doors of the prison opened for me and I talked with my husband after more than four weeks. He had been kept incommunicado for four weeks while tortures were inflicted on him, which as he later told us were: Blows with a rubber hose; first blows to stomach and chest; long questioning under strong lights without sleep; electric shocks to the vital parts of the body, the ears, genital organs and the anus" that made him feel his insides were bursting; and hanging by the wrists and acted out executions with blank cartridges so that each time he did not know whether he was alive or dead.

My daughters and I, having had the mental torture of not knowing whether he was dead or alive and imagining what they might be doing to him, were to start on a new stage in our anguish. I extract from the journal of my daughter, Yarmila; which she writes now for one of her classes:

"Reading other people's journals of high school romances, marijuana smoking, spaced out, partying I feel rather young and inexperienced. Though other experiences, I suppose will make up for the lack of those. Like waiting in line in the torrential tropical rains or scorching sun for an hour or more outside the "Model Prison" "・・・ most infamous place *** where men whose ideas are too liberal and criticism too outspoken are thrown in among common criminals and tortured, most often to death only waiting to catch a fleeting glimpse of a father's ravaged

but beloved face."

My lawyer and I kept demanding that my husband be brought to trial. Instead, in December 1972 he was condemned, by simple writ, to five years in prison, and one day while standing in line to bring food and bedding to him we were told he was no longer there.

He had been sent to the Penal Colony on the Island of Coiba.

The following are excerpts of Leopoldo's document:

"The prisoners are driven to Pier 18 in the Canal Zone port of Balboa under American jurisdiction, because Panama has no deep water port, and are loaded into the boat. If the trip to Coiba is hellish, it is worse if one tries to escape as I did at Pier 18 by jumping into water. It had been my hope that by doing so, I would be taken by American police who might be persuaded to take me to the hospital for injuries resulting from my torture. The shooting at me by the guards attracted a large number of American police. The shooting stopped and I shouted of my condition. The Americans agreed to take me to the hospital and so I surrendered. Then there, in front of the passive Americans I was given a severe beating with clubs, fists, rifle butts and kicks by the Panamanian guards. They handcuffed my hands behind my back. They heaved me toward the boat, but they missed. I fell into the water. I dove under the ship and made it to the underside of another pier. But I was turned over to the Panamanian guards who again beat me.

..

"Half drowned, I was hanged from the handcuffs to a mast for several hours. When darkness came I was chained to a ring on the deck Luckily the crammed conditions prevented the guards from kicking me as hard as they might have wished.

my

"It was dusk of the next afternoon when the boat tied up to the jetty at the southern tip of Coiba. There were some 20 guards waiting with clubs and whips* someone gave me a kick that sent me reeling over the jetty into the water* delay in reaching the beach saved me from one of the most bestial practices on Coiba: the running of the gauntlet of the prisoners from the jetty to the central yard. The other prisoners were running like cattle under the whips and savage cries of the guards. These were swinging their clubs, rushing the prisoners to gallop, prodding them to run faster. The guards would run ahead of them, among them, and from behind, hitting and whipping in a happy demoniacal frenzy. If someone fell, several guards would converge on him, kick him, whip him, beat him and screaming louder, drag him to his feet, forcing him to sprint like crazy, the remainder of the 300 yard distance. ***

"Slumped on the ground, I watched from a distance. At first, the whole spectacle was incomprehensible because I did not grasp what was going on. It was a strange state of mind. The black night in the background and the lights illuminating the goings on, sort of transported me to the environment of a theater. The play would soon be over and one would walk out with friends, have dinner or a drink and discuss the play I felt no part of it

"Then suddenly I realized with terror that the thing was real. I was in it, at the receiving end like the others. The Captain's welcoming speech was short and to the point, "You just got the Coiba shock treatment. You'll get it any time you're lazy or don't figure out what we want. In Coiba's there's no God, no law, no nothing, only what is for our pleasure."

The horrors continue. At Coiba Leopoldo was told how Floyd Britton another of the political prisoners had died there. The government had announced he suffered a heart attack. The truth as Leopoldo recounted it was: "With his hands handcuffed behind his back, he was placed on a stool. Guards surrounded him and clubbed him until his brains flew out."

My husband stayed in Coiba for six months. Our appeals to the international human rights organizations and to important friends of Leopoldo in other countries bore fruit. Leopoldo was brought back to the city prison hospitals. Although there are about 1,500 prisoners in Coiba, there is no medical facility. He was urinating blood and had Meniere's disease from beatings. His physical condition was terrible. Though I was told Leopoldo would be exiled, he was sent back to Coiba. Again we almost went mad. Finally in December 1973 I was ordered to buy him a one way ticket to Sweden and he was placed on a plane to Stockholm... where he spent two months in Karolinska hospital, recuperating from the physical and psychological tortures.

