Rogue in Panama

As evidence mounts that Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega is an outlaw whose massive drug deals have betrayed his own country and endangered the United States, it also becomes clearer that there is not much that Washington can do to ease him out. The Reagan Administration, busy for the last seven years with its grand plans to topple the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, realized too late that Noriega was the greater menace to the Western Hemisphere.

Some American officials--including retired Army Gen. Paul F. Gorman, former commander of the U.S. Southern Command--began complaining years ago that Noriega was implicated in drug smuggling and money laundering. But the Administration chose to overlook his abuses because he proved so useful. Noriega, who holds no office in Panama’s civilian government but effectively controls the country as its top military commander, slipped sensitive intelligence on Nicaragua to the Central Intelligence Agency. He backed the Reagan Administration in the Contra war, and in fact may have allowed Contras to train in Panama. And he helped the Drug Enforcement Administration rout occasional cocaine smugglers.

Now his former associates have come forward and testified before a Senate subcommittee that all along Noriega was a double-dealer. While aiding the DEA, they say, he was on the payroll of Colombian drug racketeers. He shared secrets with both the CIA and Cuba’s intelligence agency. And, although many of their charges have not been verified, his former cronies say that he dealt with both Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and Fidel Castro.

Yet it was only when dogged federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa began to zero in on Noriega that the United States started pressuring him to step down. The deal that the Administration offered him, immunity from prosecution in exchange for his resignation, fell apart in December--partly because of his intransigence, partly because the Reagan Administration could not speak in one voice. While a senior Pentagon official was quietly urging Noriega to resign in March, it now appears that a former aide to Vice President George Bush may have told the Panamanian strongman to hold on for another year.

The Administration continued to hope that Panama’s military, especially middle-ranking officers trained in the United States, might eventually turn against Noriega. But last week’s indictments--charging Noriega and 15 associates with drug trafficking, money laundering and accepting $4.6 million in payoffs--appear to have shut off for now any chance of a military coup. To the contrary, the Panama Defense Forces have rallied around their commander; many officers may worry that Noriega could drag them down with him and implicate them in drug deals.

Popular protests and internal opposition have been instrumental in toppling dictators like the Philippines’ Ferdinand E. Marcos and Haiti’s Jean-Claude Duvalier. But Panama’c Civic Crusade, a coalition of businessmen that spearheaded demonstrations against Noriega last summer, lacks both the daring and the broad-based support to oust him. The Crusade just announced that a long-discussed general strike has been postponed because of Carnival.

Panama’s deteriorating economy may be the one pressure point still available. The turmoil has already taken its toll: Depositors are withdrawing their money from the country’s banks. Domestic lending and construction have stalled. The World Bank has imposed sanctions because of Panama’s inability to make economic changes to overcome its debt crisis. The United States has already suspended economic and military aid, and it could do more: It could deny Panama’s airline landing rights in the United States. It could stop shipping Alaskan oil through the Panama pipeline to the Midwest, thus denying Noriega’s regime desperately needed income.

But ultimately the United States has to hope that Panamanians themselves, humiliated by a leader who has made their country synonymous with crime, battered by economic troubles, will finally turn on the man who sold them out.