[The 90’s raw : White House El Salvador protest – Larry Birns – Tony Stamp]

Part of the Global Perspectives on War and Peace Collection. Raw footage for The 90's. First segment is a protest at the White House over U.S. military intervention in El Salvador. The second and third segments are interviews with Larry Birns and Tony Stamp about the U.S. invasion of Panama.

00:00Copy video clip URL Section 1. White House protest. Opens to shot of protesters walking then setting up.

00:05Copy video clip URL Police officer instructing two protesters with a banner to either keep moving or to take down the banner they are holding. Camera pans to officer radioing in.

00:46Copy video clip URL Cut to protesters walking in an oval with posters.

01:05Copy video clip URL Cut to view of White House through bars, then protesters circling and chanting, “No more taxes, no more war, U.S. out of El Salvador.”

02:22Copy video clip URL Shot begins on a police officer outside the White House then zooms out from behind bars.

02:55Copy video clip URL Videomaker Eddie Becker asking a woman what the picture she is carrying is of. Woman says she assumes it’s someone murdered in El Salvador, but also says it was given to her and “there have been so many slaughtered.”

03:12Copy video clip URL Protesters continue walking and shouts calling for impeachment of government officials can be heard as well as, “Seventy-thousand dead or more? U.S. out of El Salvador.”

04:11Copy video clip URL Interview with Father Callahan explaining how the Jesuits have been persecuted by the right wing and the military as being the “intellectual authors” of social change in the country. Ten years prior all Jesuits were ordered out of the country, but the government was forced to back down after international pressure. The cause of this protest is the assassination of six priests and two co-workers.

05:07Copy video clip URL “I knew three of them.” Father Romero, Ignacio Martin-Barro, and Ingacio Ellacuria.

06:30Copy video clip URL Method of killing of Jesuits. At 2 am, 30 armed men dressed in military uniforms entered the compound, moved from room to room slowly, shot everyone inside the house (including the cook and her fifteen year old daughter), dragged them outside then shot them again. Heavy weaponry was used in the theological center, including a flame-thrower used to burn the typewriter and computer.

07:44Copy video clip URL Poster of Mrs. Ramos’ body.

08:26Copy video clip URL Poster of 71-year-old Father Lopez’s body.

08:58Copy video clip URL Father Callahan says the U.S. government protecting themselves from the fact that killings were done by soldiers supported by U.S. funds.

10:04Copy video clip URL Cut to one of the pillars on the outer fence of the White House covered in blood. Becker runs to Father Joe while he is being arrested and asks why he did it. “I did it because it represents the blood of the Jesuit martyrs and thousands of other martyrs in Latin America.”

11:22Copy video clip URL Shot of protesters laying on the ground covered with blood representing the seventy thousand people killed in El Salvador and the thirty-thousand people killed in Nicaragua. “The blood belongs to the White House!”

12:18Copy video clip URL Protesters chanting in Spanish.

12:59Copy video clip URL Cuts to protesters chanting, “The people united will never be defeated.” During this time police officers are moving “spectators” away from the protesters.

13:15Copy video clip URL A protester reads a prepared speech on this day being, “The vigil of the feast of the epiphany.”

15:12Copy video clip URL Press covering the event.

15:47Copy video clip URL Police begin moving cameramen and bystanders away from the protesters.

15:57Copy video clip URL A close up of the blood. The protesters begin shouting, “Freedom of the press!” beckoning them to come back despite police orders.

17:52Copy video clip URL The male protester resumes his speech.

18:42Copy video clip URL A police officer is taking pictures of the protesters from nearby.

20:30Copy video clip URL People exiting a tour of the building are escorted away from the protest. Protesters lying on the ground get up; a woman sings the third verse of a song she knows regarding martyrs for the protesters.

21:28Copy video clip URL Police officer forces Becker away until he presents his press credentials. While walking another man pushes the camera away from his direction.

22:00Copy video clip URL Begin interview about investigation. U.S. Embassy and Spanish Embassy made a show of the investigation. A female witness to the assassinations moved by F.B.I. to the U.S; supposedly forced her to retract her story under pressure.

