covert operation panama and nicaragua

In the 1950's, the repression of domestic political dissent reached nearhysteria. In the process the CIA's covert operations, already in progress inEurope, expanded worldwide. By 1953, according to the 1970's Senateinvestigation, there were major covert programs under way in 48 countries,consisting of propaganda, paramilitary, and political action operations. In1949, the agency's covert action department had about 300 employees and 47stations. In the same period, the budget for these activities grew from $4.7million to $82 million. In this paper I will discuss the United States' use ofcovert actions using Panama and Nicaragua as examples. I had planned onwriting my paper on Manuel Noriega and his connections with the CIA butthe more I read into him I found the major topic outlying him was much moreinteresting. So with that I will continue on with this paper showing myfindings on the CIA and thier covert operations. Covert operations have become a way of life and death for millions ofpeople world wide who have lost their lives to these actions. By 1980, covertoperations were costing billions of dollars. CIA Director William Casey wasquoted as saying "covert actions were the keystone of U.S. policy in theThird World."(Agee, 2) Throughout the CIA's 45 years, one president afteranother has used covert operations to intervene secretly, and sometimes notso secretly , in the domestic affairs of other countries, presuming their affairswere ours. Almost always, money was spent for activities to prop uppolitical forces considered friendly to U.S. interests, or to weaken and destroythose considered unfriendly or threatening. The friends were easy to define, they were those who believed andacted like us, took orders and cooperated. Until the collapse of communismin Eastern Europe, enemies were also readily recognized: the Soviet Union Higgins 2and its allies, with China having ambiguous status since the 1970's. Butthere were other countries the CIA took actions against who were notassociated with the Soviets. Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia in1958, Cuba in 1959, Ecuador in 1963, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1970,Nicaragua in 1979 and Grenada in 1983 to name a few.(Agee, 2) Thesegovernments, and others attacked by the U.S., were left, nationalist,reform-minded, populist or uncooperative and U.S. hostility drove some ofthem to seek arms and other support from the Soviet Union. Usually, theCIA mounted covert operations to weaken and destroy the programssupporting communism by leading and advertising anti-Communistsolidarity. The local elites, whose privileged position was also threatened bymovements for social change, were the CIA's natural allies.(Agee, 3) Formore in-depth examples, I will look at some covert operations in the 1980's. Central America was a major focus of U.S. attention during the1980's. Through CIA covert and semi-covert operations, the U.S. triedsimultaneously to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and to destroy themovement for revolutionary reform in El Salvador. In Nicaragua the meanswere terrorism and destruction through a 10,000 man paramilitary force,along with a economic blockade, propaganda and diplomaticpressures.(Stiles, 346) About 1% of the population, some 35,000 people,died. In El Salvador, the CIA an U.S. military expanded local military andsecurity forces, and with the use of death squads, the U.S backed forceskilled over 70,000 people. Although they targeted trade unionists, studentactivists, human rights advocates and peasant organizers, the majority of thedeaths were killed to instill terror. The CIA in El Salvador useddemonstration elections as public relations exercises to cover their atrocities. Higgins 3The military controlled civilian government could then be renamed a"democracy". In the 1980's, in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, the U.S. introduceda new way for exporting U.S style democracy, the National Endowment forDemocracy(NED). The NED allowed money to flow from the CIA to abogus foundation, then to U.S. private organizations like the NationalStudent Association(NSA), and from there to a foreign government. Themoney was to flow to foundations that were fighting the "global ideologicalchallenge." The projected beneficiaries were governments, political parties,media, universities, trade unions, churches and employer associations, alltraditional CIA covert action targets.(Agee, 5) In the Soviet Bloc, the NEDmoney would be used to promote anti-Communist dissidence throughpropaganda and would support internal opposition programs. The NED wasalso used as a way to spot potential recruits as sources of intelligence andagents of influence. Panama was an early example of political intervention through theNED. In the 1984 election, General Manuel Noriega selected an economist,Nicholas Barletta, as the presidential candidate for the military controlledDemocratic Revolutionary Party(PRD). The U.S. feared that, if elected,Barletta and his anti-military platform would bring instability to Panama. The U.S. interest was to ensure that a new Panamanian president wouldcontinue to cooperate with U.S. efforts to overthrow the Sandinistagovernment in Nicaragua and to defeat the insurgency in El Salvador. Noriega, a long-time CIA "asset", was at the time providing services of greatimportance to the U.S., allowing Panama to be used for Contra training andsupply bases, as well as for training Salvadoran military Higgins 4officers.