76-02-A2
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Panama's Press[edit]
Transcript[edit]You can't judge a book by its cover, and in some countries you can't judge what's going on with the press coverage. I'll be right back. Every few days, an English language summary of the press of the Republic of Panama crosses my desk, often with some actual clippings of stories in Spanish for further reference. If you read this with no knowledge of the situation you'd believe that all Panamanians think as one, that they are solidly behind military strong man Omar Torrijos, that every man, woman and child considers the American presence in the Canal Zone an imperialist intrusion and that it's high time the United States gave back the Canal to Panama, though this would be impossible semantically since the Canal never did belong to Panama. You come away from these press reports convinced that the entire republic of some one and a half million persons is obsessed with the idea of taking control of the canal. Reviews of plays, movies and books all seem to revolve around the theme. Engineering conferences are called to insist that Panama is capable of running the Canal complex tomorrow morning, if necessary. Visitors from other countries extol Torrijos' virtues and what is usually referred to as "the struggle to oust the so-called colonial power." Torrijos scoots off to international conferences in distant lands to drum up support. The most recent was a convocation of third world countries in Sri Lanka. As I said, if you knew nothing else about the subject you'd come away from a stack of these clippings thinking that Torrijos was universally loved by his people and his positions were wildly popular, but there's a clinker. The press of Panama isn't free to print what it wants. It's controlled by the government, both the English and Spanish language newspapers. It's been that way for eight years since Torrijos and the National Guard overthrew the elected government. It's probably just as well for Torrijos that he censors the press for if he didn't some bold writer might start demanding that free elections be held in Panama. Torrijos hasn't allowed any election since he came to power. Despite his control of the press however Torrijos is finding that all is not well in his propaganda paradise. Torrijos, who until recently talked coily of not being able to keep Panama's ardent students from invading the canal zone unless we turned it over, is now finding that quite a few of the students have something else in mind. Beginning with high school students on September 10th, demonstrations have been mounted in protest of increased food prices. A few days later, university students joined them, throwing rocks at National Guardsmen who fired tear gas at them and hit some with rubber truncheons. Though U.S. press reports of the ongoing demonstrations have been brief, visitors back from Panama say that dictator Torrijos has some real trouble on his hands and that the picture there is far different from what the press of Panama portrays. Another reason to read between the lines. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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