24:17Copy video clip URL Witness of killings currently being treated well by Jesuits. Female pacifist worker in Nicaragua Jenifer Casolo was charged of having weapons buried in her backyard. Bush administration House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater stated that the case against her was very strong. Case thrown out for lack of evidence.

25:43Copy video clip URL William Callahan’s full title and the organizations he is involved with are stated. He is a Jesuit Priest, Co-director of the Quixote Center in Mt. Rania Maryland (a Roman-Catholic based justice group) and he also coordinates the Quest for Peace Campaign for Nicaragua.

26:55Copy video clip URL Cut to the area further back where the police had confined the press.

27:12Copy video clip URL Becker interviews elderly man and woman leaving tour with small children.

27:54Copy video clip URL Man leaving White House tour says, “Just another day in Hollywood. Becker continues to question people leaving the tour.

29:05Copy video clip URL Man asks as officer, “Am I being arrested?” Man is taken down and cuffed. “This is police brutality!” The man is dragged away to police cars.

30:36Copy video clip URL More footage of visitors leaving the tour.

31:21Copy video clip URL Another protester is seen being arrested.

31:44Copy video clip URL Police enforcing press lines.

31:32Copy video clip URL A woman comes over to the press and says Andres Tomas was name of the man arrested with only one warning, and was in the area of the protest for one minute. He was there to pass out fliers in regards to a fast.

33:05Copy video clip URL Zoom to protester resisting arrest initially, then being prepared to leave. Becker speaks to another visitor.

34:20Copy video clip URL Cut to multiple protesters in handcuffs being prepared to be moved. More visitors leaving.

36:16Copy video clip URL Interview of William Callahan by a reporter and cameraman.

38:07Copy video clip URL Camera people seen across the street.

38:20Copy video clip URL Becker asking channel 5 reporters if the story will run, and if the practice of keeping photographers and camera people farther away from the protesters than reporters is normal.

39:47Copy video clip URL A police officer specifies the exact line that Becker may not pass.

40:24Copy video clip URL Police photographing protester in handcuffs while he sits on the ground.

41:03Copy video clip URL Police remove the same protester’s shoelaces.

42:07Copy video clip URL A protester being searched.

43:09Copy video clip URL Cut to workers attempting to scrub the blood from one of the fence’s pillars.

43:53Copy video clip URL Protester non-violently resisting arrest.

44:21Copy video clip URL Sgt. Hall escorts Eddie Becker away while having a conversation.

44:55Copy video clip URL Section 2. Interview with Larry Birns.

45:19Copy video clip URL Birns has appeared on, and been interviewed by Bryant Gumble on Today, Peter Jennings on Good Morning America, Dan Rather, Nightline, the BBC.

46:16Copy video clip URL Becker asks, “How do they label you?” Taping stops while Birns is on the phone.

47:33Copy video clip URL “I’m part of the mopping up operation, so to speak. I think that the story has been disgracefully handled by the media.”

48:56Copy video clip URL “The only holdout in this whole story, with the exception of dissident journalists, are the talk show hosts.”

49:49Copy video clip URL “I had been to Panama fairly recently and I was perhaps the last American to have listened and spoken to Noriega. This was about four or five weeks ago.”

50:40Copy video clip URL On the second day of the invasion, the Council On Hemispheric Affairs, of which Birns is the director, came out against it.

51:37Copy video clip URL “Surely Noriega was not a person who should be running a country but it’s the responsibility of the Panamanian people to get rid of Noriega, and not the United States government.”

52:00Copy video clip URL “See Eddie, it’s not like the old days when you and I were knock-arounds and I’m a star now, and as a star you need to be tough minded.”

52:22Copy video clip URL “What is the United States Exporting?”

53:10Copy video clip URL Government in Panama installed at the price of ten million dollars from the CIA.

54:13Copy video clip URL “If a foreign country similarly behaved in the United States that would be a violation of U.S. electoral law. No foreign entity can contribute funding to a U.S. political campaign.”