He gave several press interviews until G-2 gave me a message: "Tell Leopoldo to keep quiet. While you are still in Panama there are ways of making him come back." I had to stay to complete the teaching jobs I had taken to support us. I, too, had a severe weight loss and was emotionally drained. When we finally left Panama they made trouble at the airport, even delaying the plane, but we had many witnesses with us.

While my husband was in prison he asked me to notify the American consul of at least two Americans detained for no apparent reason. One was a graduate student, writing his thesis on Panama, who had come to watch the so-called election of "Corregidores" (Justices of the Peace). He was picked up and denied access to the Consul. Another American almost died of a beating in the cellars of the jail. U.S. Consul Dodson's letter of resignation substantiates the U.S. passivity and the 1977 case of American citizen David Mendelson (with no political involvement) beaten and exiled, brings these cases into the present (State Department and Senator Sparkman have documentation.)

LEOPOLDO ARAGON

"Let my people decide freely" was Leopoldo Aragon's dying plea. His act of sacrifice, he said, was to "call attention to the enormity of the deprivation of human rights and political freedoms under the Torrijos dictatorship."

The exile or release of those who have been cruelly imprisoned and tortured is not the end of the story. The person changes. Psychological changes have now been recognized and a commission has been formed in Norway to study the effects of imprisonment and torture. I saw change take place in my husband. He immersed himself completely in the movement to restore human rights and democracy in Panama. Despite his dedication he did not isolate himself and had a multitude of friends. He corresponded with his colleagues who speak and write of his warm human qualities. One, at the NY Times in a personal note to me, spoke of him as "a man of great character passionately devoted to a cause of extreme importance". He was a loving husband and a devoted companion to his daughters. Others remark that he was a consistent and rational man. This consistency and rationality was demonstrated in his methodical planning for his final sacrifice for his high ideals. Twelve years ago he wrote of another ""To immolate oneself is to sacrifice oneself for others—for an ideal-for a conviction. It is an individual decision which doesn't involve nor harm another." In a letter I received on September 2nd he had sent from Stockholm. "I know what I have to do to be faithful to my destiny I feel it with all the depth of conviction that a man can have And I am going to do

something that can be instinctively understood and appreciated." On September 1st, in front of the American Embassy in Stockholm he immolated himself. In his last personal message he asked me to continue the struggle, "your battle post is there." I am here to carry on. I am here as one who has also suffered the tortures of Torrijos, tortures that continue. But mine is only one story, the only one you will hear in detail today. It started in 1972. * The many cases of others each year since then are documented in the volumes of The Panamanian Committee for Human Rights.

Yet Ambassador Bunker has repeated in the Congress and elsewhere what I quote from his national interview on "Meet the Press" of August 14th. The transcript reads: "What is your impression of the record of the Torrijos Government in the area of human rights?" Ambassador Bunker answered, "Well, there have been some violations of human rights by the Torrijos Government. Most of those occurred prior to 1970 when he was consolidating his position.

Amnesty International in 1973, I think, did report that most of those violations had occurred in the early years of the regime. A year ago, they did exile some thirteen people of the right and the left who had been accused of subversion. Those, I think, have all since returned to Panama. Recently has received back nearly 100 exiles. In our report which the Administration made this Spring to the Congress, as required by law, the report stated that there was no evidence of any systematic abuse of human rights. Whenever there have been, we have called it to the attention of the Panamanian Government and have expressed our views about it." The President of the International League for Human Rights, Attorney Jerome J. Shesteck gave the Panama Human Rights Report as an example of State Department's inaccuracies and lack of candor.

What actually happened in 1976 or that which is known.

January 20: Thirteen professionals, businessmen and farmers, at least in the United States does not place them either on the right or the left. In addition an Argentinian born British subject, who had served the U.S. as a parachutist medic in Vietnam, was arrested, held incommunicado, tortured and then deported.

February: A Panamanian professor, a self-described Trotskyite was picked up at the airport on his return to Panama and planed to Ecuador to join the 13 exiles. May: Marlene Mendizabal, a high school student of humble country family, and her fiance, Jorge E. Falconet, an engineering student disappeared. Her body was found and autopsy prevented by the National Guard. Falconet was never found. September: Attorney Eusebio Marchosky was arrested, tortured and exiled to Miami. Blanca de Marchosky, Alma Robles de Samos, Fulvia Morales are imprisoned and maltreated, but later released Querube de Carles was exiled. Three men, one an American, employed in the Canal Zone were arbitrarily arrested on trumped up charges of formenting riots for the C.I.A. A formal protest was lodged with the U.S. Embassy, but later withdrawn Carlos Gonzalez de la Lastra, an executive, and Humberto Lopez, a student, escape arrest and are exiled to Venezuela. More than 150 students are arrested and tortured, according to a letter written by Reverend Fernando Guardia Jaen, S. J. in the Panama Archdiocese monthly publication.

