Panama Orders Arrest of Six Noriega Foes

Five of six businessmen leading a fight to oust Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega went into hiding Wednesday after the government issued an order for their arrest for conspiring to overthrow the government.

The mayor of Panama City, meanwhile, banned a rally that the opposition National Civic Crusade had scheduled for today and outlawed car caravans, one of the middle- and upper-class Crusade’s principal forms of protest against the government.

Although civilian President Eric A. Delvalle is the official head of state in Panama, Gen. Noriega is said to rule here as commander of the 20,000-man military and the only general.

Decree Issued

Mayor Jilma Noriega de Jurado, a cousin of the general, issued a decree suspending “all public demonstrations or mass concentrations with the evident purpose of disturbing public order or inciting the citizenry against legitimate authority.” The mayor told reporters she had “instructed the Defense Forces to take the necessary steps” to prevent the rally.

The Crusade is pressing both for Noriega’s ouster and for an investigation into charges by a former army colonel, Roberto Diaz Herrera, that the general rigged the 1984 presidential elections and ordered the murder of a political rival in 1985.

Diaz was arrested last week, and the government says he has withdrawn his accusations.

Noriega also is at the center of a drug conspiracy investigation by a U.S. grand jury in Miami. The investigation is based on testimony that he has been skimming profits from drug shipments and drug-related money transfers passing through Panama from Colombia.

Noriega has blamed U.S. officials for fomenting opposition.

The order to arrest six Crusade leaders was issued late Tuesday night, hours after government agents raided the Panamanian Chamber of Commerce building. The Chamber of Commerce is leading the Crusade, and its headquarters houses the Crusade’s office.

Atty. Gen. Carlos Villalaz told a reporter in a brief telephone interview Wednesday that the arrest order was issued because documents seized in the Chamber of Commerce raid revealed “a plot to overthrow the government.”

The agents took four boxes of materials from the chamber. Villalaz said that among the confiscated papers was a proposed 10-point program that called for disbanding the military’s high command and retiring the officers, forming a new government junta, holding elections for a new legislature, appointing a new Supreme Court and writing a new constitution.

The six Crusade leaders ordered arrested were: chamber president Aurelio Barria; former president Gilberto Mallol; vice president Raul Mendez; executive director Rafael Zuniga; the president of the Panamanian Assn. of Business Executives, Roberto Brenes, and Eduardo Villarino, president of the Assn. of Business Executives.

U.S. Warning Reported

Police cars arrived in the early morning at the houses of several of the businessmen, but they have been spending nights away from home to avoid arrest or possible violence. Barria said Tuesday that he had been warned by U.S. officials to take precautionary measures.

Five of the businessmen were in hiding Wednesday while their lawyers attempted to post bail for them. The sixth, Mendez, initially unaware that his name was included on the arrest order, went to work as usual. He said he would not go out of his way to dodge officials.

“They know I’m here because this place is bugged,” Mendez said at the chamber offices.

He denied charges that the Crusade is trying to oust the government.

“We have never advocated the violent overthrow of the government. We have never printed any document inciting violence. . . . But we’ve never hidden the fact that we are calling for the removal of military officials implicated in corruption,” Mendez said.

“We did not get an inventory of all the papers they confiscated; therefore, they can say whatever they want was there.”

Leaflet Reported Seized

Villalaz also said the agents confiscated a leaflet encouraging violence, which contained instructions for making a Molotov cocktail. Chamber officials had shown such a leaflet to reporters a day before the raid, saying that it had been planted by someone wishing to damage their reputation.

The Crusade has preached nonviolent protest at its demonstrations and twice-daily car caravans. The protesters wear white and carry white flags and white handkerchiefs. Participants in the car caravans drive through the capital at noon and after work, blocking traffic and throwing white confetti, shredded paper and toilet paper into the streets.

Crusade leaders said they will attempt to hold today’s rally despite the mayor’s ban.

“We hope there aren’t any problems,” said Carlos Gonzalez de la Lastra, a leader of the Crusade coalition.

This is the first large-scale demonstration that the opposition has scheduled since July 10. That rally was broken up by police riot who arrested about 300 protesters. All have since been released.