Noriega’s Troops Seize Foes in Panama Raid : Opposition Figures Are Rounded Up, Clubbed; Several American Journalists Detained by Police

Troops and plainclothes agents under the command of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, staging a surprise raid Monday on a major hotel, detained and in some cases beat more than a dozen leaders and members of the anti-Noriega Civic Crusade as well as about 15 employees of U.S. news organizations.

After blocking the driveway entrances to the Marriott Cesar Park Hotel, troops in white police vans repeatedly struck many of those detained with rubber truncheons and wooden nightsticks, witnesses said.

Later, they cut telephone communications from the luxury hotel on the city’s waterfront, where the crusade maintains an information office and where dozens of foreign journalists have stayed during the recent political crisis.

Among those seized were Roberto Aleman, Alberto Aleman and Carlos Gonzalez de la Lastra, all prominent leaders of the crusade, a coalition of about 200 business, professional and trade organizations that has spearheaded opposition to Noriega during the past nine months. Crusade members have led an 8-day strike that has shut most industry and commerce in Panama City.

As the soldiers and agents stormed the lobby of the 391-room hotel at sundown, panicked guests were ordered upstairs to their rooms. Some guests, frightened by the troops’ sudden appearance, wept as they were herded into elevators.

Several crusade members were reported to be in hiding on various floors of the 15-story Marriott. Meanwhile, according to hotel personnel, plainclothes agents requested the master key to search through rooms of reporters.

Among the journalists detained were three Americans, one of whom was beaten and hospitalized, witnesses said.

They said CBS cameraman Ignacio Medrano, a U.S. citizen, was beaten on the back with a truncheon and later was X-rayed in the military wing of Santo Tomas Hospital. Medrano was reported able to walk but was having difficulty breathing. It was not clear when he would be released from the hospital.

CBS sound technician Alejandro Carbonell, a Panamanian, was detained, but employees at CBS said they had no information on his whereabouts.

Another television journalist, Carl Hersh of ABC, was also hospitalized with unspecified injuries. A Panamanian employed by ABC News was detained, as were two American photojournalists, J. B. Diedrich and Tom Hailey.

A total of seven Panamanians working for NBC News were detained and released. Two Mexican citizens with NBC were beaten; one of them, Domingo Rex, was hospitalized with a broken nose, while the other, Alfredo Gudino, was beaten, kicked, detained and released, witnesses said.

NBC spokesmen said plainclothes agents took from the network’s suite on the 15th floor of the Marriott portable radios, flak jackets and gas masks used by NBC crew members to protect themselves during street demonstrations. The other networks reported tapes and written material seized from their offices at the hotel.

One eyewitness told The Times that a melee broke out as the plainclothesmen entered the hotel shortly before 6 p.m. The 20 plainclothes agents, some carrying Uzi submachine guns and others pistols and rubber hoses, fought off efforts of a single hotel security guard to block their way, said Raymundo Riva Palacios, a reporter with the influential Mexican newspaper Excelsior.

‘Swinging a Metal Rod’

“Television cameramen came to the scene and plainclothesmen began swinging a metal rod at them,” Riva said. Another scuffle broke out at the lobby elevators between television cameramen and the plainclothesmen, who had by then been joined by uniformed soldiers, Riva recalled. The plainclothesmen were making their way to the mezzanine floor, where the Civic Crusade maintains a small office containing a telephone and a copy machine.

The crusade was planning to hold a press conference when the raid began.

Crusade members on the mezzanine scurried about in confusion. Meanwhile, police rounded up several who had fled to the 14th floor, where some were renting rooms, Riva said.

At the driveway entrances, uniformed soldiers shoved detained crusade members into vans and whacked them on the lower legs to force them to their knees.

Plainclothes agents under military command are known here as “paramilitaries” and are generally part of the intelligence branch of the Panamanian Armed Forces.

The raid marked the first apparent roundup of Civic Crusade members this year. Last October, more than 30 crusade members were rounded up and later released. Some have gone into exile, while others have returned to Panama.

In the government-owned newspaper Monday, an anonymous editorial warned that under the law, anyone who takes the part of a foreign state in trying to threaten the independence of Panama “will be punished with 15 to 20 years in prison.”

Government Accusations

It was not known whether crusade leaders elsewhere in the city were arrested. The government has accused them all of being tools of U.S. policy designed to bring down Noriega.