54:45Copy video clip URL The Carter administration attempted to redefine relations in Latin America based on the respect for human rights and a call for democracy. During Regan a number of paper democracies exist that aren’t respected by the U.S. Latin Americans and their governments won’t speak out against the Bush administration because of it’s economic leverage over the region as a result of the crushing debt problem in Latin America and the need for U.S. goodwill to address the problem.

56:40Copy video clip URL A plan for the invasion of Panama during the Regan administration proposed in 87-88, vetoed. With Cheney, Colin Powell and more political personalities, a “convergence of events” was all that was required for justification of an invasion.

58:02Copy video clip URL A U.S. college student was killed on the first day of the invasion for running a U.S. checkpoint in the same manner that a U.S. officer and his colleagues were killed for running a Panamanian.

58:34Copy video clip URL Section 3. Interview with Tony Stamp.

59:01Copy video clip URL Stamp attended University of Maryland studying international politics, centering on Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Also a Panamanian.

59:40Copy video clip URL Feels the Panamanian invasion was illegal, that the U.S. tried to commit genocide, violated international and Panamanian laws.

1:00:04Copy video clip URL The re-negotiation of the Panama Canal Treaty a Bush goal in bad faith. Four years of disinformation, U.S attempts at destabilization of Panamanian economy and political system by multiple methods.

1:01:06Copy video clip URL Illegitimate government in office has more political prisoners than under Noriega influenced regime. Police stealing money, raiding houses, using phone taps.

1:02:10Copy video clip URL During Noriega people still spoke out against the regime.

1:02:38Copy video clip URL Stamp’s solutions include new elections, an accurate count of casualties and the dead, between one or two billion dollars in reparations for multiple causes. The U.S. should immediately leave the country. Stamp compares what the U.S is doing in Panama to how schools in the U.S. portray Russia.

1:04:16Copy video clip URL “To misinform the American people is even more dangerous because if you lie to them now, when will the American people know your telling the truth?”

1:04:42Copy video clip URL At

11:30Copy video clip URL troops mobilized in North Carolina the night before the invasion. Stamp followed the T.V. news and his short wave radio until 5 am. Stamp didn’t expect thirty thousand troops to be used in Panama with a population of half a million people. Also never expected the stealth bomber would be used.

1:06:04Copy video clip URL Reporting done from the Marriot, located in an upper class neighborhood, on the first day of the invasion 5 miles away from fighting.

1:06:56Copy video clip URL “I find (the press coverage) atrocious.” After three days still no coverage of bombings, dead Panamanians, hospitals, morgues, anyone opposed to the invasion.

1:08:05Copy video clip URL U.S. didn’t participate in the October coup d’etat for fear of an uncontrollable leader. Coup led by a Major of the Panamanian Defense Forces.

1:09:09Copy video clip URL “The canal was never threatened at any time. U.S. citizens were not threatened at any time. We have over twenty thousand U.S. retired citizens living within the Panamanian population. None of them were hurt.”

1:09:30Copy video clip URL Stamp reflects upon the racial makeup of Panama and its misrepresentation politically and economically. Believes that the Panamanian government does not represent actuality of majority of citizens.

1:14:34Copy video clip URL Land reform and education discussed. Panama has a public and a private university, and over 95% literacy across the country.

1:15:30Copy video clip URL Footage of people welcoming the U.S. is taken in upper class neighborhoods. “These are the people who lost political power and now have had it handed back to them.”

1:17:01Copy video clip URL All countries have corruption and scandals. “[White collar criminals] do more damage on the stroke of a pen, and they steal more money, than any other government that’s been in power since 1968.”

1:18:01Copy video clip URL Stamp believes that the case against Noriega lacks credibility because it was brought together from convicted felons. “I know he is no angel, but he is not the monster, or the Ayatollah, or the Hitler, you try to make him.”

1:19:02Copy video clip URL “France helped the United States get its independence. Should France come and tell you how to follow your constitution? No.”

1:19:30Copy video clip URL “This would have been our true independence. We have always been a colonial dominated power, and we needed to do it ourselves.”

1:20:12Copy video clip URL “(Noriega) was a symbol, to some Panamanians, of self-determination.” Most people resisting are nationalists opposing any foreign invaders coming in.

1:21:37Copy video clip URL Political opponents under Noriega were able to go on Nightline and speak against him, free to go about their lives.

