“Speech Toward the Second Amphictyonic Congress” by General Manuel Antonio Noriega (8/11/1988)
A continent-wide movement to bring about The Ibero-American integration was forged at a historic conference in Panama August. 8- 11, 1988 attended by 200 delegates from 22 nations of the region. Senators, congressmen, labor leaders, historians, scientists, ex-ministers, and retired military officers worked together to plan a Second Amphictyonic Congress, in honor of the first such congress organized by Simon Bolivar in 1826 to unite the continent’s new republics. (In ancient Greece, an amphictyony was an association of neighboring states for their common interest.)
Gen. Manuel Noriega delivered the closing speech, before a cheering crowd of 1,000 and the international press corps.
“Speech Toward the Second Amphictyonic Congress” by General Manuel Antonio Noriega (August 11, 1988)
“This event represents the antibodies which are produced in order to endure U.S. imperialism, and perfect the defense of our Latin America. Panama must turn toward Latin America today, while Latin America sees in Panama its own anguish.
We represent the mirror of all aggressions against peoples who wish to be free.
The meritorious representatives of brother Latin American countries who are participating in this meeting, are authentic witnesses to the history which Panama is writing today.
Panama is suffering one of the most brutal aggressions, because it refuses to capitulate and lend its territory so that foreign forces can attack brother countries.
Never before have so few worried so very many imperialists as they have today.
As we reach the fourth day of this meeting, where there were no ideological positions nor radical postures, where in Christ-like fashion we sought out that which unites us rather than what divides us, we proudly proclaim to the world, and to our own Indian, Black, mestizo, and white men, that the hour of the people has come.
And know that here in Panama, your brothers will hold the trench of dignity in the name of duty, though we may be threatened with extermination, since we are of the belief that nationalist fighters are not the masters of their lives, since their lives belong to the fatherland.
