In the last issue we published a brief news item along with
the text of an ad in which the US Southern Command was looking for a civilian
contractor to fly personnel, helicopter parts and other supplies to primitive
airstrips in, among other places Colombia. In that story and in our editorial,
we characterized those operations as support for Plan Colombia.
Prior to publishing the story and editorial, we contacted
the US Embassy to talk about it, and they did not respond. After we published
the story, La Prensa ran a story which didn't quote the ad, but in which the
Southern Command insisted that the operations taking place out of Tocumen
"have nothing to do with Plan Colombia. We also received an angry and accusatory
email from the US Embassy, which still has never responded to our questions.
The gist of the Southern Command and US Embassy story is
that the Southern Command has been using Tocumen Airport as a base for flights
by civilian contractors, in this case Evergreen Helicopters of Alaska, supporting
military missions all over Latin America since 1997. As with US policy in
Colombia itself, where the US government has hired "civilian" mercenaries
to carry out military missions, we were assured by both the US and Panamanian
governments (the latter by way of the foreign minister's comments published
in El Panama America) that the operations in Tocumen are by definition not
military and moreover private corporate matters that are none of the American
or Panamanian peoples' business. Moreover, SouthCom claimed, the planes fly
in and out of Panama empty.
Within a couple of days, the Embassy was backtracking on
the US Southern Command's claim that the operations at Tocumen "have nothing
to do with Plan Colombia," with the chargé d'affaires now claiming
that the flights "don't necessarily" have anything to do with Plan Colombia.
Following are some of the letters and emails we have received
about the matter:
US Embassy complains
Your editorial last week regarding the rebidding of an established
air transport contract generated a good deal of local interest and a follow-up
story by Betty Brannan in today's La Prensa. Betty's story, in my judgement,
is largely accurate and balanced, though as I told her, the front page banner
headline is provocative and misleading. But I draw your attention to the facts
of the case in Betty's account, as expressed by the USSOUTHCOM public affairs
officer. Your own editorial might have benefited greatly from such prior consultation
either with SouthCom or the embassy. Our policy is to be as open and thorough
with the media as our own sources allow, and I encourage you to contact us
more regularly before airing stories or opinions that may be incomplete or
misinformed.
Donald E. Terpstra
Public Affairs Officer
US Embassy Panama
Response to the embassy's complaint
Dear Mr. Terpstra,
I CONTACTED THE US EMBASSY LAST WEEK A FEW DAYS BEFORE MY THING
RAN, AND RECEIVED NO RESPONSE. Check with Judy Salazar De Leon if you must.
I will not allow the US Embassy to keep things out of print by stonewalling.
I have a very hard time believing that the US Southern Command
flies empty planes in and out of Panama. If that is the case, then you really
do owe the public an explanation about why your government is wasting money.
But really, the SouthCom guy lies like a rug, or else the ad itself is a lie.
Eric Jackson
Is you IS, or is you AIN'T?
Dear Mr. Terpstra:
Eric Jackson shared with some of his readers and friends your
e-mail of this morning and his response, prompting me to reread his editorial,
the ad, and Betty Brannan's story. The ad did say, after all, that DoD was
looking for somebody to fly between Honduras and Colombia (which somebody
misspelled, but no matter), with Panama as a base. And we do know that Honduras
was one of several alternatives to Panama selected as a fallback when negotiations
in Panama broke down. This is all on the public record. Eric doesn't seem
to have much evidence that the planes are flying personnel and matériel
into and out of Panama on their way to Colombia as part of El Plan by that
name, as he surmises, but even so, a US military agency is contracting to
run an air service into and out of Panama that is delivering something or
picking up something in Colombia. (That's what the ad said, unless they mean
the District of Columbia, which is how they spelled it or Eric transcribed
it.)
Betty Brannan merely reports that some spokesman told her the
flights were "routine" and that the planes going into and out of Panama are
empty. I have no doubt Betty Brannan, a capable and honorable reporter and
attorney, reported exactly what she was told, but the fact that flights are
"routine" doesn't say very much, does it? Hardly "contundente," as they say
in Spanish. (As to the headline, reporters don't write them, and the press
officer of the US Embassy in Panama should know that newspapers there are
not independent in the same sense as in some other countries; they represent
political factions, and La Prensa just changed its faction to one that is
likely to make much of a newly uncovered US operation, as you well know.).
The real question is this: isn't Eric correct that flying planes
into and out of Panama with nothing in them seems implausible, or at least
a colossal waste of money? And even if empty, they are still using Panama
as a staging point for something that goes from Honduras to Colombia or vice
versa. I don't see that La Prensa's story answers any fundamental questions
at all, though I can see why you might like it.
