Holidays in Hell

  The barricades in the stairwells had been set on fire, and columns of ash were rising above the building. I could see blurred hand-to-hand action inside as windows shattered and pipes and batons flashed. The students were raining everything they could lift on the police. The "Irish confetti" was dancing off upraised shields and bouncing and ricocheting all around in the courtyard. Two fire trucks had been brought through the gate, and their extension ladders were thrust as near to the roof as even a Korean would dare.

  A couple of overbrave firemen went scurrying topside in a smoke of stones. The adrenaline-zanied kids fended off water blasts with their protest placards and with ordinary umbrellas, the fabric tearing from the spokes in seconds. A stray gas grenade slammed into one of the extension ladders, inspiring vivid gestures from the fireman to his colleagues below.

  The top of the otherwise modern cement Kuro gu office was fringed, Burger King fashion, with a mansard roof of traditional tiles. When the students ran out of stones and bottles, they began pulling loose these fat parentheses of baked clay and sailing them out over the courtyard. Weighing ten pounds apiece and coming from fifty feet in the air, they had the impact of small mortar shells. If you kept your eye on the trajectories, you could move out of the way in time. But to stop watching the sky for even ten seconds was curtains. I saw six or seven cops carried away, heads lolling and blood running out from under their helmets. I turned a shoulder to the building to write that in my notebook, and half a tile flew past me so close I felt the wind through the fly of my 501s. If I'd been standing one inch to the south, I'd be writing this in soprano.

  About 8:45 the police cleared the top floor and the grabbersor "white-skull police," as the students call them-appeared at the windows waving victoriously. But the cops below were slow on the uptake, and the grabbers got hit with another round of gas.

  The students on the roof kept at it. One wild young fool spent the entire battle balanced on the roof tiles, dancing back and forth, chased by streams of water from the fire hoses and ducking the gas grenades fired at his head. Every time a grenade missed he'd bow grandly to the police. It's not enough that these guys are better than we are at making cars, ships, TVs, stereos, cameras, computers, steel and binoculars; now they're building a better Berkeley and Kent State.

  The final assault came about nine A. M. There was one double door to the roof, and only four grabbers could get through it at a time. Photographer Tony Suau, with whom I'd covered the AquinoMarcos election mess, was standing right behind the first wave. He said the grabbers were obviously scared. And the first four who charged out were flung back inside, bruised and bleeding. But the grabbers persisted, four by four, until they secured the doorway. Then a hundred of them pushed outside.

  From the ground it was a Punch-and-Judy show. The downbulked grabbers in their helmets and masks were visible only from the chest up behind the parapets. They were thrashing maniacally with their long batons. You could tell when they got a student down-suddenly a stick would be moving in a single arc with burlesque speed: wack-a-wack-a-wack-a-wack-a-wack. I saw the bowing kid pulled from his perch and given the Mrs. Punch treatment.

  One section of the roof was raised half a story above the other. A dozen determined students held out here, throwing folding chairs, bricks and roof tiles. For a few last seconds their silhouettes were etched in heroic silliness against the sky.

  The paved Kuro gu courtyard had been turned into a gravel patch by the battle. Inside the building the air was a mud of smoke and gas. Fires were still burning in some corners, and water from the fire hoses ran in rivulets down the stairs. The police were making the students carry out their wounded. Several were unconscious, and one girl, wrapped in a blanket, had a hand's breadth of skull laid open and a bad, bloodless look to her face.

  The students were swollen and red from the gas. They stumbled around, dazed and stupid. The cops were gathering them in Kuro gu's larger rooms, making them prostrate themselves, obeisant like Moslems in prayer but more tightly hunched-children trying to make themselves disappear. These balled-up figures were packed into perfect squares of one hundred. The grabbers strolled over every now and then and gave the kids a few kicks for good measure.

  The building had been fought over inch by inch. Every stick of furniture was destroyed, every breakable thing was broken. This was Korea, however-the bathrooms were still spotless.

  About one hundred hostages, including several children, were released. They looked thoroughly sick. Nobody seemed interested in them. (According to the next day's official report, twenty-four policemen and forty students were seriously injured. One thousand and five students and student-allied radicals were "led away.")

