Panama’s Noriega Crushes Revolt by Military Faction

A military revolt against Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel A. Noriega by mid-level and junior officers collapsed Tuesday after nearly five hours of often heavy fighting between the rebels and major army units that had rallied to the general’s support.

The end to the mutiny was announced by a government spokesman, who said on a national radio broadcast about 2 p.m. Panama time that the rebel forces had given up. The mutiny, which followed Bush Administration calls for such a rebellion against the man accused of violating U.S. drug laws, was the second such attempt against the 51-year-old Noriega in 18 months and appeared to have strengthened the impression that he has no serious opposition, either political or military.

After the claims of victory in his name, Noriega appeared on national television to dispel rumors that he had been captured and wounded in the fighting.

Wearing his tan general’s uniform, Noriega damned the rebels and said there will be an investigation into the causes of the revolt.

“This incident corresponds to the permanent aggression of U.S. forces against the tranquillity of our country. The proof is that U.S. forces closed access routes to the barracks,” Noriega said, without elaborating.

The rebels “surrendered to Gen. Noriega in person,” said Maj. Edgardo Lopez Grimaldo, Noriega’s chief spokesman. He said that “more than 60” rebel troopers and four or five officers had been detained.

The government declared an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and said the news media could report only official statements on the revolt.

Several members of the U.S. Congress, briefed by the CIA, said Noriega had been in his headquarters compound when the uprising began. They expressed anger that American troops stationed nearby to guard the Panama Canal had not intervened and arrested him.

The mutiny began about 8 a.m. local time when troops assigned to protect the downtown military compound, the site of Noriega’s formal office, turned from guards to attackers, occupied the barracks and went on national radio to declare that Noriega and several of his key aides had been “retired.”

But in what was a brief war of broadcasts, a senior officer loyal to Noriega, Lt. Col. Arnulfo Castrejon, took to the national television network and announced that the military was behind its commander and said troops were “willing to lay down their lives” to protect Noriega’s position.

Troops from nearby garrisons then began moving into the narrow, tangled streets surrounding the sprawling headquarters compound and began exchanging fire with the rebels. Eyewitnesses said in telephone interviews that the fighting was heavy at times and involved rockets and grenades.

Casualty Reports Incomplete

No casualty figures were available, but the witnesses said ambulances made several trips to hospitals, indicating at least some wounded. There were no reports of American involvement or casualties; the 40,000 U.S. citizens living in Panama were told to stay in their homes. U.S. troops were put on full alert but were also prohibited from moving about, even from one American base to another.

Americans bases are so close to the site of the rebellion that at one time, according to U.S. military sources, American troops were no more than 600 yards from the fighting.

According to U.S. military sources and witnesses, the rebels were driven to surrender when the Noriega loyalists occupied the rooftops overlooking the garrison and poured withering fire into the mutineers.

And if the coup leaders hoped for a public uprising to support their cause, it did not happen. Diplomatic sources said the rest of the capital’s streets were quiet throughout the fighting. Although public opinion polls bolster claims by the opposition that the population overwhelmingly wants Noriega out, there has been almost no serious sign of public discontent since the dictator nullified elections last May that international observers said he had lost.

No Part in Uprising

This reluctance was reinforced by the appearance at mid-morning of the so-called Dignity Battalions, machine-gun-equipped paramilitary groups formed by Noriega to intimidate opponents. Actually, opposition leaders said they had not been told in advance of the revolt and that, and while they supported the uprising, they played no part.

Although the rebel leaders did not publicly concede defeat, military sources in Panama and Washington acknowledged the mutiny’s failure, as did U.S. military sources.

The surrender put an end to the latest expectation by the United States that the leaders of Panama’s military, called the Panamanian Defense Forces, could be induced to throw out the man who has led them since 1981 and has apparently made many of them rich.

Noriega, once a favorite of U.S. administrations and allegedly once a paid informer for the CIA, has been the object of official U.S. enmity since February, 1988, when two federal grand juries in Florida indicted him on drug-trafficking charges.

Since then, first the Ronald Reagan Administration and then President Bush have sought, through a variety of diplomatic and economic sanctions, to force Noriega out of power. Since Noriega tried to steal the elections in May, Bush has repeatedly urged the military to overthrow its commander.

In the time since he first rose to prominence as chief of military intelligence under strongman Gen. Omar Torrijos in the 1970s, Noriega successfully played all sides against the middle, drawing both military officers and civilians under his influence by cutting them in on graft.

