No Trials for Panama Protesters, Kin Say

Judges in Panama are sentencing anti-government demonstrators to up to a year in prison without trials and with no defense lawyers provided for the accused, relatives of the prisoners said Tuesday.

The relatives made their complaints to leaders of the National Civic Crusade, which is leading a campaign to overthrow Panama’s military strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega. The Civic Crusade has collected statements from about 275 relatives of demonstrators who were jailed during marches last Friday.

In interviews conducted separately by reporters, a dozen relatives who had come to the crusade office at the Panama Chamber of Commerce gave nearly identical accounts of the sentencings. They said judges at the court adjacent to the Modelo prison in Panama City handed out prison terms ranging from 30 days to a year without holding a trial or permitting representation by lawyers.

A spokesman for the Panama Defense Forces, which Noriega heads, said the accusations were false. Said Maj. Edgardo Lopez: “These people are the guilty, and of course they are going to say they were abused. The trials were held at night, which is nothing abnormal, and they were held openly, not in some back bathroom somewhere.”

He said the demonstrators were arrested for throwing rocks at soldiers.

The uproar among the prisoners’ relatives reflects not only their personal dismay but also the feeling among many Panamanians that events are getting out of control.

“We are not accustomed to this kind of conflict,” said Escolastico Calvo, who manages government-owned newspapers in the capital. “People are amazed that it is going on.”

Observed a Western diplomat, “The arrests and violence are nothing compared to El Salvador or Guatemala, but for Panamanians they are a shock.”

Relatives who gathered at the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday also complained that those arrested were beaten, robbed and put into cells with hardened criminals.

Alcides Archbold said he visited his grandson, 19-year-old Jose Benjamin, at the Modelo prison on Sunday. “He begged me to get him out of there,” Archbold said. “He said other prisoners were stealing his food and threatening to kill him.”

About half of the 50 relatives gathered at the chamber appeared to be working-class Panamanians, many of them black. Their presence appeared to contradict government assertions that all demonstrations were being carried out by wealthy whites, whom the government deride as “white tails.”

Despite the arrests and sentences, hundreds of crusade supporters took to the sidewalks along Panama City’s main streets Tuesday to wave white handkerchiefs as a show of opposition to Noriega.

Crusade leaders have called for a rally in Panama City on Thursday. When marchers from various parts of the city tried to congregate last Friday for a similar rally, the Defense Forces drove them off with tear gas, clubs and shotguns.

The protests’ duration seems to have caught Washington’s special attention. William Walker, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Central America and Panama, arrived Tuesday for “consultations with senior Panamanian officials,” a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. The officials included Noriega and President Eric A. Delvalle, the head of Panama’s civilian government.

Walker also is expected to speak with opposition politicians, although embassy officials denied he has come to mediate between Noriega and his opponents.