  The captured students were made to "elephant walk" down the stairs and into the courtyard, bodies bowed double, one hand on the waistband of the student ahead. Kicks and swats hurried them along. I noticed the dog-faced girl stumbling by, with glasses missing and a big shiner.

  Then the mommy riot began. A dozen middle-aged women arrived at the police lines. They shoved their plump bodies against the riot shields and screeched, "You murderers!" and "Where is my son?!" and "I hate this country!" Then they fell into brief faints, tore their hair, wept, screeched some more and went into other histrionics-enough for a French actress on a farewell tour. This is better than my mother would have behaved. She would have been there yelling, "Keep the bum!"

  That night, the journalists who'd covered the Kuro gu riothaving showered and dumped our gas-soaked clothing in hotel hallways-had a long, well-lubricated dinner. Between the blowing of gas-scalded noses and the wiping of gas-curried eyes, we discussed Korean democracy. As I recall, the discussion went something like this:

  "What the fuck?"

  "Beats the shit out of me."

  "Yo, waitress, more whiskey."

  When the dinner was over, I went with two photographers, Greg Davis and Tom Haley, for a little constitutional up the hill to Myongdong Cathedral, a few blocks from the restaurant. About a hundred students with the usual rock piles and firebombs were sitting-in up there for no reason anyone was very clear about.

  The students had blocked the street on the hilltop in front of the church and weren't going to let us through. "Democracy! Free press!" said Davis, as we flashed our credentials.

  "No free press!" shouted student number 30. They'd all given themselves numbers, which they wore pinned to their chests.

  "No democracy?" said Davis.

  "No democracy!" shouted 30.

  Then, out of the gloom, appeared a pair of American preppies, he in tweeds and a necktie, she in a demure loden coat. "Hi!" the boy said brightly. "We're from the International Human Rights Law Group. We're here to observe Korean democracy."

  "Ask number 30 about that," said Davis.

  Down at the bottom of the hill, riot police were forming up, shield to shield, grenade launchers loaded.

  "Yeah, you little fuck," I said to number 30. "What do you think about getting democratically hammered, about half a minute from now?"

  The members of the International Human Rights Law Group gasped to hear someone speaking to a genuine Korean like that, right in the middle of Korea's first presidential elections in sixteen years. But then they caught a look at the advancing police. The law group took off like surprised mice.

  Haley, Davis and I were too slow. We could hear the grenades being fired, half a dozen of them, K4-CHUNK/CHUNK/CHUNK/ CHUNK/CHUNK/CHUNK. "Incoming!!!" yelled Haley, the last thing he'd be able to say for half an hour. The grenades burst just above our heads.

  We ran screaming down an alley, slamming into walls and garbage cans, coughing and gagging, a scum of tears running down our sightless faces. After two hundred yards we collapsed, bent over in pained hacking and gasps. A group of Korean men, earnestly merry with drink, were coming up the other way. They stopped in front of our little spectacle. The lead fellow bowed and said, "You Americans yes what do you think about Korean democracy?"

  "Awwwwk ugch ugch ugch," s
aid Haley.

  But the Koreans were not making a joke. "What do you think about Korean democracy?" said their leader, gravely.

  "Tastes terrible!" said Davis.

  They hustled us into a storefront cafe and bought us a great many large bottles of OB beer. We sat there sneezing and weeping and coughing. They sat there asking, "What do you think about Korean democracy?"

  That turned out to be all the English they knew.

  Panama Banal

  JULY 1987

  Panama has the damndest anti-government protestors. They're all dressed up in neckties or linen dirndl skirts and driving around in BMWs and Jeep Wagoneers, honking horns and waving white hankies out the windows. Opposition HQ is that infamous center of treachery and sedition worldwide, the Chamber of Commerce building. A National Civilian Crusade has been formed from more than a hundred trade associations and charity-ball-type organizations. Everybody is full of moral indignation, also civic boosterism. Cruzada Civilista Nacional demonstrations take place before luncheon and at the cocktail hour along Calle 50, Panama City's main artery for the shop-till-you-drop set. It's like watching your mom and dad riot at the mall.