1:22:18Copy video clip URL New regime under Endara destroyed the judicial system by firing all judges, including the supreme court judges. They dissolved the police force and PDF.

1:22:57Copy video clip URL “You cannot install democracy.”

1:24:00Copy video clip URL “Someone has to talk out. The people in Panama cannot speak right now. I’m not saying that I’m a spokesman for the opposition to Endara in Panama, but I am for fairness.”

1:24:55Copy video clip URL Disinformation and psychological warfare being used by the U.S. Every form of media in Panama is being censored.

1:26:22Copy video clip URL During the last four years of Noriega there were less than twenty political prisoners. The U.S. has killed more people than every regime in Panama’s history.

1:28:05Copy video clip URL “Maybe it was my naivete, but I didn’t expect the United States to be this ruthless on a peaceful population. I did not expect this.”

1:28:39Copy video clip URL Noriega’s supposed CIA ties discussed; Stamp is skeptical. Panamanians aren’t allowed to leave the country without first moving through U.S. checkpoints, and only individuals present on a list are free to leave.

1:31:34Copy video clip URL “Just like you defended your country against the Japanese attack and you did not like it, you should not invade another country. American lives were not threatened.”

1:32:18Copy video clip URL “This shit was your Gulf of Tonkin.”

1:33:23Copy video clip URL “Tell me the difference in what you did in my country and what Russia did in Kabul Afghanistan, or anywhere Russia has gone in. This was a lawless act.”

1:34:23Copy video clip URL The U.S. bombardment of misinformation and propaganda.

1:35:42Copy video clip URL “There’s racism on both sides.” White enclaves were not touched.

1:36:54Copy video clip URL “Noriega was not extradited to this country, he was kidnapped.” Stamp’s speculation on the upcoming trial explored.

1:37:55Copy video clip URL “Do you think Colonel North could get a fair trial in Nicaragua if [they] charged him with gun running?”

1:38:15Copy video clip URL Stamp’s opinion on the upcoming election.

1:39:47Copy video clip URL Estimates of up to thirty million dollars of foreign money to be used by specific candidates exists.

1:40:14Copy video clip URL “Democracy means anything that the public wants in Panama if it’s done fairly.”

1:41:01Copy video clip URL “Panama does not produce, make, or manufacture drugs. We do not have a problem.” Money laundering and banking is discussed.

1:42:30Copy video clip URL “Endara’s closest business partner is right now on an eight million dollar bond in Georgia for bringing in six hundred kilo’s of cocaine. Their families, their closest associates, their business partners are all involved in drugs.”

1:42:56Copy video clip URL Stamp returns to speaking about the country’s drug issues and possible solutions.

1:44:26Copy video clip URL Watching a report showing the U.S. “quite a few times provoked, or tried to provoke Panamanians.”

1:45:00Copy video clip URL Since May 1988 U.S. provocations increased. The incident that occurred in the video on November twentieth and twenty first, a month before the invasion. Video played at various points.

1:46:59Copy video clip URL A man in the video was a commando in the dignity battalion, but also had a PhD in economics. It was reported to Stamp that he was killed in the fighting.

1:47:32Copy video clip URL Shaky footage of the video on the television. Stamp singles out Carlos Dukey, head of the PRD party, the opposition to Endara in the election.

1:49:51Copy video clip URL The Panamanian Dignity Brigade was formed because they knew that the Panamanian Defense Forces alone could not defend Panama against any foreign invader as great as the United States.

1:50:30Copy video clip URL Stamp explains why he is not fearful of speaking out.

1:51:36Copy video clip URL Cut to footage of stamp explaining how the Dignity Battalion is similar to a militia.

1:52:38Copy video clip URL Stamp relays his experience of traveling to Kobe beach and being stopped twice by camouflaged U.S. soldiers and tanks. These types of events occurred for two years before the invasion ever took place.

1:53:47Copy video clip URL The Prime Minister is interviewed on the tape.

1:54:41Copy video clip URL The same “video special report” just shown is replayed, but full-screen with clear narration.

2:03:29Copy video clip URL End of tape.

 

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