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Panama and U.S. Strive To Settle on Death Toll

Panama and U.S. Strive To Settle on Death Toll
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April 1, 1990, Section 1, Page 12Buy Reprints
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Nearly three months after American troops invaded Panama, the Panamanian and American Governments, as well as human rights groups in both countries, are still struggling to compile a definitive tally of how many Panamanians were killed and wounded in the overthrow of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. The uncertainty has allowed critics of the intervention and of Panama's new civilian Government to offer much higher body counts and to charge, in the words of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a ''conspiracy of silence'' to hide the real death toll.

Officials of the Noriega Government maintain that 8,000 Panamanian civilians were killed in the invasion, which began on Dec. 20, while Mr. Clark's Independent Commission of Inquiry on the United States Invasion of Panama estimates that more than 3,000 Panamanians died.

Mr. Clark, who said ''the figure I hear most frequently is 4,000 dead,'' described it as ''reasonable under the circumstances'' of the invasion, and attributed it to ''sincere people trying to find out what really happened,'' including hospital workers, union leaders, church groups and human rights organizations.

Such figures are widely rejected here. The Rev. Fernando Guardia, vicar of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Panama, said ''estimates of thousands of civilian dead are irresponsible and baseless'' and advanced only to further partisan politics.

Skepticism Over U.S. Figures

But at the same time, there is widespread skepticism about the figures put forward by the United States and the new Panamanian Government. The United States Southern Command says 314 Panamanian soldiers and 202 civilians were killed in the invasion, and President Guillermo Endara said ''less than 600 Panamanians'' died in the fighting that brought him to power.

Physicians for Human Rights, a Boston-based organization that sent an investigative team here, said it had received ''reliable reports of more than 100 civilian deaths'' that were ''apparently not included'' in the Southern Command tally. But the group also concluded that there was ''no evidence to support estimates by some in Panama and the United States that several thousand civilians died.''

Americas Watch, a Washington-based human rights group, has reached similar conclusions. ''Our figure is a little higher than what the Southern Command has allowed, but not by much,'' said Juan Mendez, the group's director. ''We're estimating that somewhere around 300 people died.''

The Roman Catholic Church here calculates that 673 Panamanians were killed. The Panamanian Human Rights Committee and the Center for Investigation of Human Rights and Legal Aid estimate that 500 to 700 Panamanians died.

''The exact number will never be known, but it certainly is less than 1,000 dead,'' said Otilia de Koster of the human rights center. ''There was no cover-up, only enormous chaos, with Noriega's people still in charge of the hospitals for the first few days.''

The Chief Coroner's Assessment

Panama's chief coroner at the time of the invasion, Dr. Roger Montero, was dismissed last month for ''improper actions'' taken during a coup attempt against General Noriega last October, and went into hiding after criminal charges were filed against him. But his successor, Dr. Humberto Mas Calzadilla, said he was prepared to accept slightly higher unofficial estimates.

''I'm not arguing that our numbers are definitive,'' said Dr. Mas, director of the Medical Legal Institute of Panama. ''We think there could be more casualties, given the magnitude of the situation, but I don't think the figure would be more than 100 or 150. I know there are people who say thousands were killed, but no one has come forward with specific information, such as names and gravesites, that would allow us to carry out an investigation.''

Col. Michael A. McConnell, who as command surgeon for the United States Southern Command led American efforts to establish a definitive body count, said some of the variations between the army's figures and those of other groups could be explained by double counting and other errors. When asked about a discrepancy of 38 dead between his count in the city of Colon and that of Physicians for Human Rights, he said bodies that were already in the morgue there when the invasion began were buried along with the casualties from the fighting.

Human rights groups have also pointed out that although the American military maintains that 314 Panamanian soldiers died, official reports list only 53 bodies of military men as recovered. Colonel McConnell said the higher number may be incorrect, since it was based on unconfirmed reports by American troops on how many Panamanian soldiers they had killed ''It was bang, bang I got one, bang, bang I got another one,'' he said, describing the accounts of American soldiers. ''How were body counts in Vietnam?''

Civilian Toll Is Central Issue

Colonel McConnell said the United States Southern Command's count included 86 people reported missing by relatives and presumed dead even though no bodies have been found. ''We've erred on the side of the benefit of the doubt,'' he said.

Dr. Mas estimated the number of Panamanians wounded in the fighting at slightly over 2,000, in contrast to the conclusion of the Physicians for Human Rights delegation that ''the actual number of wounded is likely to be higher than the approximately 3,000 who presented to Panama City hospitals.'' Both figures, however, would seem to point toward a death toll substantially smaller than that estimated by Mr. Clark and former officials of the Noriega Government.

''Where there are dead, there are also wounded, in a much higher proportion,'' said Dr. Osvaldo Velazquez, a physician who is president of the Panamanian Human Rights Committee. ''If there are more than 3,000 dead, there should also be more than 20,000 wounded. But where are these wounded? They are not there because they never existed.''

'A Ludicrous Lie'

Critics of the official American tally say that ''massacres'' took place, and were covered up, in San Miguelito and El Chorrillo, a crowded working-class neighborhood that lies between General Noriega's former headquarters and Ancon Hill, where American forces were based. But witnesses in both neighborhoods said the civilian death toll was relatively low.

The Rev. Javier Arteta, a Spanish priest at Our Lady of Fatima Church in El Chorrillo, said 21 civilians died in the fighting there. A church census, which thus far has contacted 1,700 of the 2,500 families from the neighborhood, has as yet turned up no reports of any additional dead or missing.

Father Arteta dismissed charges by Panamanians that American forces had used flame throwers to cremate dozens of bodies in El Chorrillo as ''a ludicrous lie, a horrible myth.''

''No such action could have occurred without our having seen it or at least being told about it by someone who had,'' he said.

But virtually all independent human rights groups in both the United States and Panama have criticized the two Governments for ''insensitivity'' in their dealings with relatives of the dead and those conducting independent inquiries. ''No one seems to be investigating who died and under what circumstances, and we think this is one of many things that should be looked into,'' Mr. Mendez said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section 1, Page 12 of the National edition with the headline: Panama and U.S. Strive To Settle on Death Toll. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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