World Continued from page 1 “The buggers, they sent flowers to several of the RUOG members. . .saying, ‘Your son had better pack up and get out, or you’re dead,”” Neish said. “On Thursday, we got a phone call again.- . Saying, ‘Didn’t you get our message?’ Minutes later, there was another message saying, “There’s a message at the door for you.” Neish said when he and another briga- dista went outside, they found leaflets “‘all over the street.” And they found a car parked across the entrance to the apartment building’s underground parking lot. The car, garishly painted, had a bomb taped to its hood. Firefighters arrived to clear the building, and a subsequent investi- gation found two more bombs inside the vehicle. They were told the bombs were “big enough to blow off the front of the build- ing,” Neish said. Because of the danger to families living at the apartment complex, the group moved to the most expensive and heavily guarded hotel in town. Again on Thursday, the group had another harrowing experience: a Holly- wood style car chase. “Tt was a red Toyota pickup, all polarized windshields, just like in the movies. He was barreling up behind us, so we got in amongst traffic. It was a two-way street with a median and we did a (U-turn). “We turned around and went back the other way, and I could see the guy hollering and shouting and swinging his wheel around. . .he crossed right over the median chasing us...and that slowed him down enough that we got back to home base before he could do anything.” On Friday night, four leaflet bombs exploded on the campus of San Carlos Uni- versity, apparently in retaliation for a rally of some 700 students the previous night, Neish reported. Neish said the experiences were not unexpected, noting that in February alone, B.C. unionist tells of death warnings more than 100 trade unionists and other activists were murdered, and close to 40 disappeared. Neish said he knew things were tense when Torres and the other leaders — who were used to routine death threats — appeared worried, particularly after the car bomb incident. Conversations were carried on in noisy places and conducted in whispers, he related. In a letter sent during that week to local supporters in Vancouver, Torres, a labour lawyer, gave the opinion that the death threats were not to be taken seriously. But later in that week she was telling Neish with concern that “things are fast falling apart” and that the delegations were considering seeking embassy protection. The delegates were later accorded police protection, which was ironic since many members of the death squads in Guatemala are off-duty policemen, Neish remarked. Reports say the coup attempt was a fail- ure. But Neish said its purpose was likely intended “to serve a petition on the Cerezo government” that the military was not pleased with the process of national reconci- liation. The Esquipulas II accord, also known as the Central American peace plan, was signed in 1987 by five countries: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica. It pledges mutual respect for national borders and sovereignty, and charges its signatories with improving human rights within their borders. In signing it, the five countries thumbed their noses at the Reagan administration, which had proposed a plan more favoura- ble to U.S. interests, and sent a message that Central American governments were reject- ing decades of control by Washington. Guatemala was ruled by a succession of military governments since a coup engi- neered by the Central Intelligence Agency toppled the country’s democratically elected government in 1954 on behalf of U.S. cor- porate interests. Kevin Neish shows reporters a copy of the death threat delivered to him in Guatem, Torres, a labour lawyer, was one the key leaders in the high-profile strike by Coca- Cola workers several years ago. She and her husband Enrique sought asylum in Canada shortly after, following death threats and assassination attempts. The coup attempt on May 8 makes it abundantly clear to the opposition that the three-year old right-wing Cerezo govern- ment is in office at the sufferance of a still powerful military. Last year Torres and others were briefly detained when they arrived in Guatemala for reconciliation talks, but were released after a few hours mainly because they were accompanied by international “witnesses” and the visit had caught world attention. U.S. actions step up the tension Tribune Combined Sources Panama remained in a state of tension this week as the U.S. continued its airlift of combat troops into the country amidst calls by U.S. Congressional leaders for military intervention and the abrogation of the Canal Treaty. Senators Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Connie Mack (R-Fla.), part of a 14-member team appointed by U.S. President George Bush to monitor the May 7 Panamanian elections returned