OPINION: Remembering a Panama dictator

OPINION: Remembering a  Panama dictator

Hoyporhoy La Prensa, May 20

THEDEFENSE lawyer of former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega has requested the replacement of imprisonment by house arrest.

The arguments   outlined in favor are: the advanced age of the accused and the presence of a tumor in his brain. As has been usual in similar efforts, the petition and the statements reported in the media, humanitarian language is used, calling for better treatment of a person of 82 years who wants to spend the latter part of his life with his family.

However, there is no recognition of the suffering of victims and their families, and the need for Panamanian society to know the truth about one of the darkest periods of our history.

The wounds are still open, deepened by the invasion of 1989, which caused more pain and death for Panamanian households.

Without a full and complete confession, accompanied by sincere repentance, the words invoking f mercy sound like empty phrases, which serve as a strategy to benefit the tyrant, and seal that chapter of the life of the country’s republic with an epilogue of impunity. Although we may forgive, to forget is prohibited.