Gift ofthe Panaina Canal Museum the Tropic imes Vol. , No.51 Quarry Heights, Republic of Panama Jan. 22, 1990 New Panama tour policy to go into effect June 1 QUARRY HEIGHTS, (US- throughout the process. month unaccompanied tours may Forces battalions) will be placed on S OUT H CO M PA O) - US - -Remain sensitive to the needs of elect to serve the 12-month tour or the 36/24-month tour. SOUTHCOM officials have unaccompanied personnel. choose new unaccompanied or -USSOUTHCOM retains the announced approval of a return to -Recruit volunteers to stay until, accompanied tour options. -Ul UHy retainstahe the standard tour policy of 36 backfill arrives - thereby sustaining -Prior to June 1 inbound policy decision to require military months for accompanied military unit readiness. personnel may elect to choose the families to reside in on-post housing. personnel and 24 months for The 36/24 rules are: new unaccompanied or accompanied -Unaccompanied officers and the unaccompanied personnel in -The new tour policy is effective tour options. top three NCOs (E7 and above) may Panama, effective June 1. This will June 1. -Personnel arriving in Panama be allowed to live in off post replace the 12/24-month short tour -The policy honors sponsors' prior to June 1 on a 12-month tour government-leased housing. program instituted in November as a plans in accordance with the may remain on a 12-month tour. Unaccompanied personnel (E6 and force protection measure during the principles and rules established in the -Effective June 1 all arriving below) will be required to live on Noriega tyranny. Nov. 16,1989 drawdown. personnel (except those in the two post. Under the new policy, personnel -Personnel in Panama with 12- infantry battalions and two Special (Continued on p.8) presently assigned to Panama will retain their current DEROS unless they request a change in their tour status. This was decided after personnel officers canvassed the "to- be-shipped group" and found that only 500-600 of those families wished to remain in Panama. The new policy takes into account that the other families have received orders, planned their futures, and want to comply with those orders. "We should let them go," Gen. Maxwell Thurman, commander in chief, USSOUTHCOM said. "To reverse them now, after disrupting them twice - once in Blade Jewel and again on the current drawdown - would create a serious morale situation that the command and the several services do not need." As with the drawdown, announced November 1989 the new tour policy has principles and rules to protect service members. The principles are: -Identify and treat special cases Division (Light) soldier with compassion. DETOUR - A Lightfighter provides cover while a 13th Engineer Battalion, 7th Infantry -Minimize hardships. installs concertina wire at a roadblock in Panama City. (U.S. Army photo by Cpl. J. Andrew Malcolm) -Solicit input from all key elements of the communityC -Empathy for Service members church groups say 1000 may have died and families. -Maintain family integrity PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) national office of forensic medicine, of the invasion indicate that many - The U.S. Army claims its said the civilian death toll nationwide residents had fled El Chorrillo soon "disciplined fire" during the invasion came to 202. after the invasion began and escaped W of Panama kept civilian deaths to a Most of the higher estimates were the destruction, so the death toll minimum, but the nation's top based on the destruction of the there was not as high as originally 12 killed in Colombia medical examiner said the toll was at crowded neighborhood of El feared. to El Chorrillo, civilian BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - least 202, and some say it was far Chorrillo, which is next to the In addition Unidentified assailants shot to higher. Defense Headquarters building, the deaths also occurred near the airport, neighborhood death 12 people at a tourist ranch "We have no evidence to say there main target of the U.S. Army fire the in the San Miguelito about 185 miles north of Bogota, are thousands, but we know they are night of the invasion. where paramilitary groups fought for several days, and at police said Sunday. not 200," said Carmen Miro, a El Chorrillo, a neighborhood of U.S. forces The Antioquia state police university professor and member of a two-and three-story old wooden Rio Hato, a PanamaniAn military southwest. identified the victims as two church group. buildings that was home to more base about 60 miles to the mangers of the ranch near the Some church groups said the than 20,000 people, burned to the There was practically no shooting town of Gomez Plata and 10 number of Panamanian-dead could ground during the fire that broke out