from Panama May 9 to denounce the electoral fraud in the country and to press for intervention. “I believe the United States should now consider the use of force in Panama,” Gra- ham told reporters. Mack announced that he would intro- duce legislation into Congress to abrogate the 1978 treaty that will return the Panama Canal to Panama by 1999. “We cannot allow America’s canal in Panama to fall into the hands of a madman like Noriega,” he said. The threat of U.S. direct military action — to install a government. more in compliance with U.S. policy in the region — has hung over the country ever since the elections were nullified by the Elec- toral Tribunal amidst widespread charges of vote-rigging and fraud. The Council for Hemispheric Affairs, a think tank in Washington, reported earlier this month that the U.S. had contributed 8 « Pacific Tribune, May 22, 1989 NORIEGA BUSH . $10 million to the campaign by the opposi- tion group, the Civic Democratic Opposi- tion Alliance (ADOC), in the hope of -forcing Gen. Manuel Noriega from office. The election observation team sent by Bush had charged fraud even before the group landed in Panama and repeated the charge later to back claims that ADOC candidate had outvoted the candidate of the government coalition, the National Libera- tion Coalition(COLINA), by a three to one margin. Media reports throughout the USS. echoed the senators’ charge but few quoted exit polls provided by independent observers which showed a dramatically different result. The Spanish Institute of Public Opi- nion/Gallup, Spain’s exit poll conducted at all 1,941 voting centres in Panama, gave COLINA’s candidate Carlos Duque 50.9 per cent to 44.7 per cent for ADOC’s Guil- lermo Endara. That balance also bears out the political forces supporting COLINA which included the country’s trade union and peasant organizations. The U.S.-backed ADOC drew most of its support from the financial and corporate elite in the country. But behind much of the upheaval sur- rounding the elections are the workings of U.S. policy in the country, past and present. At stake is the control of the vital water- way and the military bases which are home to the U.S. Southern Command and give the U.S. the ability to move troops quickly throughout the region. Under the treaty signed by the Carter adminstration in 1978, control of the Panama Canal is to pass to Panama by 1999, but that treaty has been an irritant for Republican administrations ever since Reagan came into office in 1980. Central American solidarity groups also point out that the U.S. has had close ties to Gen. Noriega in the past through the CIA — but now wants him removed becuase of his defiance of U.S. policy and the independent direction struck by his country. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs cited Bush’s own ties to Noriega in the 1970s when Bush was CIA director, during which time the drug-running which is now the basis of U.S. indictments against Noriega, was likely first established. That “tainted in Panama Neish, who is secretary of the Victoria Labour Council’s international affair committee, said phone calls came in fron all over the world following news of the # bomb. He was replaced in his duties by a con gressman from Mexico. Torres is slated tq stay in Guatemala until the end of th month. # Neish, who was greeted with obviow relief by his wife and daughter at the ai said he would return to Guatemala if the occasion arose. “My mother and father fought fasceal during World War II, and they’re (the mil, itary and state apparatus) basically ia down there.” biases: a La hog relationship with Noriega compromises rs high moral road the Bush administration now wants to take,” the Council declared. The drug indictments against Noriega: the CIA financing of the opposition; the widespread charges of electoral fraud; and the saturation coverage in the U.S. media of electoral violence — all were intended to create instability within Panama itself and to help create a climate in the U.S. for inter- vention if necessary. The U.S. clearly hopes to remove Noriega and replace him with a U.S.-picked candidate, presumably from ADOC. Al though the Bush administration clearly wants to achieve that by political and diplomatic means, comments by Bush him- self indicate that military intervention remains one of the options. This week, Bush was able to get some diplomatic backing from the Organization of American States meeting in Washington May 17 which voted 20-2 to set up a three- member commission to draft measures that would “ensure the transfer of power with full respect for the sovereign will of the Panamanian people.” Nicaragua and Panama voted against the resolution while seven other nations abstained. But the lack of popular support for ADOC was demonstrated the same day as the ADOC’s call for general strike went virtually unheeded throughout the country.