Bush Orders Aid for Foes of Noriega : CIA Funds Election Efforts in Bid to Oust Panama Chief

The CIA, acting under orders from President Bush, has launched a covert operation to boost the opposition’s chances of ousting the regime of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega in Panama’s presidential election next month, Bush Administration officials said Saturday.

The CIA’s effort has included funding for opposition activities, printing facilities for opposition literature and plans for clandestine radio and television broadcasts in the period leading up to the May 7 election, sources said.

Despite the CIA campaign, Administration officials said they expect Noriega, Panama’s military strongman, to succeed in delivering the election to his own handpicked candidate, Carlos Duque, even though he may have to resort to outright fraud. Duque is president of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the largest party in Panama’s ruling coalition.

Sees Public Approval

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re trying to help the opposition win the election,” one official said. “Panama is probably the only country in Latin America where this kind of operation is greeted with acclaim by most of the population.”

But, he added, “Noriega’s going to steal the election. . . . There’s no way the opposition can win, the way he’s set it up.”

The State Department charged last week that Noriega’s regime has printed false voter lists, tampered with voter registration rolls and used military personnel to campaign illegally for government candidates.

Noriega’s government also moved last week to make it more difficult for foreign observers to monitor the election, imposing new visa requirements for American citizens and warning a monitoring group from the Organization of American States that its safety in the country could not be guaranteed.

Arrested U.S. Agent

And, earlier this month, Noriega’s police arrested a U.S. agent who confessed to having set up a network of clandestine radio and television transmitters for pro-opposition broadcasts. The agent, Kurt Frederick Muse, 39, told the Panamanians that he was working for the State Department, but sources in Washington said that his actions appeared to be part of the CIA’s covert program in Panama.

The existence of the CIA program was first reported by U.S. News & World Report in an article released Saturday. The magazine said Bush signed a directive launching the operation in February.

Bush “personally lobbied the plan through the congressional intelligence committees and won approval for the CIA to provide more than $10 million” to Noriega’s opponents, the magazine reported.

The White House refused to confirm the report. “I can’t comment on intelligence matters,” spokeswoman Alice Glen said.

But other officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, confirmed the existence of the program. They described it as a relatively modest effort that clearly supports the Administration’s policy of seeking a fair election in Panama.

One official said the Administration believes the covert aid to the opposition is justified because Noriega’s regime is so clearly attempting to steal the election. The official added that the CIA action is an attempt to “level the playing field” rather than distort the election process.

The House and Senate intelligence committees, both led by Democrats, have been informed of the program and support it, officials said.

The United States has been seeking to oust Noriega since February, 1988, when the dictator was indicted by two federal grand juries in Florida on charges of aiding drug traffickers. The Reagan Administration encouraged Panama’s then-president, Eric A. Delvalle, to fire Noriega as military commander, but Noriega ousted Delvalle instead.

U.S. Attempts Fail

After that, the Reagan Administration sought to force Noriega out through both overt and covert actions, with no success. The United States reportedly supported attempts to organize a coup within the Panamanian armed forces, but a 1988 attempt fizzled.

Some U.S. officials proposed kidnaping Noriega to bring him to justice in the United States, but that idea ran into opposition both in the CIA and in the congressional intelligence committees and was never attempted, officials said.

An Administration official said Saturday that reviving those options is “a latent possibility” after Panama’s elections but is not actively being worked on.

Economic Sanctions

Meanwhile, President Bush has extended the economic sanctions on Panama that were first imposed by the Reagan Administration: a freeze on Panamanian assets in the United States, a ban on transfers of funds between U.S. and Panamanian banks and a prohibition of tax payments by U.S. concerns to the Noriega regime.

Other actions that could be taken against Noriega, an official said, include a complete trade embargo, the suspension of U.S. visas for Panamanian citizens and various moves to remove U.S. citizens from Panama.

However, the Pentagon has resisted proposals for withdrawing U.S. troops or their dependents from the country, where they are stationed at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command and at installations for the defense of the Panama Canal, officials said.

The Southern Command has reported hundreds of incidents of harassment of its 5,700 American civilian and military personnel, including the rape of a serviceman’s wife and the brief seizure of a school bus full of American children.