Panama: Chaos at the Canal

An Indian guru who never set foot in Panama has helped trigger the most serious crisis in the history of that tiny Central American country and endangered the strategic interests of the United States.

The trouble is not quite the usual Latin-style instability; if not for its violent reality, the incredible political turmoil of recent weeks could be the latest chapter in a tropical television soap opera:

The army’s second in command and longtime government loyalist is forced out of his job and nobody knows why. Days later, inspired by Guru Satya Sahid Baba, he turns on his former commander--who also happens to be the de facto head of government--and accuses him of everything from murdering his predecessor to massive corruption and election fraud. The country’s commander, said to seek guidance from Haitian voodoo priests and to wear an onyx ring as protection from evil, responds to the charges: The former subordinate, he says, is crazy.

Meanwhile, the commander’s former mentors in the U.S. government turn against him because of evidence that he is involved in drug smuggling. The United States joins the cry for democracy.

As wild as this seems, the scenario offers the best chance in Panamanian history for people to grab control of their government from decades of dictators, incompetents and “Yankee imperialists.” Under Panama’s absurd turmoil is a people’s yearning for fundamental change in the way they are governed.

To enter the Byzantine world of Panamanian politics, it is important to understand who runs the country: not President Eric A. Delvalle, but the commander of Panama’s 15,000-man army, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, the man with the onyx ring.

Accusations in June by Col. Roberto Diaz Herrera against Noriega--the charges of corruption and murder--provoked an immediate sympathetic response from a rapidly organizing opposition. Student protests, street demonstrations, noisy marches and a two-day national strike were aimed at ending Noriega’s six-year reign.

When the opposition first took to the streets, the U.S. government seized the opportunity to go public with previously private concerns about Panama’s regime. First, Congress asked for Noriega’s resignation and free elections. Then, last week, reports surfaced from Miami of a federal grand jury investigation into Noriega’s alleged drug-related dealings.

The Panamanian government responded, in turn, with its own brand of diplomacy--cocktail parties and music--at one level and its own forms of repression at street level. Noriega declared a state of emergency, followed by shootings, hundreds of arrests, telephone threats, attacks on the U.S. embassy in Panama City, attacks on offices of opposition leaders and the shutdown of three newspapers plus a radio station. Diaz was arrested, along with 40 people protecting him in his palace.

Noriega claims that the United States, together with his opposition, is creating the turmoil as an excuse for canceling its agreement to return the Panama Canal to Panamanian control, starting in 1990. The United States has been cautious in response to his allegations, clearly not wanting to endanger vital interests in Panama.

Panama’s importance to its northern neighbor extends beyond the Canal. The United States has 10,000 military personnel based in the U.S. Southern Command, a prime listening post and a military headquarters for the entire continent.

None of the accusations against Noriega were unprecedented, either in Panama or the United States. His predecessor, army commander and president Gen. Omar Torrijos died in a mysterious plane crash in 1981; many Latins believed the president had been the victim of a conspiracy organized by Noriega, then chief of military intelligence, with help from the U.S. military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Torrijos was the most important figure in modern Panamanian history, having become the undisputed leader of Central America. Charismatic and pragmatic, Torrijos had gained power in a coup in 1968. For the next 13 years, he worked to transfer Panama’s institutions of power from a small elite to the people at large. He declared the country nonaligned. His greatest triumph was the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977.

As curious as it seems from afar, Noriega--the man everyone assumed had killed Torrijos--appeared as the most logical political successor.

In 1985 there were accusations that Noriega engineered the violent decapitation of Dr. Hugo Spadafora, his principal critic. When then-President Nicolas Ardito Barletta announced an investigation into Spadafora’s death, Noriega ordered Ardito’s ouster; in his place, Noriega appointed Delvalle.

Ardito’s removal infuriated Washington; he had been hand-picked by the United States and Noriega had participated in his selection. According to Diaz himself, he and other Noriega allies rigged the ballot-counting during the 1984 election to insure an Ardito victory.

While the Reagan Administration leaked intelligence reports last year linking Noriega to drug dealing, weapons trafficking, money laundering and the sale of intelligence secrets to Cuba, the U.S. intelligence community continued its relationship with Noriega, apparently because he provided valuable intelligence reports on Cuba and allowed the United States to maintain its military bases in Panama.

Noriega’s ties to the United States, however uncomfortable, have ample precedent in Panamanian history. Some Central Americans say that the Republic of Panama was created because the United States needed a water bridge between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Until then, Panama was a state about the size of West Virginia in neighboring Colombia. Its “liberation” happened in 1903; already weakened by civil war, Colombia did not fight when a U.S.-sponsored Panama declared its independence.

For more than 80 years, the United States not only maintained control of the Canal but charted Panama’s political direction. Panamanian defense forces get U.S. arms, financing and training. Even during the current crisis, Noriega maintains ties with the CIA and allows U.S. agents to operate in Panama without government interference.

Now the Reagan Administration has called for full civilian rule in Panama. “Military leaders must remove their institutions from politics and end corruption,” said Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary for inter-American affairs.

Democracy, of course, hasn’t always been Washington’s underlying interest during eight decades of bossing the Canal. Panamanians have resisted what they consider imperialism and anti-American sentiment has grown in all levels of society in recent years. Noriega himself has allied himself with the nationalists on occasion and he has even flirted with Nicaragua’s Sandinista leaders.

Now, Panamanians recognize that their unrest offers an unprecedented opportunity, one that could lead them directly to a true democracy if opposition leaders rally the citizenry to overcome Noriega oppression. If the opposition fails, it’s quite possible that Noriega’s prediction of a U.S. abandonment of the Canal treaty could become reality.

Panama’s current crisis may be merely another episode of a crazy, sometimes tragic soap opera--or it may produce a real drama of real change.