Carter Calls Vote in Panama ‘Fraud’ : Troops Fire on Anti-Noriega Demonstrators

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, counted on by military strongman Manuel A. Noriega to give legitimacy to Panama’s national elections, said Monday that “the government is taking this election by fraud.”

Carter’s unexpectedly strong denunciation of the Noriega government, which he termed “a military dictatorship,” came just after Panamanian soldiers and riot police had opened fire on small groups of anti-government demonstrators.

Just three blocks from where Carter was calling the election a fraud, troops fired rifles, shotguns and tear gas to drive off the demonstrators, who had clustered in groups of about 50 on street corners, shouting anti-Noriega insults and political slogans.

Journalist Wounded

The first reported casualty was Franklin Aruz, a local television cameraman, who was shot in the chest by government security agents and hospitalized in grave condition.

Carter said that his delegation of international observers is convinced that the pro-Noriega political coalition, led by presidential candidate Carlos Duque, has been defeated by a 3 to 1 margin.

“This morning, the military dictatorship decided not to let the true vote be revealed,” Carter said.

He charged that troops stole tally sheets that had been certified by opposition and government officials as “indicating clearly the opposition winning three to one.”

“These tally sheets were stolen during the night, some at gunpoint, and during the day counterfeit records were substituted. The government is taking this election by fraud,” he said. “It is robbing the people of Panama of their legitimate rights, which I think they courageously expressed yesterday after standing in line three or four hours” to vote.

He said that even as he was speaking, “the electoral commission . . . is in the process of certifying totally false (voting) documents.”

Noriega had accepted Carter as an observer in the expectation that the American leader who had negotiated treaties turning the Panama Canal over to Panama would support the outcome of Sunday’s balloting.

Monday’s demonstrations were called after the Democratic Alliance of Civic Opposition, the anti-Noriega election coalition, complained of “enormous and blatant fraud” in the voting.

The Roman Catholic church and other independent polling organizations reported that their analyses of exit polls and an initial counting of votes indicated that Guillermo Endara, the opposition coalition’s presidential candidate, had won by a large margin. And firsthand evidence uncovered by journalists and independent foreign observers confirmed the opposition charges that mass fraud occurred.

Slow Official Canvass

These accusations were strengthened when the government-controlled Electoral Tribunal acknowledged Monday afternoon that it had not even begun the official canvass of the vote. Some observers said the extent of fraud needed to overcome the landslide of votes against Noriega was so great that it defeated any pretense of honesty and totally discredited the government.

In fact, there were dozens of confirmed instances in which troops stopped the count at the precinct level and stole or defaced the official tally sheets. Members of Carter’s observation delegation found that the central election center in Panama City, where the final results were to have been tabulated, had shut down Monday morning after only two hours.

National television acknowledged that no canvassing had been done, and even government officials in charge of the tally sheets complained of military efforts to steal or ruin the documents.

And in an apparent effort to prevent any disclosure of independent vote counts, the government cut off all contacts with several Roman Catholic bishops who were monitoring the vote.

Angered by such official obstruction and by claims of the pro-Noriega electoral coalition that Duque had won the election, opposition leaders called for a street protest.

Crowd of 10,000

However, instead of the massive and militant demonstrations predicted by protest leaders, no more than 10,000 turned out on a day when all stores and public facilities were shut down and the streets were virtually empty.

And rather than staging a defined march or holding a large assembly, most of the demonstrators simply milled around in an area three blocks from the convention center serving as the election headquarters.

The crowd honked automobile horns and waved white handkerchiefs. There were no signs of arms among the demonstrators, and while some stacked rocks on street corners, there were no reports of any violence by the anti-Noriega forces.

The Panama Defense Forces--the nation’s sole military and police organization--had anticipated the demonstrations and had blocked key intersections with buses and uniformed personnel to keep people away from usual rallying sites. In past demonstrations against Noriega, who commands the Defense Forces, protesters were cowed by light shows of force, and they appeared no more eager for a serious confrontation Monday.

Why Run Away?

“We are just 2 million people,” a well-dressed demonstrator said when asked why she and the others ran away from the security forces. “And we have lots of children to keep safe.”

Aside from the opposition demonstration, the two most anticipated events Monday were the disclosure of the Roman Catholic Church’s vote count and the report of the Carter delegation.

The church finding, released by the papal nuncio’s office, said a scientific analysis of its exit polling at about 20% of the nation’s 4,000 precincts gave Endara 74% to 24.9% for Duque, Noriega’s handpicked candidate.

The Conference of Panamanian Bishops, which endorsed the church finding, has a history of keeping clear of politics and refraining from challenging Noriega and his military predecessors. Thus, Monday’s declaration had special weight.

Carter was not the only critic of the government’s tactics and its candidate’s claim to have won the election.

‘Shameless’ Act

Jack Spender, the foreign policy spokesman in Australia’s opposition shadow Cabinet, said in an interview that the government was “shameless” in stealing the vote.

Spender said that the scene at central vote-counting headquarters “was quite surreal. There were no tally sheets. There was no excuse for what was going on.”

Carter initially tried to mediate a solution. He met with leaders of the government and the opposition coalitions and initially accepted an invitation to delay his return to the United States to continue negotiations. But his efforts proved fruitless, and after he issued his strong denunciation of fraud, he said he would be returning home immediately.

Despite the international criticism now focused on the situation here, there were no serious indications that Noriega and Duque were backing down. Pro-government parties sent their own demonstrators into the streets, including so-called “Dignity Battalions,” groups of armed civilians formed “to defend Panama against invasion by the United States.”

These groups and other people carrying the banner of Noriega’s political organization harassed correspondents and drove through the ranks of opposition protesters, firing shots in the air.

Some anti-government leaders said they would be back in the streets today, but interviews with many of Monday’s protesters showed little enthusiasm for renewed confrontation with the troops.

“I think it is now up to Carter and the (international) press to show the world that Noriega used fraud,” one opposition figure said. “It is up to the others to get rid of him.”