At a convention center across the street from the Marriott, the government was holding a “solidarity conference” of leftist Latin American and Caribbean politicians. The meeting consisted of speech after speech protesting American interference in Panamanian affairs.

Only hours before the raid, riot police broke up a Civic Crusade demonstration in downtown Panama City by throwing tear gas at the protesters and firing birdshot into the air.

The demonstration began peacefully in front of Don Bosco Church, near the center of the capital’s main shopping neighborhood. As three truckloads of troops watched passively, about 2,500 demonstrators marched toward Central Avenue, a major commercial area, waving white handkerchiefs and shouting “Down with Pineapple Face!”--a derogatory nickname given by his foes to Noriega because of his acne-scarred skin.

‘We’re All Panamanians’

For awhile, it appeared that the march might go without incident, and at the beginning an officer in charge of the troops assured the demonstrators: “We’re all Panamanians. I want to tell you in the name of the Panama Defense Forces (which Noriega commands) that we do not want to fight Panamanians. These weapons are to defend the country against our own people.”

Twenty minutes later, however, trouble began. As the march proceeded along Central Avenue, riot troops, locally called “Dobermans,” tossed tear-gas canisters and dispersed the marchers. The protesters regrouped a few blocks away but were routed again as police charged them behind hand-held shields and threw more tear gas.

At one point, demonstrators took refuge in an open-air fish and meat market but had to flee when soldiers gassed the stalls as well.

On occasion, demonstrators retaliated by tossing rocks at the troops. At the same time, residents of surrounding neighborhoods, protesting the demonstrators’ treatment, set afire plastic bags filled with trash.

The scene of marchers being tear-gassed, fleeing and then being supported by others building burning barricades has become a common sight during more than a month of turmoil in this city.

Costa Rica Reports

In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Monday that he knew nothing about reports that Noriega had sent an emissary for negotiations in Costa Rica.

Juan B. Sosa, Panama’s ambassador to the United States, who has declared his loyalty to ousted President Eric A. Delvalle, also said he knew of no such negotiations. But Sosa said he believes that Noriega is seeking some sort of talks in Costa Rica. “It is a ploy on his part in order to buy time,” Sosa said.

Meanwhile, there were signs of worried preparation being made by middle-class Panamanians on Monday in case the situation becomes more chaotic.

Hundreds of Panamanian citizens, some of whom had waited overnight, lined up at several passport offices to obtain passports. Some said they were doing so because they had heard that the passport fee of $30 was going to be raised, while others expressed fear that the supply of passport documents would run out because of the rush. Still others voiced worries that Panama’s decline was becoming uncontrollable.

‘Never Be the Same’

“I’m afraid that chaos and riot are coming,” said Eira de Carrizo, 31, a bank manager. “The way I see it, Panama will never be the same.”

Added 19-year-old university student Valentin Sosa: “I want to be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. The country is running out of money, and soon there will be less and less work.”

Several passport applicants interviewed said that if they had to take refuge, they would go to the United States.

The U.S. Embassy here declined to give data on the number of visa applications being made by Panamanian citizens for travel to the United States. An embassy spokesman did say, however, that the number was about double the normal seasonal rate.

On Monday morning, the government apparently coped with the first round of payments due on its biweekly payroll, paying hundreds of retired persons up to $150 of the pensions due them. Government newspapers have announced that pensioners who are supposed to receive more than $150 will be paid in the next few days.

New American Dollars

The government itself will cash their checks by handing out an assortment of crisp new American dollars, torn and evidently old U.S. bills and Panamanian commemorative coins that are accepted as legal tender here. The U.S. dollar is Panama’s currency.

The government has been suffering a severe cash shortage because of a freeze on about $50 million in Panamanian funds held in U.S. banks. Foes of Noriega living in the United States are backed by the Reagan Administration, which hopes that the cash shortage here will encourage Panamanians to overthrow the general, who is under federal indictment in the United States on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.

The Panamanian government has been pressing Panamanian banks to cash checks made out to the government, but so far the banks have resisted. There has been speculation here that at some point, the government will take over the banks and seize the money in their vaults.

Meanwhile, strikes of public workers, including those at port, electrical, water and telephone facilities, continued Monday after nearly two weeks. Troops have seized the port and key utility and communications facilities to keep them running. Although soldiers have occupied the port, cargo has not moved through it.

The strikes were started to protest delayed and reduced salary payments during the previous government payroll period.