(Kinsley,46) Barletta's election would ensure untroubledcontinuation of these activities. During the election campaign, the NEDpassed money through the Free Trade Union to finance Panamanian unionswhich actively supported Barletta. The vote count fraud organized byNoriega gave Barletta his election victory, but the Reagan-Bushadministration made no protest even though the U.S. Embassy count showedArias the winner by 8,000 votes.(Kinsley, 46) Reagan received Barletta in the White house and Shultz attended hisinauguration. A more thorough study of the 1984 Panamanian electionswould probably uncover more NED money and showed that the CIA fundedthe victory. By 1987, Noriega's usefulness to the U.S. was coming to an end. A military mission went under way for his indictment by the JusticeDepartment for drug trafficking and the CIA began to plot his removal frompower.(Kinsley, 47) The lesson of the Noriega saga seem very clear. TheBush justification of the invasion to combat drug trafficking and bringNoriega to justice could not be the real reason because the CIA and otheragencies had known of his drug dealing since the early 1970's. The realreasons were that Noriega was no longer needed for support of U.S. goals inNicaragua and El Salvador and it was Noriega himself that was becoming thesource of instability in Panama. Using Noriega as a pretext for invasion, theBush administration could destroy the Panamanian Defense Forces andreverse the social reforms favoring the poor majority.(Kinsley, 48) This keepthe door open to the U.S. to retain its military bases and control of thePanama canal past the 1999 turnover date set by the Carter - Torrijos treaties.On the night of the invasion, Guillerma Endara, was sworn in as President ona U.S. military base and democracy was restored. Within a short period of Higgins 5time, the drug dealing and money laundering in Panama would exceeded thatof the Noriega period(Kinsley, 48) A military force was also required to " restore democracy" inNicaragua. In this case, however, the invasion was carried out by a surrogatearmy of 10,000 contras built by the CIA around the remnants of the 43-yearold Somoza dictatorship's National Guard, itself a U.S. creation.(Agee, 7) Beginning in 1981, through terrorism and destruction, this force graduallybled the economy, undermined the Sandinista social programs, anddemoralized the a large sector of the population which had supported therevolution. By 1990, faced with nothing but worsening poverty andcontinuing terror, the Nicaraguan electorate gave the victory to theNicaraguan Opposition Union (NOU). This anti-Sandinista coalition wascreated and financed by various U.S. agencies, including the CIA and theNED. In order to undermine links between the Sandinistas and the people,the CIA deflected the Contras away from the Nicaraguan military toward"soft" targets having minimum defenses: clinics, schools, infrastructure likeroads and bridges. They also destroyed port installations and mined harbors. As a result, average individual consumption dropped 61% between 1980 and1988. On estimate puts the U.S. investment in the Contra war at $1billion.(Agee, 7) Though the Contras successfully sabotaged the economyand terrorized large sectors of the rural population, they failed to defeat theSandinista military or even take and hold the smallest town for any length oftime. Meanwhile, the U.S. economic blockade cost the economy $3 billion. Another very popular covert action that the CIA is guilty of is that of thepropaganda war. Higgins 6 From the beginning of the war against Nicaragua, the Reagan-Bushadministration faced the problem of overcoming public opposition at home. The solution was to repeat Edward W. Barrett's 1950 domestic propagandacampaign to "sell the soviet threat" . In 1982, Walter Raymond, moved fromthe Agency to the National Security Council to head the campaign while theContras, under CIA direction, began their own PR campaign in the U.S. Apublic office was set up in the State Department as the Office of PublicDiplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean and the man behind thescenes was Raymond. The office then handled the contacts with think tanks,researchers and media. The purpose was to place, in the public'simagination, black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on theContras.