Page 122 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

And during June, July and August 1984, a few drug traffic scandals
have broken out.
 One ton and a half of cocaine is found in Miami on board an
INAIR plane from Panama. This is the second largest cocaine
seizure ever in the United States.

 A cocaine refining laboratory is “discovered” and destroyed in
the Darien jungles. Twenty-three Colombians are arrested during
the raid, questioned, and taken to Colombia in a Panamanian Air
Force plane. They are set free soon after arriving in their country
because they did not commit any crimes on Colombian territory.

 Another INAIR plane is discovered to be carrying a huge drug
shipment. This time the plane fell into the ocean, near the
Bahamas and some crewmen died. The captain, however, turns
up safe and sound in Panama. It turns out he is the same person
who piloted the other aircraft to Miami a few weeks earlier.

 A huge shipment of ethylic ether, an essential ingredient for
refining cocaine, is discovered in the port of Colón.

 Colombia’s major drug trafficker meet is Panama with former
Colombian President Alfonso López Michelsen, who was
supposed to have been observing the election, and then with the
Colombian Attorney General. The purpose of the meeting is to
negotiate a truce with the Colombian government.

 The president of Panama’s Bankers Association publicly admits
that “there are two or three banks” in Panama that launder drug
trafficking money.

The common denominator of all these crimes –aside from cocaine– is
the astounding fact that as of this date no one has been arrested in connection
with any of them. The inference is obvious. No arrests have been made because
the criminals enjoy official protection. There cannot be another explanation.
Following the removal of Lieutenant Colonel Julian Melo Borbúa,
Executive Secretary of the Defense Forces General Staff, for his ties to people
involved in international drug trafficking, the electoral fraud became a secondary
concern. It yielded priority to the no less shameful details of these ties. The news
diverted public attention but helped to better understand the true reasons for the
fraud and to view it in the proper context of present national realities.

The fraud was not an isolated instance of corruption and abuse of
power. The fraud was the logical conclusion of Lord Acton’s dictum: “Power
corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The Defense Forces General Staff