Thousands Stage Panama Protest : Demonstrators Call for Overthrow of Strongman Noriega

Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets waving white flags Thursday in the largest anti-government rally since political unrest erupted here two months ago.

The demonstrators marched peacefully throughout the afternoon and evening beneath a hail of confetti, chanting “Justice! Justice!” and calling for the overthrow of Panama’s military commander and strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega. Police stayed away from the demonstration.

Noriega’s cousin, Mayor Jilma Noriega de Jurado of Panama City, had banned the opposition march late Wednesday, but the country’s civilian president, Eric A. Delvalle, countermanded that order early Thursday.

Delvalle is formally head of state, but Noriega is de facto ruler as head of the 20,000-man Panamanian Defense Forces, the nation’s sole military and police organization.

Public Accusations

The march was called by the National Civic Crusade, a largely middle- and upper-class movement formed in June after Noriega’s former chief of staff publicly accused him of corruption, election fraud and arranging for the murder of a physician who was an outspoken critic of the regime.

“You are seeing the first split between a Noriega functionary, who prohibited the march, and Delvalle, who insisted that it go on,” said Ricardo Arias Calderon, president of the opposition Christian Democratic Party. “They realized that using repression as they did on July 10 would have been disastrous and deepened the crisis. It would have accelerated (Noriega’s) downfall.”

A Crusade rally scheduled July 10 was broken up by riot police who used tear gas and compressed air guns firing birdshot to keep marchers from reaching the rally site. More than 300 protesters, including many businessmen, were arrested. The Crusade is led by the Panamanian Chamber of Commerce.

Leaders at Large

Six Crusade leaders, including chamber President Aurelio Barria, remained at large Thursday after the attorney general’s office issued arrest warrants for them on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government.

“No one is going to let himself be arrested for a crime he hasn’t committed,” said a relative of Barria who asked not to be identified.

The Chamber of Commerce building, where the Crusade has its office, was raided by government agents Tuesday. Officials say they found documents implicating the businessmen in a plot to oust the government.

Employees arriving at the chamber building early Thursday found the front door smeared with animal entrails and waste. The same kind of garbage also was dumped at the front door of the Bank of Boston, one of about 120 foreign banks with branches here.

‘Smell of Death’

A note from a previously unheard of group, the Committee for the Rescue of Santo Tomas Hospital, stated: “We have collected this waste from the operating room to give to you so that you get to know the smell of death, since you Crusaders continue with your efforts to divide the Panamanian family so that our brothers kill each other.”

Smelly dead fish were scattered in the grass and trees surrounding El Carmen Catholic Church, the announced rallying point of Thursday’s protest by the Crusade. Protesters gathered the pieces of fish and stuck them in a traffic policeman’s stand.

The demonstrators, estimated to number 20,000 to 30,000, hung crepe-paper pineapples, a derogatory allusion to Noriega complexion, which is pockmarked.

“Down with the pineapple!” they shouted.

Banks and businesses on Via Espana Street were closed and their windows were boarded up against possible violence, but the demonstration was calm. Most of the protesters seemed to be enjoying themselves, singing a tropical opposition song and eating snow cones against the steamy afternoon heat.

Earlier Thursday, the president of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party, Romulo Escobar Bethancourt, told reporters that the opposition was supported by “reactionary forces” in the United States that are trying to destabilize the government and economy, and to draw deposits away from Panamanian banks to the United States.

“The internal Panamanian opposition is weak and small. This comes from outside,” Escobar said. “This movement is directed by wealthy people. They don’t have popular support.”

The opposition crowd was largely middle-class, made up of students, teachers and employees of private enterprise. But Jaime Campos, 32, a carpenter, stood with several of his friends and said, “We’re not high society. We’re workers. And we want this regime to go.”