3 Top Officers, 35 Others Arrested in Panama Plot

The chief of state security, two other officers in Panama’s military high command and 35 soldiers were arrested after a failed attempt to overthrow dictator Manuel A. Noriega, the government said Wednesday night.

The announcement, in a “war communique” read on national television, was the first indication that support for the failed coup Tuesday may have gone beyond the middle-level officers who claimed responsibility for it.

Maj. Moises Giroldi Vega, leader of the forces who seized Gen. Noriega’s downtown headquarters, was among 10 rebels who died in five hours of heavy fighting before troops loyal to the commander-in-chief regained control, the communique said.

An official of Noriega’s Panama Defense Forces said the rebels held the general captive in the compound during the fighting.

“The surrender came when the loyal officers took command of the combat units and gave the rebels a last chance to release (Noriega) and members of his staff or face the consequences,” Lt. Col. Arnulfo Castrejon told reporters. “The general was a hostage for four hours.”

The statement by Castrejon, a Noriega aide, contradicted earlier accounts of the uprising by U.S. and European diplomats, who said the revolt had failed because the 51-year-old general was not in the compound.

Diplomats and other sources who reconstructed the coup attempt said the rebels were backed by no more than 200 soldiers and did not expect to spark a massive military uprising.

Instead, the accounts said, the rebels’ strategy was to hold their commander in chief hostage, negotiating for his removal and the retirement of the Panama Defense Forces’ general staff.

If Noriega was indeed held captive, as his aide said, it remained unclear how the general won his release and escaped unharmed from rocket and mortar bombardments of the four-story headquarters. Nor did the government explain why three members of Noriega’s 20-member high command were arrested.

They were Col. Guillermo Wong, the head of state security; Col. Julio Ow Young, and Col. Armando Palacios Gondola. None had been openly identified with the revolt, and Col. Ow Young was on a list of six officers whose retirement the rebels demanded.

26 Listed as Wounded

The communique was nothing more than a list of names and ranks of those arrested, wounded or killed. It said 26 people were wounded in the fighting, including 18 Noriega loyalists, three from the rebel forces and five civilians.

It also said five coup leaders have taken refuge at Ft. Clayton, a U.S. military base near the Panama Canal. U.S. officials refused comment on that report.

The other 20 officers arrested ranged in rank from second lieutenant to captain. About 15 sergeants, corporals and enlisted men were also under arrest, the communique said.

On Wednesday, 1,500 cheering Noriega supporters surrounded the battered military headquarters, throwing kisses and salutes to officers. Periodically, Noriega appeared in fatigues at a second-story window and raised a clenched fist in triumph.

“The people love Noriega because he’s the only one who’s ever done anything for us,” housewife Rufina Castillo, 59, shouted over the music of a brass band. “Because of him we have housing.”

Soldiers puttied and painted over craters in the facade of the headquarters and carried bags of cement and cinder blocks inside the compound to repair damage from Tuesday’s battle.

“The U.S. government is stepping all over us,” said Virginia Saenz, 53. “We believe the (rebel soldiers) were paid a lot of money. They sold out.”

The Panamanian government charged again Wednesday that the Bush Administration, which openly seeks his ouster, masterminded the revolt. “Failed Coup Was Coordinated with U.S. Southern Command,” declared a red banner headline in the pro-government newspaper Critica.

As evidence of U.S. involvement, Noriega’s provisional President Francisco Rodriguez told the United Nations that his government has photographs showing U.S. troops and military vehicles blocking access to the headquarters.

A Panamanian military source said U.S. roadblocks were in place three hours before the first shots were fired.

Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said some roads may have been blocked by U.S. tanks trying to seal off and protect American bases 600 yards away after the trouble started.

U.S. Troops on Alert

About 12,000 U.S. troops stationed at the Southern Command’s bases at Quarry Heights and Ft. Amador on the western edge of Panama City remained on alert Wednesday. Movements of U.S. government personnel were restricted.

The Panamanian government kept an 8 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew in force.

