Rumors Cover Flying Saucers, Governmental Gossip : ‘Lip Radio’ Tops Charts in Panama

Flying saucers were spotted over parts of Panama.

Miss Panama won her crown through the influence of the country’s strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, her alleged paramour.

Noriega is trying, through meditation, to banish an enemy by using the secret power of an onyx ring. Apparently failing to penetrate a shield of amulets set up by his enemy, Noriega is seeking asylum in France.

A wolfman stalks Panamanian mountains.

It’s been some kind of month in Panama, if such reports and rumors are to be believed. The stories are untrue--as well as unbelievable--but that hardly inhibits their circulation here, above all in a time of unrest.

Radio Bemba Working Overtime

In the midst of Panama’s most serious political crisis in 19 years, a phenomenon that Panamanians call Radio Bemba, “Lip Radio,” is working overtime.

Lip Radio is mouth-to-mouth rumormongering that has become a sort of art form here. In this nation of fewer than 2.5 million people, more than a third living in Panama City, rumors spread with astonishing rapidity. These days almost no affair--or reported affair--of state is too insignificant not to gain currency.

“We Panamanians are different. We love to talk and talk,” said Escolastico Calvo, who manages the three government-owned newspapers in Panama City. Calvo’s newspapers were the sources for both the flying saucer and wolfman stories.

Rumors can be serious business in Panama. The country’s present political turmoil has grown out of the supposed confirmation of longstanding rumors about Noriega, head of Panama’s Defense Forces and the effective power behind the civilian administration of President Eric A. Delvalle.

Stories of Fabulous Corruption

For the last several years, Panamanians have spread stories that Noriega was fabulously corrupt, that he rigged the 1984 presidential elections and that he ordered the killing of a prominent political opponent.

Suddenly, in early June, a former colleague and supporter of Noriega, Col. Roberto Diaz Herrera, said that all the stories were true. Diaz’s declarations sent thousands of Panamanians to the streets to demand Noriega’s ouster in demonstrations that have not yet ended--no matter that Diaz blamed his sudden opposition to Noriega on the influence of an Indian guru.

Until recently, Diaz was Noriega’s second-in-command of the Defense Forces and routinely defended the general against the allegation he himself now makes.

Diaz circulates almost daily hand-written pronouncements like chain letters, threatening disaster to readers that do not duplicate them and pass them on to others. He refers to Noriega as Cain, the sinful Biblical brother of Abel. Earlier this month, Diaz suggested that Noriega’s opponents meditate “to avoid the apocalypse that (Noriega and his cronies) want to reign in Panama.”

To ward off bad vibrations from Noriega, who is also widely rumored to practice the occult, Diaz surrounds himself with protective voodoo and religious symbols.

The government, in turn, thinks nothing of invoking the supernatural in its own defense. During the week of July 6, when government critics planned major anti-government demonstrations, horoscopes in the government newspaper La Critica cautioned against abrupt action. The warning to Leos, on July 9, was typical: “You should take control over your movements. You feel impulsive and capable of moving the world. It is not so.”

Sometimes the rumor mill gets vicious. La Critica, reporting on the supposed whereabouts of opposition leaders, said that one had taken refuge in the home of a Roman Catholic church leader. It slandered the politician and the churchman in a headline with a double meaning.

Denial by Government Paper

As for Miss Panama’s victory, the government, in a three-page investigative piece in one of its own newspapers, denied that Noriega had influenced the outcome.

On occasion, the government spreads rumors, then sees to it that they come true.

Two weeks ago, official spokesmen warned that “fanatics” planned to roam the streets and do battle with anti-Noriega protesters. The next night, gunmen opened fire on opposition caravans, breaking windshields and frightening the demonstrators off the street. Protesters and neutral observers identified the gunmen as well-known members of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, a military-backed ruling political party.

Later in the week, the Defense Forces warned demonstrators to expect violence during a big street protest scheduled for that Friday. Violence did erupt--provoked by tear gas and birdshot fired at protesters by Defense Forces police and troops.

Frustration Among Americans

The Panamanians’ love of sharing what they know or believe has caused some frustration among American diplomats here, who prefer to leak their own information to the press and public. When William Walker, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Central America and Panama, visited here the other day, he had hardly finished meeting with opposition leaders when those leaders began sharing the gist of the talks with anyone who would listen.

An opposition newspaper editor here, asked about the power of rumor in this country, said: “If we said that Noriega is eating cockroaches for breakfast, plenty of people would believe it. It’s all in the mind.”