BOMBINGS AND TERRORISM

Following the January exiles there were a series of five mysterious bombings at the places of business or homes of the exiles or their associates. The bombs were all of the same type. At the end of October and on November 1st a series of similar bombs exploded in the Canal Zone, damaging government property and automobiles owned by American critics of the dictatorship and treaty negotiations. On November 29th a similar bomb was exploded in the Volkswagon of Jorge Rodriquez, seriously wounding his wife, Gilma, but leaving untouched in the rear seat Dolores Montoto. On December 23rd, 1976, an official press release of the Panama Embassy in Washington makes public a letter from Torrijos protesting that the U.S. Ambassador in Panama had told Torrijos that "Certain members of the National Guard are involved in terrorist activities which have taken place in the Panama Canal Zone in connection with explosions which last October destroyed six automobiles and damaged certain buildings ⚫ that the United States authorities had proof of

their assertions.

Let us sum up the 1976 human rights violations listed here, which are only a small part of the known violations by Torrijos in 1976:

Exiled, 18; Arbitrarily arrested, 3; Arbitrarily arrested and maltreated, 3; Arrested and tortured, 151; Bombings, 12 (1 person seriously injured); Imprisoned without trial, 3; Murdered, 1; and Disappeared, 2.

Returning to Mr. Bunkers assertions. Of the 13 January exiles 4 only have returned. Ambassador Bunker says also that Torrijos has recently received back nearly 100 exiles. This is simply untrue.

Let us look at the numbers. In 1 year 181 persons are known to have had their human rights violated in Panamas tiny population of 1.7 million (as opposed to heavily populated Chile, Brazil, or Argentina). Translating that number of the U.S. population is the equivalent of human rights violations of more than 21,000 citizens. Gentlemen: I think it is ambundantly clear that Panama shows a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.

TESTIMONY OF RICHARD EISENMANN

Today, my testimony is confined to two points: There is, for the first time, in the Republic of Panama an absolute dictatorship. Second, I raise the question whether the plebiscite in Panama required by their Constitution, will reflect anything other than the will of the dictator.

THE MILITARY RULE

In 1968, through a military coup, for the first time in their history, Panamanians found themselves under the brutal rule of one of the most corrupt and arbitrary dictatorships of Latin America.

Since then, prison, torture, expatriation and murder have become the common procedure used by the government to deal with dissident opinion.

Following the coup, the University of Panama was closed for a year. All political parties were banned. Newspapers and radio stations were seized and all the independent media controlled. Many Panamanians were tortured, incarcerated, murdered, or simply disappeared, many were forcibly expatriated.

Today Panamanians live in constant fear. Telephones are tapped, mail intercepted, houses searched in the dark of night, people arbitrarily arrested, and the population intimidated by an organization of paid informers.

Arrests are made on the grounds of "insults to the General" or "disrespect of the authorities" because of private conversations in which there was criticism of the government or its officers.

From time to time the government-controlled press publishes special government telephone numbers to which "citizens should call to denounce counter-revolutionary practices."

The government, using every imaginable resources-intimidation, blackmail, bribery (to name a few)-maintains strict control over labor unions, professional associations, farmers organizations, and other organized groups.

The very few organizations that at one time or another have expressed criticism of government policies or practices have been subjected to harassment, threats and reprisals. The instinct for self preservation forces conformity.

The government, its officers and its friends are involved in all kinds of legal and illegal businesses. The involvement of high ranking officers in drug traffic is well known.

Before the coup, Panama maintained for many years the highest sustained rate of economic growth in Latin America and one of the highest in the world. Today, the military are the social, political and economic aristocracy of a country in bankruptcy. There was a negative,-1 percent, growth in 1976, and unemployment was the highest in the history of the country.

THE CONSTITUTION

All governments that come to power by force try to give legitimacy to their origins and legality to their malpractices. In 1972 Torrijos dictatorship called elections for a "Constitutional Assembly". With all political parties and activities proscribed, except the government party "Movimiento Neuvo Panama" and the "Partido Del Pueblo” (Moscow oriented communist party), and absolute control of newspapers, television and radio stations, it was not surprising that the government won 504 of the 505 carefully screened "representatives".

This selected, rather than elected, assembly held its first meeting October 1, 1972. A week later the "new constitution" was approved without discussion and the "constitutional assembly," even to the surprise of its members, found itself transformed into a "Legislative Assembly"--but one without power to legislate.

