THE PANAMA DECEPTION

US, 1992, 91 minutes, Colour.
Narrator: Elizabeth Montgomery.
Directed by Barbara Trent.

Oscar-winner for Best Documentary from 1992, well worth seeing.

Barbara Trent and associates have collected archive material and have conducted extensive interviews to give a political background to the invasion of Panama in December 1989. It is a disillusioning picture of American manipulation, the machinations of the CIA (and the involvement of President George Bush) and the brutality experienced by the population of Panama.

We are shown the history of Panama and American involvement with the canal, subsequent local unrest, the changes of government in the 1970s and 1980s and the role of General Noriega.

As a result of the invasion, US forces are to remain in the country after 1999 – a treaty signed by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s negotiated their withdrawal. Was the invasion staged to maintain this sphere of influence and was Noriega set up as one of the succession of demonised figures for American fear?

The film was made within only two years of the events, but it is a striking critique and, agree or disagree with its interpretation, is worth seeing as a powerful documentary.