Baker Urges Panama’s Military to Ensure Fair Election

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, accusing Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, Panama’s strongman, of planning “massive fraud” to steal next week’s election for his hand-picked candidate, urged Monday that the country’s military ignore the orders of its commander and permit free and fair balloting.

“The key is in the hands of the (Panama) Defense Forces,” Baker said in a speech to the Council of the Americas, an inter-American business group. “They can fulfill their constitutional duty as professional soldiers and allow the elections to proceed freely and fairly, or they can face the consequences of the path on which Gen. Noriega has placed them.”

Baker did not spell out how Noriega allegedly is rigging the vote, the steps that Baker hopes the military will take or the consequences of a fraudulent election.

Effect on Canal

Asked if Washington might delay or cancel the scheduled transfer of control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of 1999, Baker said the question was premature.

“The United States believes in abiding by its treaty obligations and abiding by its agreements,” Baker said, “so I’m not going to answer the hypothetical (question) that you’ve suggested, beyond saying that as long as Gen. Noriega retains power, there will be no normalization of relations between Panama and the United States.”

State Department spokesman Margaret Tutwiler said later that unless Panama conducts a free and fair election, it can expect “isolation and economic crisis.”

Asked if the consequences might go beyond that, she replied that they would not.

Sunday’s election matches Noriega’s choice, Carlos Duque, against an opposition slate headed by Guillermo David Endara.

Latest Salvo

Baker’s remarks were the latest salvo in the Bush Administration’s campaign to discredit the election. U.S. officials have said that if Duque wins, the Administration will undertake a new effort to dislodge Noriega from his post as military commander and de facto ruler.

Last year, the United States imposed economic sanctions on Panama in an unsuccessful attempt to force Noriega’s ouster.

“In Panama, free and fair elections this coming Sunday would end that nation’s political and economic crisis and its international isolation as well,” Baker said. “Unfortunately, the Noriega regime’s response has been to prepare for massive fraud and to restrict the presence of international observers and press. If democracy is to continue to develop in this hemisphere, practices such as this simply cannot be tolerated.

“There is still time for the Panamanians to save their country from the increasing destruction wrought by the Noriega dictatorship.”

Tutwiler was asked later what Baker expects Panamanian soldiers or other citizens to do in the week remaining to reverse a process of election rigging that U.S. officials say has been going on for months.

“Having worked in four national campaigns myself, 24 hours is a lifetime in a national campaign,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ambler Moss, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama, said in a television interview that Panama craves international political legitimacy. He urged the Administration to abandon its unilateral approach and concentrate instead on diplomacy to pressure Noriega to change course.

“I think it’s a question, really, of mobilizing the rest of Latin American opinion,” Moss said. “What happened last year basically was that the U.S. moved in, muscled aside Panama’s own internal opposition and became Noriega’s chief antagonist in the world, and also muscled aside Latin American countries that were prepared to be helpful.”

In his speech, Baker warned Latin American nations that the only way to prevent Washington from following a go-it-alone policy against Panama and leftist-ruled Nicaragua is for the hemisphere’s democracies to participate in a joint effort to pressure both nations into free elections.

“If the peoples and governments of Latin America and the Caribbean ask the United States to forgo unilateral initiatives and work instead in good faith with the region’s democracies in a new cooperative diplomacy to support democracy, then I think it is only fair for us to ask these same peoples and governments to join with us in good faith to turn the promise of that diplomacy into a reality throughout this hemisphere,” he said.