Step Down, Bush Urges Noriega : Foes Seeking a Quarantine of Strongman

The opposition alliance that claims victory in Panama’s national elections laid out a strategy Tuesday aimed at gaining international rejection of the regime of military strongman Manuel A. Noriega, accused of engineering massive fraud in favor of his handpicked presidential candidate.

Alliance leaders said they had talked to several Latin American presidents during the day.

Ricardo Arias Calderon, first vice presidential candidate of the Democratic Alliance of Civic Opposition, explained the aim of the strategy as follows:

To persuade other governments of the region and the Organization of American States “to quarantine in the strictest terms the military regime of Noriega, somewhat in the manner of what was done to (Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio) Samoza in the late 1970s.”

Backed by Peru Leader

The first step was taken Tuesday when President Alan Garcia of Peru sent a letter to Guillermo Endara, the alliance’s presidential candidate, saying that the Noriega regime had committed clear fraud and that he was urging the OAS and Latin American governments to reject assertions of victory by Noriega’s candidate, Carlos Duque.

Endara said he had talked to Garcia by phone as well as to three other Latin American presidents, whom he declined to name. He and Arias Calderon said that they were encouraged by the response.

“The Garcia initiative, the first by a Latin American president, gives us an uplift in spirit,” Arias Calderon said.

He and other opposition leaders then spent most of Tuesday afternoon meeting with diplomats based in Panama City by governments in this hemisphere, Europe and elsewhere. Arias Calderon said that particular attention was paid to a so-called Group of Eight nations of Central and South America that came together several years ago to promote peace in Central America.

“All of this is being done with the mission that Latin America and the European Community will not accept the legitimacy of the Noriega military regime,” Arias Calderon said.

The opposition alliance claims that it gained a landslide victory in the elections in spite of massive fraud by the regime. But it also rejected any notion of a U.S. invasion of Panama to overthrow the Noriega regime.

“I don’t believe there will be (an invasion), and we don’t want one,” Endara said.

He was responding to reports that President Bush might be considering military intervention as an option in the wake of strong evidence that Noriega was rigging the official canvass of the vote cast in Sunday’s national elections to give victory to Duque, the standard-bearer of the pro-Noriega National Liberation Coalition (Colina).

“An invasion would create more problems than we already have,” Endara said. “We are against it.”

The opposition also bridled at reports that key members of an official U.S. observer delegation appointed by Bush had returned to Washington and called for abrogating the Panama Canal Treaty that turned the waterway over to this country in 1979. Under a second treaty, the United States retains the major roles in the operation and defense of the canal until Dec. 31, 1999.

“There is a treaty,” Endara said, apparently referring to the one turning over the canal, “and we support it. It cannot be changed.”

Opposition leaders said privately that talk of an invasion and treaty abrogation is counterproductive and not only plays into Noriega’s plans by painting Endara and other members of the opposition as U.S. stooges but also damages plans to turn other Latin Americans against the military strongman.

“Most Latin Americans feel (more strongly against) American intervention and dominance . . . than they dislike Noriega,” a key opposition spokesman said. “Saber-rattling doesn’t help.”

Endara, who declared himself the winner of Sunday’s balloting by a 7-to-3 margin, said the strategy of the opposition alliance would have to be to get the rest of the world, and particularly Latin America, to isolate Noriega and discredit his regime.

After an anti-Noriega demonstration was easily broken up Monday by rifle-firing troops of Noriega’s Panama Defense Forces, opposition leaders said they have no immediate plans for returning to the streets.

“We won’t play (the government’s) game,” said Arias Calderon. Besides, he told reporters, “We have an instinct to live.” Several people were wounded in Monday’s confrontation with the troops.

Noriega’s forces have made clear that any declaration that Endara represents a legal government would be considered grounds for arrest. So, while pressing their strategy of gaining international rejection of Noriega, opposition leaders also deny they plan to ask for diplomatic recognition of their ticket as the legal Panamanian administration.

Opposition spokesmen said they hoped their strategy would lead elements within the Panama Defense Forces, the nation’s sole military and police organization, to turn on Noriega. Endara said that “we have put out all possible bridges (to the military), but alas, there have been no results. But we will continue putting out bridges, because we always have wanted to negotiate with the military.”

American Embassy officials told reporters Tuesday that existing cracks in military solidarity had been exacerbated by a realization that the public had overwhelmingly rejected Noriega.

The military as an institution also was not happy with the tactics used after Sunday’s vote to overcome an Endara victory, one U.S. official said, in reference to evidence that troops were used to confiscate and destroy valid vote tally sheets.

Another source of inspiration to the opposition was the emergence of the Roman Catholic Church in the Noriega-must-go camp. In the past the church had refrained from any official, direct criticism of the military dictator.

However, the Panamanian Bishop’s Conference took part in independent vote-counting operations Sunday that declared Endara the runaway winner, a finding endorsed and applauded by various foreign observers as accurate.

Tuesday, the church also began serving as an arranger for meetings between Endara and diplomats and as a moral supporter for the opposition.

This was also noted by the Noriega forces, which sent several armed security agents to the home of Archbishop Marcos A. McGrath, where the prelate was meeting with Endara and Arias Calderon.

In a brief but ugly incident, the security agents broke up the meeting by firing shots in the air.

In spite of the anti-Noriega strategy, there was no real sign that Noriega plans to give in. In fact, similar efforts and assessments during an anti-Noriega uprising last year got nowhere.

There were, however, some small signs that Noriega, or at least some of his colleagues, are considering ways to ease the crisis.

One member of the National Assembly who claims to have contacts with key military officers said the government is considering four options:

-- Negotiate with Endara.

-- Stage a coup with the military taking formal control of the government.

-- Annul the elections and continue with the current regime officially headed by incumbent President Manuel Solis Palma.

-- Brazen it out by declaring Duque the winner based on faked vote canvassing.

As of Tuesday night, the fourth option was being followed. The Noriega-appointed Electoral Tribunal said it had canvassed about 20% of the votes, with Duque leading by a margin of more than 2-to-1.

However, there was no official proclamation of a victory for Duque because, said the legislative source with military contacts, “at that moment they (the military) know things will get very ugly.”