Page 57 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

This serious charge was based on a “book” written by a former National Guard
mayor with no serious credentials as a historian and whose alleged sources are
laughable. Thus, “original documentation [for the book] was contributed by secret
18
esoteric societies”.
Holocausto en Panamá, as this slanderous tome is entitled, conveniently
changed the Mennonite victims’ religion to Judaism and called this most regrettable
incident an Arias crime against the Jews. This despicable lie was publicly refuted by
the Panamanian Jewish Community and by Dr. Bernardino González Ruiz, a former
president of the republic, who was the medical director at the hospital where the victims
were taken.
Despite these denials, “official” media and prominent UNADE politicians,
including Esquivel, UNADE second vice presidential candidate, continued the
19
calumnious campaign, giving more credit to a retired officer and amateur historian
whose sources included “secret esoteric societies”, than to a group of respectable
Jewish citizens and a former president of the republic who, as a physician, had cared
for and talked to the survivors of the tragedy. And what about Barletta? He was
somewhere else in the country, looking the other way. (See exhibit 14).
We have seen in this section how, to a greater or lesser degree, the mass media
were tools used by the Defense Forces General Staff in their campaign to have their
man elected president and continue to rule through him. This control manifested itself
differently in the three major media we have discussed. In the printed press, it was
exercised mostly through ill-gotten means (the theft of Editora Panamá América, S.A.).
In radio, through coercion and the unlawful use of government resources (Radio
Nacional); and in television, through the direct control and the guilty complicity of
leading businessmen.
The results, as Quintero stated, were that: “The government has all television
channels but one; all daily newspapers but one; the most powerful radio stations. They
dominate the media”.

And quoting the bishops:

“… there have been abuses… violence… biased in news reporting, …
discrimination, … dishonesty…”.

And Barletta would later say that he won fair and square!

18
Matutino, April 27, 1984, page 10.
19
On April 25, engineer Carlos Landau, the Popular Nationalist Party first vice presidential candidate,
filed a suit for slander against Esquivel.