Panama Mania : U.S. Obsession With Noriega Has Latin America in a Bind

The presidential election in Panama Sunday will, of course, mainly affect Panamanians. The violence, the tampering and the foreign involvement, whatever their respective intensity and likelihood, will hurt the inhabitants of Panama more than anybody else. But the election obviously will have implications far beyond Panama.

The Bush Administration, in pursuit of its predecessor’s policy of removing Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega from power, has made the Panamanians’ vote a U.S. foreign-policy problem. Consequently, it is bound to become a problem for the rest of Latin America as well.

The issue can be couched in relatively simple terms. Whatever actually happens in Panama this weekend, it is clear that the United States will take advantage of both the reality and the perception of electoral abuses to escalate its attempt to remove Noriega. But the more it emphasizes or amplifies the opposition’s claims of tampering and repression, the greater the risk that, if Noriega successfully resists U.S. pressure once again, the Administration will be caught in a bind. It will feel compelled either to go beyond denunciations and threats and take some sort of punitive action, or concede that is powerless against the resilient Panamanian leader.

The problem for other Latin American republics will then be similar to the one they have faced ever since the Reagan Administration had a change of heart about Noriega and embarked on the present course. But their dilemma will intensify if Noriega’s candidate, Carlos Duque, is declared the winner Sunday under questionable circumstances. Most Latin American governments do not want to associate themselves with the U.S. campaign against Noriega; as always, they do not believe that Washington’s displeasure is sufficient reason for forcing a change in governments. On the other hand, though, few countries in the region want to be placed in the situation of defending Noriega, much less of confronting the United States over Noriega.

Until now, the Latin American stance has been successfully ambiguous. The Group of Eight that emerged in the Central America peace process (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) suspended Panama’s membership. Theoretically, it was to wait for a resolution of the question of who was the legitimate president of Panama, Eric del Valle (now in exile) or Manuel Solis Palma, chosen by Noriega to replace Del Valle. But if the United States uses Sunday’s elections as a way to raise the ante against Noriega, which seems highly probable, the Latin American ambiguity will become more difficult to maintain.

This will be all the more true if the issue is placed in the context of democracy and repression. Should the countries of Latin America, with or without the United States, monitor elections in the region and impose sanctions--formal or implicit--on governments that engage in widespread electoral tampering? How many present Latin American governments would survive the test themselves? Probably not the region’s two largest and most populous nations--Brazil, which hasn’t had direct elections for president since 1960, and Mexico, which has elected several but under dubious circumstances, to say the least. Conversely, would the United States and its closest allies in the hemisphere be as adamant in their questioning of unfair or unclean elections when those accused of tampering were more to their liking?

For most Latin American governments, there will be no easy way to respond to the Panamanian imbroglio if the United States actually transforms it into a hemispheric crisis. The region’s leadership should not, and probably will not, accept the fig leaf of electoral fraud as a cover for U.S. attempts to get rid of Noriega. The game, or more rightly the precedent, is not worth the candle. But neither should any government accept Noriega’s tampering (if it occurs) on the grounds of nonintervention in another country’s domestic political affairs.

The best solution for Latin America’s leaders is in all likelihood simply to do nothing. That is certain to cause displeasure in Washington, but for now it is the least costly position. And it will continue to be so, as long as there are no major changes--mass violence, a U.S. invasion--in Panama.

The broader question perhaps is whether it is worthwhile for the Bush Administration to begin its dealings with Latin America on this footing. The continuation of its predecessor’s obsession with this so-called strong man strikes some as uncomfortably close to that other chimera of making the Sandinistas “cry uncle.”