Given the fact the US government and the Panamanian government
both claim that there are no US military operations in Panama, it seems to
me Eric is raising — in his own truculent way — legitimate questions.If
either or both the governments are dissembling, it's Eric Jackson's job to
raise the question, isn't it? I am no expert on the CIA, for that matter,
but didn't I read somewhere that Evergreen Airlines was either owned by, or
contracted primarily by, the CIA.? If that is true--I genuinely can't remember,
but it shouldn't be hard to check, easier for you than for me, if you don´t
know already — then all the more reason to believe that the planes are
flying SOMETHING into and out of Colombia, FOR the US government, with Panama
as their base. If its Leche Klim, terrific, but it doesn't seem likely.
I was a press secretary for the one of the three statewide
elected officials in New York State for 6 years (New York has about 12 times
the population of Panama), and I would have been fired for responding to a
provocative editorial by saying only that it "MAY be incomplete or misinformed,"
or merely by saying that another paper had reported that according to somebody
"it's just routine, don't worry about it." My job would have been to show
HOW, if indeed it was, incomplete or misinformed, to make sure that my office
HAD responded in a responsible way to inquiries made before the editorial
was written, and to put the issue in a context that would show my principal
was complying with the law and prudent public policy. In short, make the guy
look good.
Why don't you give it a shot? Shooting the messenger won't
help anybody.
David M. Fishlow
A DC resident who also lives in Chiriqui
Embassy's response explained
I frankly don't believe the Embassy is or has been trying to
keep things out of print by stonewalling. I suspected and then heard that
they did not know. When I first saw on Zonelink the brief reference to the
Commerce Business Daily ad (two days before you posted your editorial and
the text of the ad), I tried to reach the ad using the link given, but it
did not work. When I saw your editorial, I thought of mentioning to you that
I felt the ad was most likely nothing nefarious but could be referring to
an ongoing or previous contract that was announced without coordination (heaven
forbids, but that does happen occasionally). So I tried to find out details
from the Southern Command, but the absence to date of any response from Miami
direction (nor from the contractor at the US Air Mobility Command,) reinforces
my feeling that retired press officers are have-beens. That feeling was further
reinforced even more when I saw a SouthCom spokesman cited in Betty Brannan's
article in today's La Prensa.
Nevertheless, it is disconcerting that an apparent lack of
communications (?) and coordination on appropriate wording for a previously
used ad before republishing it in the Commerce Business Daily for rebidding
(the lack of coordination between SouthCom J-4/Logistics and its Public Affairs
Directorate? or between SouthCom and the contracting officer? or no coordination
with the Embassy?) has led to such media speculation. At the risk of sounding
naive, I will say it was probably just that and not anything like SouthCom
trying to keep something from the public in this matter. Does that apply to
the Panamanian government in perhaps not being forthcoming? Hmmm; I will pass
on that for the time being. Still it is troubling — at least to me —
that someone(s) up north may not be sensitive enough as to what was considered
routine before 1999 (when we had an airbase here) can be necessarily considered
so after December 1999 here in Panama, particularly in view of the xenophobic
(read gringo) attitude that seems to be prevalent in some sectors here for
the past year or so.
Having said that, I assume (after reading the La Prensa article)
that the reason for flying civilian contractor aircraft in and out of Tocumen
without US troops is probably to preclude perceptions that they are part of
some US military operation being staged from Panama. I just wonder why those
contractor aircraft are not parked on the US-leased half of the Honduran Soto
Cano Air Base and forget about Panama altogether.
Bill Ormsbee
Privatization of war is the real problem
I see the Commerce Business Daily announcement as part of a
larger trend to privatize military operations. This privatization makes operations
less accountable to the US public that pays for them and less visible to Latin
American countries where they are carried out. The examples of Dyncorp and
other companies in Colombia are well known. Going to the web-site in which
the April 4 announcement was made, I came across extensive information about
the process of contracting the operation of the Forward Operating Locations
in Ecuador, Aruba, and Curacao (and a little on the one in El Salvador, but
that's Navy-run). Even the "Host Nation Riders," those Latin American nationals
who accompany the intelligence flights over Colombia (or other Andean nations),
are being hired by private contract.
It is conceivable that flights out of Panama leave and return
without cargo. But even so, Panama is still being used to support Plan Colombia's
military operations. The Southern Command needs a place to park aircraft used
in the operations, and there are political liabilities to keeping the aircraft
in Manta, Ecuador or other sites, given the widespread opposition in the region
— by grassroots and political leaders — to Plan Colombia. So the
military spreads its equipment and people into several locations, and makes
the operators private "civilians" for hire. It would be interesting to find
out whether the civilians who carry out the job are armed or not.
John Lindsay-Poland
Congratulations
I follow your stories every time I have the occasion. Congratulations
for this finding!
As in other cases I've seen on your investigations you are
"poniendo el dedo sobre la llaga".