Even though the United States knew of Noriega’s drug involvement even before Torrijos died in a plane crash in 1981, he was considered an asset by the CIA because of his covert support of American policy in Central America.

Ironically, he was even backed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration because of his cooperation in fighting cocaine trafficking from South America. In retrospect, DEA agents now say that Noriega was turning in the enemies of his allies in the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia.

Killings and Beatings

When corruption didn’t work, Noriega was not above brutality and even murder. During demonstrations last May, his forces brutally beat opposition leaders and killed two of their bodyguards.

The general reportedly ordered the murder of one of his most prominent critics, Dr. Hugo Spadafora, whose headless body was shipped in an American mailbag to Costa Rica.

In Washington, a congressional source briefed by the Administration said that the United States had been informed of the impending revolt at least as early as Monday. However, he said he did not know what response was made.

At a dinner for visiting Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Bush told reporters that the 12,000 American combat troops stationed in Panama were not involved. “There were rumors around that this was some American operation,” the President said, “and I can tell you that is not true.” Still, he repeated again the code phrase that the Administration has frequently used to signal hopes for a coup:

“We have no argument with the Panamanian Defense Forces. . . . We’ve had good relations with the Panamanian Defense Forces, and our argument has been--as has many other countries--with Mr. Noriega.”

This brought accusations from Panamanian Foreign Minister Jose Ritter that Bush had acknowledged American involvement. “When I hear the President of the United States say that he is encouraging the rebels to take over, I guess there is some participation of the United States in it.”

The leaders of the abortive revolt were lower-ranking and relatively unknown officers. The initial communique claiming that Noriega had been overthrown was signed by Maj. Jose Giraldo Vega, commander of the troops assigned to guard the headquarters, and Capts. Javier Licona, Jesus Jose Valma and Edgardo Sandoval.

Giraldo had been a member of a Noriega-created military council set up in recent years to give younger officers a role in military affairs and, according to U.S. diplomats, to cut them in on the millions of dollars of graft and drug profits reaped by the general.

In their broadcast message, the four said that Noriega and five full colonels had been retired because they had served beyond the 25-year limit for military service.

One diplomatic source said by telephone that the four rebel leaders had hoped to capture Noriega inside his office and then turn him over to the United States. If that was the tactic, it was an unusual one.

Security a Concern

Noriega seldom uses that office, preferring accommodations at Ft. Amador, a military installation shared by American and Panamanian army units. His aides say that, for security reasons, he rarely sleeps in the same location two nights running.

The rebels sought to entice Noriega supporters to their side by claiming to recognize the legitimacy of President Francisco Rodriguez, who was appointed by the general in late August.

Rodriguez, however, told the U.N. General Assembly in New York that the revolt had been crushed and that he is still behind the general.

In Panama, Noriega spokesman Lopez Grimaldo told a national radio hookup that the rebel communique was “devoid of any institutional or official context and is nothing but a desperate move to disinform, to sow confusion, to dismantle the PDF and to return to the times of U.S. colonialism.”

Others rallied to Noriega’s support, including Carlos Duque, the general’s handpicked presidential candidate in last May’s election and head of the government’s political party. “The situation in Panama is calm, under the control of the Panama Defense Forces, which remain loyal to Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega,” Duque said.

That these forces would support Noriega is no surprise. Duque is reported by diplomatic and Panamanian forces to earn as much as $75 million a year as head of the Panamanian Free Trade Zone, a repository for much of the government’s graft income.

Thousands in Graft

Recently, an army captain said someone of his rank could easily make $75,000 a year over his regular salary in graft as a result of Noriega’s policies.

“There is little likelihood this would have succeeded, even if they had caught Noriega,” said one European source in a telephone conversation.

There was little international reaction to the incident, although Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, reacted with alarm, saying it could bring direct American intervention.

Nicaragua and Cuba are the only Noriega supporters in the Western Hemisphere and have supported Panama’s complaint that Washington’s true motive is not to punish the general as a drug dealer but to force a revision of the treaties that will turn over the Panama Canal to Panama by the end of the century.

Although Noriega’s success Tuesday seemed to strengthen his hand, one of his major enemies, opposition leader Guillermo (Billy) Ford, told reporters in New York that the coup attempt showed that the general “is getting weaker, not stronger.”

“This is a step toward democracy,” said Ford.

Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Managua, John J. Goldman in New York and James Gerstenzang, Norman Kempster and Doyle McManus in Washington contributed to this story.

POLICY FLAW--U.S. reliance on the military to oust Noriega has failed. Page 12

HOPES DASHED--Panamanian opposition leader has a topsy-turvy day. Page 13