defend themselves were conventional and not comparing with the paraphernalia of tanks, helicopters and bombers.
In the first 12 hours of the invasion were released 417 high-power pumps (5 of 500 pounds), each oscillation was 1.7 on the Richter scale.
would in vain seek a summary or a narrative of what is said here. The story is of one who lives and not those who seek to impose, and the voices gathered here speak better than anyone else: themselves. Here it tells what happened as if it were happening at this very moment. This is so because the past is alive, as stated by the Uruguayan essayist Eduardo Galeano: "The divorce of the past and the present is so screwed up as the divorce of soul and body, consciousness and the act reason and the heart. "
twenty-three In 1964 boys were shot while trying to hoist the flag of Panama Panamanian soil. The commander of U.S. occupation forces declared proudly: "And only bullets used to hunt ducks." Today
Panamanian children placed flags on the ground while chanting: "The homeland is not for sale, the homeland is defended!"
If Basque time Núñez de Balboa was "shackled and stripped in the name of God "now done in the name of" democracy, freedom and modernity. "
In a video made by TV UNAM on the U.S. invasion of Panama, a very humble lady asked (or ask us?): "Justice for whom democracy for whom? "For those who are in a common grave or those in the current government? "For those who go hungry and misery or to those who have everything?"
In the same video, another woman approaches the U.S. military:
¬¬¬¬- And you want to say that they have been wrong informed because the life of any American or Panamanian here are caring, because just as they did this year of "escape ..."
- Who wants to talk? "Interrupts a soldier with despotic air.
"I want to talk," replies the woman, without letting him take the floor again. Because I have dual nationality and I say it is a fallacy ... -While he shows his credentials.
"You can talk to other people, we ... -With a sneer, "we are not willing to answer anything ...
- But what I want ...!
The soldier turns his back and shoulder someone subject before something worse happens. However, the lady reached the military and angry faces:
- What I want is that on television "my country" look, see that this is a lie, they are not protecting the life of any citizen here. This is a hospital and not yours, so they are violating the Torrijos-Carter treaties even if they say no!
The phrase "who forget their past are condemned to repeat it" is not just a warning, but the constant that is repeated like a punishment.
The reasons for the invasion (as usual) were economic.
All per channel
In the sixteenth century Philip II forbade any attempt to build the canal under penalty of death: "A man must not separate what God has joined."
In 1848, when gold was discovered in California, the Isthmus reacquired the commercial importance it had in the colonial era. U.S. companies due to the problems posed land transport, built the Panama Railroad which started until 1855. In that year the isthmus was built as a federal state with broad local autonomy.
The United States of Colombia created in 1863, the rulers of states received the title of president. From 1863 to 1866, followed twenty-six presidents as head of state and only four completed their period. With the Constitutional Charter of 1886 became the state centralism and became provinces of Colombia. In 1878, the Colombian government signed a contract with the engineer Lucien Bonaparte, nephew of the famous "Emperor of Europe", who finally handed over the award to the Inter-Oceanic Canal Company, led by Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps.
In 1880 work began, but a decade later, the administrative irregularities and yellow fever decimated the workers, led to the bankruptcy of the company amid an international uproar. Charles de Lesseps and his son were sentenced to prison for embezzlement. The sentence did not run and ended up paying a fine.
With just 33 kilometers built and without capital to continue the work, were offered the rights to the United States of America.
After lengthy negotiations, was signed in Washington on the Hay-Herran in January 1903, which in June was rejected by the Congress of Bogota.
The refusal of the Congress, formed a group led by José Agustín Arango to study plan and carry out "a revolution", which was aimed at separating the Isthmian territory of Colombian sovereignty and negotiate directly with the United States the construction of the canal. Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero traveled to the United States and returned to the isthmus with "assurances that that country would intervene in favor of the Revolution."
Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president, said that "war purifies the soul and improves the breed" as it was one of those men who do what they think, sent "a few Marines to realize the independence of Panama ". In 1912, Nobel Peace Prize, remembered aloud "as he had invented to Panama: I Took the Canal."
Proclaimed independence of Panama on November 3, 1903, several naval units prevented the United States, by order of President Roosevelt, the landing of Colombian troops in Panama and Colon. The Americans immediately recognized the new nation.
Manuel Amador, and president of Panama, American flags marched from the shoulders as he was led through the streets.
November 18, 1903 signed the Hay-Bunau-Rod in the White House, for which he gave a million Panama four hundred thousand square kilometers of its territory and control of the channel (in perpetuity) to the United States. On behalf of the newly formed republic was Varrilla Bunau-Philippe, a French citizen.
The incessant metaphor
According to authorities, the canal back to Panama domains before 2000.
Galeano is convinced that "history is a constant metaphor." Maybe that's why Neruda looking eyelashes burned most beautiful metaphors to bring you a "goose bumps" and sighs torn "longer than a freight train."
In school we learn to accept history as shown in books questioning is almost a crime. But now there's a story that not only questioned, but is rewritten. People have begun to rebuild, assumes and defends all you have: dignity. And it is this attitude, this resistance that creates books like this, written by many voices demanding their right to take into account the version of history. In addition to chronic voices, this is a picture book of stories that are, from fragments. A fragmented history in many stories, but not so divided.
The images are read and anecdotes film appear as small cuts that are intertwined with the memories of others without losing its own identity.
is a book of many a book to remember because the story is that, remember details, fragments, words ...
Meanwhile, the sea, women throw flowers in memory of their dead and it seems that the only permanent witness is this statue of Morelos, as guest of stone looks spend their days and nights and their people as if nothing had happened, looking at sea.
"The change is wanted, yes, but not that way."
"If Noriega was the target and knew that there was not, why destroyed (the district) The Chorrillo? We now know that they want to become tourist area in the area of \u200b\u200bforeign investment. "
" We will not rest until you know where are the mass graves, those garbage bags that look where our dead buried without Christian burial ".
"Now ... now I have no words to express what I feel ... "
August 1997