The new constitution subordinates the legislative, executive and judicial power to the National Guard. It eliminates the separation of powers and places the legislative power in a "Legislative Council" composed of the Cabinet Ministers and any number of members appointed by Torrijos. It also states that Torrijos is the "Maximum Leader". His constitutional powers are illustrated by a literal translation of Article 277:

Article 277: "General Omar Torrijos Herrera, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard is hereby recognized as the Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution. As a consequence and to guarantee the fulfillment of the objectives of the revolutionary process, General Torrijos is hereby granted, for a term of 6 years, the following powers: To coordinate all the work of the Public Administration; appoint and remove freely all Cabinet Ministers, member of the Legislative Commission, the Comptroller General, and the Sub-Comptroller General of the Republic, the general Directors of all Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Institutions and the Magistrates of the Electoral Court to be named by the Executive Branch according to this Constitution and the law; to appoint the Commanders and officers of the Armed Forces, according to this Constitution, the law, and the military hierarchy; to appoint, with the approval of the Cabinet, all the Justices of Supreme Court, the Attorney General, Attorney of the Administration and their respective alternates; to approve government contracts, negotiation of government loans and conduct the foreign relations.

29-400 0 - 78 - 32

"General Omar Torrijos will have, in addition, power to participate with the right to be heard and to vote in all the meetings of the Cabinet, the Legislative Commission, the National Assembly of Representatives, the Provincial Councils of Coordination, and the Communal Committees."

The new constitution subordinates everything to Torrijos as the "Maximum Leader", and subjecting all powers to him except for those exercised by people he may, at will, appoint and remove.

Despite the dictatorial nature of the constitution, it grants the individual greater human and civil rights than even the United Nations Human Rights Declaration and The American Convention on Human Rights. However, the unlimited powers of the dictator effectively denies these rights in practice.

This concentration of dictatorial powers, without parallel in the constitutions of any other Latin American country, do not give, however, a complete idea of the real power that the dictator and the National Guard exercise.

Despite the dictatorial nature of the 1972 Constitution, the individual and civil rights are broader than even the United Nations Human Rights Declaration and the "American Convention on Human Rights." However, the Constitution does not limit the powers of the dictatorship and the freedoms and rights recognized in theory, are constantly denied in daily practices.

Thus the Constitution exists only for "cosmetic" reasons and does not impose in practice any limits to the use and abuse of the governmental powers. For example, the Article 29 of the Constitution prohibits expatriation, but several hundred Panamanians live in exile and are not allowed to return to their country.

THE DECREES ABOVE THE CONSTITUTION

In 1969 the government promulgated the Cabinet Decrees 341, 342, and 343. Under these decrees, the exercise of the right of peaceful assembly is a crime against the state, dissident opinions are subversive, and all political activities are counterrevolutionary.

Decree 341, "guarantees the right of peaceful assembly, but prohibits public meetings in the cities of Panama and Colon, where more than half of the Panamanians live.

Decree 342 authorizes administrative authorities to impose up to 15 years of prison terms without the right to a hearing, without due process of law, without defense, without appeal, and without intervention of the courts. The decree is so vaguely written that it could be and has been applied to punish all kinds of activities "against the security of the state", including such "criminal" acts as written or verbal criticism against the government.

A recent case illustrates the procedures under Decree 342: On November 1976 a bomb exploded in a car driven by Judge Rodriguez, a well known opponent of the government. Rodriguez was slightly injured and his wife was badly hurt. The third passenger, Dolores Montoto, was unharmed. The G-2 men arrested the three persons, but due to the delicate condition of Gilma Rodriguez, she was hospitalized. Four weeks later the controlled press published an administrative Resolution condemning to prison Rodriguez, his wife (at that time still in critical condition in the hospital), and Dolores Montoto to 15, 7, and 5 years respectively. None of them had legal counsel and they never had an opportunity to answer the charges against them. Since then, nobody knows where Mr. Rodriguez is imprisoned. On January 1977, the Panamanian Committee for Human Rights sent a letter to Amnesty International requesting their intervention in this case.

Decree 343 is used to control newspapers, radio, and television, by imposing a rigid self-censorship-seldom violated.

On January 1974 the government prohibited the publication of the newspaper "Quibo" (What's Happening) even before the first edition came out, confiscating the equipment and arresting the editors. The same thing happened in March 1975 when the government prohibited the publication of "La Opinion Publica" (The Public Opinion).

The decree was used in 1976 to close "Radio Impacto", a radio station that expressed independent opinions. The equipment of the station was confiscated and its owner, forcibly expatriated.

According to the decree, all radio and television stations are forced to tape their programs and deliver them to the Ministry of Government and Justice.

Obviously the decrees contradict the Constitution and violate the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights but, nevertheless, they are systematically enforced by the dictatorship.

As far as we know, no other Latin American dictatorships have a legislation more repressive and which violates all internationally recognized standards on human