by General Manuel Antonio Noriega
1988
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Speech for Resistance Day
by General Manuel Antonio Noriega
August 12, 1988
For the first time in the Republic’s history, representative units of our armed forces are marching together with the Dignity Battalions, which are the people armed for survival. We have armed these people, and those weapons will not be taken back, because they belong to the people. These are the people armed for survival against aggression.
We insist: not even the largest army in the world can defend the Canal, as General Wallace Nutting used to say, as General Paul Gorman repeated, as General John Galvin stated: They cannot defend the Canal, even if they post U.S. soldiers inch by inch along the Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific! The Canal can only be defended by those who live along its banks, by its owners, by those who gave it birth, by the Panamanian people!
And today, just as U.S. law permits the truth to be known after 10 years, we want to report that if they had not approved the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, Torrijos would have blown up the Canal. These men who are here were going to blow up the Canal. They were already in the heart of the Canal, and these men were moved to tears when they were told to halt, that the order is not to blow up the Canal, because the Canal is now Panamanian.
Yesterday we said: Respect Panama; take your hands off Panama. And we are saying it again today, in the presence of the aristocracy of talent which accompanies us in the summons toward the Second Amphictyonic Congress. We repeat: take your hands off Panama.