Gunmen opened fired on a parked American military vehicle Wednesday, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding another, police and judicial sources said.
The attack, which occurred on the eve of a visit by President Bush, took place on a highway connecting Panama City and the Atlantic port city of Colon, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The shootings came as hundreds of Panamanians protested the visit by Bush, who ordered the December 1989 invasion of the country.
Hector Avila, one of the protesters, blames the U.S. president for the sad state of the El Chorillo slum, which was devastated in the 1989 American attack that toppled Gen. Manuel Noriega.
"We want to show the president how we live here after the invasion that he ordered," Avila said. "We want to show that we live in houses without furniture, without work and with traumatized children."
With the help of $58 million in U.S. aid, some 2,700 families who lost homes got new ones and $800 to replace belongings. But they formed one of three anti-Bush demonstrations in Panama City on Tuesday, demanding an additional $3,500 per family.
Bush travels to Panama on Thursday in an election-year bid to highlight his foreign policy credentials. He plans to hail the democracy that has taken root since the December 1989 ouster of Noriega in "Operation Just Cause."
"We think the situation is immeasurably improved" since U.S. forces whisked off Noriega to stand trial in Miami, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. Noriega was convicted in April on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and drug trafficking.