involving civilians in cross-fire youths who had traveled there on be as high as 1,000, and former U.S. after the fighting began. throughout the rest of the country, military sources. vacationfrom the city of Medellin. Attorney General Ramsey Clark However, accounts from the night according to U.S. The victims were found with suggested it could run as high as their hands and feet tied and with 7,000, though there is little evidence East Germ any party leaders resignL) numerous bullet wounds, police to support the higher figures. said in a communique. They did "We have asked our people WEST BERLIN (UPI) - The hurtful to the party. The 46-year-old was not say when the massacre throughout the country to make a deputy chairman of the East German pro-reform communist occurred or who discovered the survey. We think it is closer to 1,000 Communist Party and the front- considered the favored candidate for bodies. civilian and military, but nobody runner for the post of prime minister the post of prime minister in spring The police said authorities had knows," said Mario Rognoni, a resigned Sunday, saying the party elections. begun an investigation to leader of the political opposition to has politically, morally and "The old SED and its leadership determine the motive. the new government of President economically ruined the country and have, in a shameful way, ruined the Guillermo Endara. should be disbanded. GDR (East Germany) politically Phone number given The Panama Defense Forces The move led a 40-person revolt economically and morally," the 40 FORT CLAYTON (USARSO suffered 314 dead as a result of the against the party, which is already former party members said in a PAO) - The telephone number Dec. 20 invasion; 23 U.S. troops struggling to polish its image stained statement announcing their for the information line for died, along with three American by 40 years of Stalinist rule and resignation. former reporting arms caches, former civilians. recent claims of corruption by followed an PDF and former Dignity Clark said his figure of "anywhere party officials. The party is known The resignations Battalion members' locations in from 4,000 to 7,000 but most likely formally as the Socialist Unity Party emergency congress of the Party, which ended 225-5524. 2,000" had come from people he met of Germany-Party of German Communist and at which The hours for reporting during the two days he snpnt here Socialism (SED-PDS). Sunday morning Krenz and other information are from 6 a.m.-6 early in January, and not from his The resignation of Deputy former leader Egon of their p.m. daily. own investigation. Chairman and Dresden Mayor officials wyre stripped Roger Montero, director of the Wolfgang Bcrghofer is particularly membership. Times 2 Jan.Tropic 22, 1990 F U.S. news Mayor Barry acknowledges needfor assistance WASHINGTON (AP) - Mayor While the mayor did not say Barry, surrounded by clergy in a charge after testing positive for, Marion Barry, acknowledging that whether he is suffering from drug broadcast appearance in front of St. cocaine in blood and urine tests he needs "to heal my body, mind and abuse, others did. Timothy's Episcopal Church near his administered following his arrest. soul," but declining to mention drug Herbert 0. Reid Sr., one of the home, clasped his wife's hand and abuse, announced Sunday that he mayor's closest personal advisors, said he has come "face to face with Barry had been poised to will seek help following his arrest on said he hoped that from Barry's my deepest human failures." announce his bid ut his a rest has a cocaine possession charge. travails "we can all learn something Barry said, "these ministers have thrown onay poit ics in t o He has reached the hour of about drug addiction." helped me to keep the strength I need convulsions. Several advisers said recko ing,s inkig back terms, the "He's doing the right thing," Reid -I'm going to find a way to heal my Barry had agreed to abandon his bid mayor provided no further details on said. "I am -we all are - relieved, body, mind and soul." for reelection, and they added that what kind of assistance he will seek, because many of us have suspected The mayor did not take questions the possibility of his resigning from except to say that nutritional expert for some time that he has had a and turned the podium to Mrs. Barry office was never discussed in Friday and social activist Dick Gregory has problem." following his brief statement. and Saturday strategy sessions. been consulting him on how to get Barry spokeswoman Lurma Attention has been focused on Mrs. Said one aide who spoke with help. An aide said Barry's main Rackley said the mayor will be Barry in part because the mayor was Barry several times on Saturday, problem was with alcoholism.