33 years after US invasion and still no Panamanian  body count

The United States invasion of Panama – which that country called “Just Cause” – took place 33 years ago today. It was a military action to capture the dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega and, at the same time, put an end to a military regime that by then had been in power for 21 years, and whose generals illegitimately took turns running the country through puppet presidents. 

Undoubtedly, the events surrounding the invasion: the dictatorship, and the deaths of hundreds of Panamanians is a drama that should be approached from an academic point of view, since our youth must know all the facts, not only because it is recent, but because the Panama of today is the product, to a large extent, of everything that happened in that dictatorship, the invasion and the events that we have experienced since then, whether for better or for worse. And it is reprehensible that all the governments that succeeded each other after the invasion have not been interested in establishing exactly how many Panamanians died. 

It is also reprehensible that these facts are ignored by the academy, without giving the new generations the opportunity to learn about and analyze everything that this meant for the country. And that is a great debt to those who did not experience the horror of these events but live with their consequences. – LA PRENSA, Dec.20. 

Conflicting stats

The brutal military operation resulted in up to 3,000 civilian and military victims. Many of the bodies remained unidentified after being burnt and piled up in the streets.

Different parties report vastly different statistics, highlighting the need for a thorough investigation even 33 years after the fact. While the U.S. military estimates just 202 Panamanian civilians were killed in the invasion, the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in Central America claims the figure is vastly higher at between 2,500 and 3,000 people killed.