  White is the opposition color, appropriately enough. Less affluent Panamanians, who tend to have more black and Indian blood, call the opposition rabe blancos, "white butts." The rabes who've soiled their handkerchiefs wave white business stationery and pages torn from Month-At-A-Glance calendars. Office towers are festooned with white adding-machine tape streamers; white three-by-five index cards flutter from the windows; and white confetti is made with document shredders. (This is only the second known use-after Fawn Hall's-of the shredding machine in the fight for democracy.) Protest signs are done with computer graphics and slogans displayed on word processor printouts.

  In the better residential neighborhoods the noon and six P.M. demos are marked by children, housewives and kitchen help banging on pots and pans. At least one enterprising member of the opposition is selling a pot-banging cassette so dinner won't be late. There are no sweaty marches or boring sit-ins. When the opposition wants to stage a mass rally it calls for a "White Caravan," and everyone drives through town with the air conditioning on. If people can't make it, they send the maid.

  This is genius, to use littering, noise-making and traffic jams as political protest in a Latin country. Think how quickly we would have been out of Vietnam if golf, commuting and watching Mayberry R.F.D. had been anti-war in the United States.

  A full-blown Civilian Crusade shindig musters eight to ten thousand people. But a government-sponsored whoop-up can draw as many or more. The pro-government types, who more or less support military strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega, are fatter, have worse teeth and wear more polyester. Their Panamanian flag-draped caravanas patrioticas are filled with Japanese economy cars. It's not really rich versus poor. It's more like the Elks versus the Rotary Club. The dentists and bank tellers are mad at the meter maids and postal clerks.

  I couldn't always tell them apart. On my first day covering the Panama shenanigans I saw a phalanx of riot police, or "Dobermans," as they affectionately call themselves. Nearby was a group of neatly dressed businesslike folk holding bundles of leaflets. I rushed up to them and said, "Is this the anti-government demonstration?"

  "We are the government," replied one, in a huff. They were members of the national legislature.

  The government cheats a bit with its anti-demonstration demonstrations, handing out gas money and giving public employees the day off then taking roll call at the rally. During a week of ceremonies marking the anniversary of the 1981 death of national hero General Omar Torrijos, the government staged a wonderfully named "Carnival of National Dignity." There were a half-dozen salsa and merengue bands and free beer and firecrackers for everyone.

  Not all of the pro-government sentiment is manufactured, however. When gringo reporters are spotted, loyalist crowd members yell complaints that they aren't getting their share of U.S. press coverage. "You must print pictures of this," several people shouted at me (although I wasn't carrying a camera). And one large and beery lady, more full of political spirit than political savvy, leaned halfway out of her car window and shrieked, "This proves Panama does not want communism!" Seeing that the basic conflict in Panama pits right-wing businessmen against a right-wing military, I guess it doesn't.

  Sometimes a white caravan and a pro-government caravan get going at the same time, circling around the city like students from rival high schools before a big football game. The pro-government bunch are more willing to mix it up. They're the kids from Central High downtown. The opposition-suburban souls whose real strength is in the tennis team-tend to yell clever things and skedaddle.

  I saw one pro-government caravan led by a stake-bed truck full of drunks come across a snazzy black Toyota Supra with a white flag hanging from the window. The drunks let loose at the Supra with slingshots. The Supra driver tried to make a U-turn, but, before he could get his car around, four or five of the drunks leapt off the truck and smashed his windshield with a rock the size of a Thanksgiving turkey. The Supra made a rubber-peeling escape. A volley of stones followed him, and so did I in my rental car. I wanted a pithy quote. I was sticking my head out the window, flashing my lights and screaming, "Prensa internacional! Prensa internacional!" But the guy was doing eighty miles an hour through side streets, and the last thing I saw was his white flag being tossed onto a lawn.

