Marines Fire at Intruders Again at Panama Base

About 100 Marines fired rifles and mortars for two hours at a group of 40 to 50 intruders in dark uniforms in the second encounter in two days at a Navy fuel depot near the Panama Canal, U.S. military authorities said Wednesday.

Despite the intense gunfire and support from American helicopters with searchlights, the Marines neither inflicted nor suffered casualties, and they captured none of the unidentified trespassers, U.S. officials said.

The Marines arrived in Panama last week, part of a group of 1,300 Americans sent to bolster defense of the canal and U.S. installations here as the Reagan Administration intensifies its campaign to oust Panama’s strongman, Gen. Manuel A. Noriega.

Noriega Scornful

Noriega poured scorn on the United States during a speech to military cadets at the army school in Rio Hato, saying: “This incident is a demonstration of the nervousness of the Marines and their lack of professionalism. . . . It shows that they were even afraid of the palm trees.”

Noriega’s government contends that the troop buildup is taking place because the United States is planning an invasion. And political analysts note that Noriega has been careful so far not to give the Americans a pretext to take military action.

Army Col. Ronald T. Sconyers, chief spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, the military headquarters for Latin America, said that a patrol of a dozen Marines spotted about 40 to 50 people in dark uniforms at dusk Tuesday near the fuel storage depot at Rodman Naval Station. Shooting broke out after reinforcements arrived at the site, four miles west of the Pacific Ocean entrance to the canal, bringing the Marine force to about 100.

Sconyers declined to say who fired first, but he said the Marines heard gunshots from the intruders and saw muzzle flashes during a two-hour gunfight ending about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. He said the Marines set off about 30 illumination mortar rounds and fired three explosive mortar rounds as well as rifle shots at the intruders.

Asked whether the newly arrived troops might have been prompted to fire nervously into the shadows, Sconyers said: “We cannot rule anything out at this time,” but added, “There were muzzle flashes. There was gunfire. There were intruders.”

Panama’s government-run television said Wednesday night that “nervous and utterly frightened North American invader troops continue shooting each other and causing serious casualties.”

The broadcast said the second shoot-out left two Marines dead, which U.S. officials denied. The report said the U.S. troops are so terrified “that when they see the palm trees moving, they believe in their imagination that Panamanian soldiers are advancing.”

The conflict occurred near the spot where a Marine patrol reported sighting six to eight intruders the previous night, Sconyers said. That patrol fired seven rounds and accidentally killed one of the unit’s Marines, Cpl. Ricardo Villahermosa of Puerto Rico.

Panamanian Maj. Antonio Delgado on Tuesday rejected a Pentagon spokesman’s suggestion that the trespassers in the initial incident were Panamanian soldiers. Delgado said the Marine’s death revealed the “lack of professionalism” of the American troops and showed they were nervous about being part of a situation they did not understand.

Barbed-Wire Fence

The 807-acre Navy fuel depot, adjacent to Howard Air Base, is visible behind a barbed-wire fence across the canal mouth from Panama City. The buried fuel tanks lie in a clearing surrounded by nearly impenetrable jungle, where the fighting took place.

Sconyers noted that while the fuel dump is fenced and marked along the Pan American Highway, other perimeters are unfenced and local residents sometimes cut through the grounds to get to the highway. Hunters also use the area illegally, he said. He added, however, that the Marines took action only after determining that the intruders were not those who normally traverse the area.

Sconyers declined to speculate on whether the successive groups of trespassers might have been members of Noriega’s Panama Defense Forces. He said U.S. commanders notified Panama immediately of the action and Panamanian officers came to the scene, arriving shortly after the shooting ended.