Opposition Groups in Panama End Strike

Business and professional groups called off a failing, six-day-old work stoppage Tuesday but vowed to continue organized protests against the military strongman, Brig. Gen. Manuel A. Noriega.

The move came as the U.S. Embassy privately sought government and opposition reaction to early presidential elections as a possible way out of Panama’s lingering political crisis. Elections are currently scheduled for May, 1989.

The strike’s end was a tacit admission of defeat in the first round of what its organizers said will be a long struggle to end 19 years of military domination. Most banks and businesses shut by the National Civic Crusade’s protest had reopened Monday.

But a mood of boisterous defiance prevailed as the decision was announced at the National Chamber of Commerce headquarters. Two dozen dissident businessmen, students, teachers and other professionals frequently interrupted the press conference, applauding and waving white handkerchiefs, the symbol of their movement.

Aurelio Barria, the chamber president and chief spokesman for the crusade’s 35 member organizations, said the movement had won “an absolute moral victory” by suddenly rallying disparate elements of Panamanian society behind strikes and demonstrations.

Street disorders erupted a week ago after Col. Roberto Diaz Herrera, the retired military chief of staff, repeated longstanding allegations that Noriega rigged the 1984 election, trafficked in narcotics and plotted the deaths of Gen. Omar Torrijos, the former populist leader, and Hugo Spadafora, a prominent opposition figure.

Noriega denied the charges. On Thursday, the civilian government he controls decreed a state of emergency that suspended many civil liberties and silenced the opposition press. After two demonstrators died and scores were wounded, the violence subsided this week.

The Legislative Council, controlled by a pro-military party, censured 10 political and business leaders Monday for allegedly plotting to depose the government. It urged the courts to try them for treason.

Civic Crusade leaders said they hoped that by ending the strike, they could head off threatened prosecution and get the government to restore civil liberties.

But they urged Panamanians to continue other acts of the civil disobedience campaign: honking horns, banging pots, boycotting the national lottery and refusing to pay taxes and utility bills.

In an interview, Barria said the U.S. Embassy asked his Civic Crusade to consider dropping its demand for Noriega’s ouster in exchange for presidential elections late this year or next. He said the Americans made the same proposal to the Panamanian government.

“They are looking for a middle ground, a constitutional way out,” Barria said after meeting at the embassy with John F. Maisto, the deputy U.S. chief of mission.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the meeting.

U.S. Ambassador Arthur Davis has met separately with President Eric A. Delvalle and opposition party leaders since the protests started last week. Twice since Thursday, the embassy has issued communiques calling for the state of emergency to be “short-lived” and stressing the need for “free and untarnished elections.”

Barria said he personally favored the U.S. proposal as long as an independent commission is permitted to monitor the election. But the Civic Crusade’s leaders have taken no formal position.