  The college students are demonstrating, too. They claim to be opposed to the government and the opposition and the United States too. The schools have been closed so there aren't that many students around, only about two hundred at the demonstration I saw. Still, they put on the best show. The students chanted, "Noriega fucks whores" and blocked a four-lane highway in front of the University of Panama with piles of flaming garbage. One noneck in a highway-department truck ran the blockade, and the students, who had been hoarding rocks and chunks of cement, scored thirty direct hits on his truck. Hundreds of locals deserted offices and factories to gather on pedestrian overpasses and watch the fun.

  When three platoons of soldiers arrived, the students hightailed it like a clutter of cats back inside the university gates. They have a great system in Latin America: The college campuses are recognized sanctuaries, and soldiers and police aren't supposed to set foot on the grounds. (Of course, every now and then the authorities get overexcited and break the rules and kill people, but usually the tradition is respected.)

  After a brief regrouping, the students ran up to the chain-link fence that surrounds the campus and threw rocks and bottles. Then the soldiers ran up to their side of the fence and blasted at the students with shotguns. It was red-necks hunting quail through the hedge at the bird preserve. Most of the shotgun shells were lowpower loads filled with size 71/z shot-tiny stuff that wouldn't kill you unless it went right up your nose. (Though I did pick up a couple of "high brass' shells that held enough powder to take off a hand or a face.) The soldiers also threw pepper-gas cannisters and fired pepper-gas rifle grenades into the campus, sometimes making the mistake of low trajectory, which let the students grab the grenades before they exploded and toss them back.

  There was a lot of quarterback talent on both sides. The students were sending two- and three-pound projectiles on eightyyard TD bombs. And there was one tall black corporal who made John Elway look like a sissy throwing rice at a wedding. The students set fire to a car, though not a very good one. My guess is it belonged to a professor who liked to give surprise quizzes.

  During a lull in the action I managed to slip into the school with an NBC camera crew. The campus was fogged with gas. Students brought us buckets of vinegar. Apparently, vinegar is the only specific against the pepper fumes, but it's a toss which hurts worse when you get it in your eyes. An entire medical dispensary had been set up in a lecture hall, complete with volunteer nurses and space for a press conference. We talked to a dozen or so injured students. One kid had at least fifteen pellets in his back and s
ide. He was very crabby.

  We had some trouble getting back out again, until the military finally decided that very few rioting students are forty years old, fat, carrying fifty pounds of video equipment and frantically hollering, "Prensa internacional!"

  A few minutes later a commotion of pro-student pot-banging broke out in a high-rise across the highway from the university. The soldiers happily turned their shotguns on the apartment building. A man in a bathing suit was standing on one of the balconies. He yelled at me, in English, "They're shooting at the fucking building!"

  I yelled back, "For chrissake get inside." Panamanians are not particularly brave people. Even Roberto Duran wound up holding his tummy and going "No mds. No mds." And one of the soldiers had lettered this bellicose statement on his helmet cover: "RAMBO-terror of civilians." But no Panamanian can resist an opportunity for self-dramatization.

  The fellow in the bathing suit didn't budge. "Tell Reagan we got a great fucking democracy going here," he shouted.

  What, you may well wonder, is all this about? I mean, here we've got a country that two-thirds of America thinks is a hat. (Actually, the hats are made in Ecuador.) And, damn it, we can't be expected to stay up to speed on every one of these Third World pissing contests. Crazy greasers-they've always got bees in their panty hose about something. We gave them their silly canal back. Now what's the matter?

  Well, fat, pock-faced General Manuel "Pineapple Head" Noriega is nobody's candidate for the Medal of Freedom. Panama is a military dictatorship covered by a thin scum of constitutional formalities. And the Pineapple reigns over the Panamanian Defense Force, which includes the army, police and several kinds of plainclothes thugs. There is virtually no such thing as conflict of interest under Panamanian law. Senior military officers and their relatives sit on the boards of nearly every corporation and control most government contracts. According to U. S. Embassy sources, Noriega has several large houses in Panama and property in the south of France. At his daughter's wedding, guests were served pink champagne with pictures of the bride and groom on the labels and Baccarat-crystal party favors. If Ugly Mug is living within his modest army salary, he's a better money manager than I -am.