U.S.-Panama Talks Try to Calm Furor

A special envoy of the Panamanian government met Monday with Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams in an effort to calm the furor over a mob attack on the U.S. Embassy in Panama City last week, State Department officials said.

Veteran diplomat Aquilino Boyd, a former ambassador to Washington, met for an hour with Abrams. He also plans to see other Administration officials and congressional leaders this week.

State Department spokesman Greg Lagana described Monday’s session as “cordial, not confrontational.” He said that Boyd “expressed the desire to reduce tensions” and that Abrams “stressed our support for a series of specific steps in a process that results in free elections leading to a fully functioning democracy in Panama.”

Administration’s Call

The Reagan Administration has called for an investigation of charges that Panama’s military strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, murdered opposition leader Hugo Spadafora in 1985, plotted the death in 1981 of Gen. Omar Torrijos, who died in a plane crash, and rigged the 1984 presidential elections. Such Washington actions, branded by Panama’s military leadership as U.S. interference in its domestic affairs, prompted the attack on the American Embassy.

Last Wednesday, department spokesman Charles Redman accused the Panamanian government of “clearly and purposely” violating international law by failing to protect the embassy from an attack that he said was led by Cabinet members and the chief of the governing political party.

Redman on Monday repeated Washington’s position on the current political turmoil in Panama, where opposition parties and important sectors of the public are demanding that Noriega step down as commander of the Panama Defense Forces, a position from which he effectively controls the elected civilian administration of President Eric A. Delvalle.

‘Fraud and Complicity’

Redman said that the Administration continues “to support efforts to get out the facts on allegations of military involvement in 1984 electoral fraud and complicity in the murder of Hugo Spadafora. . . . The Panamanian government will have to answer to the Panamanian people for the conduct of the country’s military establishment.”

However, Redman rejected Panamanian assertions of U.S. interference in its domestic affairs, saying: “As we’ve said before, the current difficulties in Panama are internal ones, which can only be resolved by Panamanians themselves.”

In a news conference at the Panamanian Embassy here before his meeting with Abrams, Boyd expressed regret at the attack on the American Embassy, for which his government has offered to pay damages. “We wish that everybody, the two parties, the United States and Panama, would tone down the conflict,” he said.

Boyd acknowledged that accusations have been made that fraud was employed to ensure the election of the government party slate, Nicolas Ardito Barletta and Delvalle, in 1984’s presidential elections. But he asserted that Secretary of State George P. Shultz bestowed his blessing on that election by attending Barletta’s inauguration in October of that year. Delvalle became president in 1985 when Barletta resigned under pressure from Noriega.

Boyd said that anti-American sentiment in Panama was fueled not only by the Washington’s criticism of the regime but also by what he called indications that Washington is dragging its feet in moving toward sole Panamanian operation of the Panama Canal by the year 2000, as required by the 1977 Panama Canal treaty.

The envoy said that the treaty provided for an orderly transition to sole Panamanian operation over a period of 23 years. “We’ve gone 10 years, nearly half of that time, and all the cooperation has come from Panama.”

Boyd complained about the fact that, under the treaty, the United States will still hold a majority of seats on the binational commission that operates the canal in 1989, when the present U.S. administrator of the waterway is scheduled to be replaced by a Panamanian. He said Panama is also concerned that the commission produces deficits rather than profits because excessively liberal benefits are provided to U.S. citizens employed in the canal’s operation.

Boyd made no public comment after his meeting with Abrams, but the Panamanian Embassy said he will hold a news conference Wednesday.

Meanwhile, news agencies reported from Panama City that Col. Roberto Diaz Herrera, who until recently was Noriega’s second in command of the Panama Defense Forces, had failed to appear to testify in an investigation ordered into his own accusations that Noriega was involved in corruption, election fraud and murder conspiracies. Noriega has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The accusations, made by Diaz on June 8 after he had retired from the military in a dispute with Noriega, were followed by nearly a month of violent pro- and anti-government demonstrations that included the attack on the American Embassy.

In a speech Sunday night, President Delvalle announced that he had ordered the investigation into Diaz’s charges, a move made to try to defuse the ongoing political crisis. He also called for talks with his administration’s political opposition.

The Associated Press reported that again on Monday hundreds of motorists in the downtown area honked their horns while the public waved white handkerchiefs in a so-called “noise riot” against the government that continues almost daily. Housewives banged pots and pans to add to the din.

There were no reports of violence or arrests, AP said. Police have refused to make public figures on casualties and arrests that occurred in earlier violent demonstrations.

Leaders of the National Crusade, a coalition of business, political and labor groups, have called for the “motorcades of protest” to continue, demanding that Noriega step down and that the Defense Forces, Panama’s sole military and police organization, get out of politics.