(Agee, 8) In effect, it became a huge government campaign usingtaxpayer money to propagandize the same taxpayers and their representativesin Congress. By 1987, it was clear that, although they could continue toterrorize and destroy infrastructure, the Contras could never win a militaryvictory. So the CIA needed a way to mobilize a large propaganda war todivide the Sandinistas and the 3.5 million Nicaraguan's A U.S. plan called for mobilizing three main bodies, a politicalcoalition to oppose the Sandinistas, a trade union coalition, and a mass civicorganization. The most important part of the propaganda campaign would bethe use of the media operations. The first group that was targeted was thepolitical coalition in Nicaragua. The operation was to use the U.S. Embassyin Managua and let it be known to about two dozen disparate factions thatmoney would be available only to those that "got on board".(Agee, 8) Theresult was UNO, whose electoral budget was prepared in the U.S. Embassy, Higgins 7and whose presidential candidate, Violets Chamorro, owned theanti-Sandinista daily La Prensa, which had received money from the CIA. The second operation involved the labor coalition which was called thePermanent Workers Congress(CPT). This organization, crucial to using theeconomic crisis as a principal campaign issue, grouped five union centers forpropaganda and voter registration. Some of these unions had also receivedprior U.S. funding. The NED spent at least $12.5 million to finance thiselection in Nicaragua but the NED spent upwards of $2 billion in the totalU.S. intervention. Most of that $2 billion was spent on an array ofintermediary organizations in the U.S. and other countries that spent it forprograms in training, propaganda and support of the coalitions. The CIA, inaddition, is estimated to have spent $11 million, possibly even more, in thesefraudulent elections.(Agee, 9) Even though the U.S. has been easy to spotbehind these covert operations, it seems that the CIA does not plan anytimesoon to abort with future actions. The 1993 U.S. defense plan, at $1.5 trillion for the next five years,suggests that the money will be there for covert interventions. The Bush plancalled for a 3% reduction in defense spending under the projections madebefore the dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to the then Director ofCentral Intelligence, Robert Gates, reductions in the intelligence communitybudget hidden in the overall defense budget but generally believed to be inexcess of $31 billion will begin at only 2.5%.(Wilson) Meanwhile plansunder discussion in Congress for reorganizing the whole intelligencecommunity would maintain the capability and legality, under U.S. law tocontinue covert operations. The Defense Department, CIA and other Higgins 8intelligence agencies have had to make new justifications for their budgetsnow that the Soviet menace is gone. The worldwide opportunities and needs for covert operations willremain as long as stability, control and authority form the cornerstone of aU.S. policy that permits it. In fact, Congress passed the National securityEducation Act in 1991, providing $150 million in "start up" money fordevelopment and expansion of university programs in area and languagestudies, and for scholarships, including foreign studies, for the nextgeneration of national security state bureaucrats.(Wilson) The notable fact isthat this program is not to be administered by the Department of Educationbut by the Pentagon, the CIA, and other security agencies. Alternatives tocontinuing militarism abroad and social decay at home still exist. Yetmilitarism and world domination continue to be the main national priority,with covert operations playing an integral role. Everyone knows that as longas this continues, there will be no solutions to domestic troubles, and the U.S.will continue to decline while growing more separate and unequal. The U.S.government has no "red menace" to whip up hysteria, but the war on drugsseems to be quite adequate for justifying law enforcement practices that havepolitical applications as well. The U.S. should note that in the currentpolitical climate, with clamor for change everywhere, the guardians oftraditional power will not give up without a fight. The CIA will find theirnew "threats" and "enemies" in black youths, undocumented immigrants,environmentalists, feminists, gays and lesbians and go on to more"mainstream" opponents in attempts, including domestic covert operations, todivide and discredit the lager movement for reform. Covert Operations: Panama and Nicaragua Works CitedAgee, Philip. Covert Action Quarterly. Washington D.C. 1991.Kinsley, Michael. Time. We Shoot People Don't We. October 23, 1989. Time Warner. Stiles, Kendall. Case Histories in International Politics. Harper Collins Publishers, New York 1995Wilson, Catherine. The Philadelphia Inquirer. New trial is ruled for Noriega. March 28, 1996. . attempts, including domestic covert operations, todivide and discredit the lager movement for reform. Covert Operations: Panama and Nicaragua Works CitedAgee, Philip. Covert Action Quarterly the CIA and thier covert operations. Covert operations have become a way of life and death for millions ofpeople world wide who have lost their lives to these actions. By 1980, covertoperations. examples, I will look at some covert operations in the 1980's. Central America was a major focus of U.S. attention during the1980's. Through CIA covert and semi -covert operations, the U.S. triedsimultaneously