The coup attempt, the second against Noriega in 19 months, was apparently joined by mid-level officers and troops from the Urraca Company, which was assigned to protect the headquarters of Noriega’s Defense Forces. Officials and witnesses gave this account:

At 7 a.m., the first gunshots rang through the poor El Chorillo neighborhood, where the Defense Forces headquarters is located. Hundreds of residents fled with their belongings--and in some cases, their pets--as police moved in with water cannon and armored personnel carriers.

By 7:20 a.m., the U.S. Southern Command had put its troops on highest alert. Gunfire continued to rip through the streets, nicking buildings and shattering the windows of parked cars.

U.S. troops in combat gear took up positions around their bases. U.S. helicopter gunships and Blackhawk troop carriers flew over the Bridge of the Americas, which crosses the Panama Canal west of the city.

Elite Battalion

Meanwhile, troops loyal to Noriega moved in. The elite Battalion 2000, named for the year Panama is to take full control of the canal, made its way from Ft. Cimarron, 25 miles east of the city; the Machos de Monte came from Rio Hato, 55 miles west.

At 11:30 a.m., the rebels issued a communique, signed first by Giroldi, commander of the Urraca Company. Read in a radio broadcast, the communique said Noriega and six of his top colonels had been “retired.” They called on other units to join them and promised to hold elections soon.

Hundreds of opposition supporters took to the streets to celebrate, but within a half-hour, forces loyal to Noriega called a local television station to say they were fighting back. The loyalists surrounded the compound and bombarded it with grenades and rocket fire.

By 1 p.m., Noriega loyalists had regained control, although sporadic gunfire continued for several hours. The general was not seen in public until he appeared on television at 4 p.m., denouncing the coup as part of the United States’ “permanent aggression” against Panama.

A U.S. source familiar with Tuesday’s events refused to say whether the United States had provided the rebels with intelligence on Noriega’s movements.

In Washington, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater acknowledged that U.S. officials learned of the plot last weekend, but he denied there had been any U.S. military support.

The U.S. source denied any deals were made with the rebel officers, but he said they were told that the Bush Administration would like custody of Noriega if he were apprehended.

The Panama Defense Forces said further proof of U.S. involvement was the report some of the plotters took refuge at Ft. Clayton.

No Civilians Involved

Panamanian officials have said there was no civilian involvement in the uprising. But opposition leader Ricardo Arias Calderon said that Raul Ossa, a vice president of the Christian Democratic Party, was arrested after the revolt, for reasons unclear to Arias.

President Bush first called for Noriega’s overthrow last May after the general nullified an election that international observers said his hand-picked candidate had lost.

Noriega, a favorite in Washington when he became commander in 1983, has been the object of official U.S. enmity since February 1988, when federal grand juries in Florida indicted him on racketeering and conspiracy charges for allegedly turning Panama into a safe haven for Colombian drug lords.

The dictator has accused the United States of seeking his removal in order to nullify 1977 treaties and retain control over the Panama Canal.

Outside his bullet-pocked headquarters Wednesday, Noriega declared to his supporters: “The U.S. imperialists are like piranha fish and want to gobble up the Panama Canal.”

After surviving a coup attempt in March, 1988, Noriega purged his high command of potentially disloyal officers. He created the Strategic Military Council, a parallel command of loyal captains and majors.

A military source said that Maj. Giroldi had actively opposed the 1988 coup attempt and, as a result, was promoted from captain to major but was not given a seat on the new council.

Diplomatic sources said the great majority of the 14,000-member Defense Forces ignored Giroldi’s plea for support in Tuesday’s uprising. The cavalry headquarters in Panama City’s old colonial section was apparently the only other installation involved in fighting.

None of the rebel leaders belonged to the high command or the Strategic Military Council. So far, divisions in the armed forces do not appear to go beyond the approximately 200 soldiers said to have taken part in the revolt. But while Noriega quickly put down the uprising and has demonstrated his military support, diplomats say the revolt is bound to damage him.

“You cannot say after a coup attempt that Noriega is stronger,” said a European diplomat. “If you have one, two, three attempts, statistically one day the man is going to fall. But because of this (failure) I would say nothing else is going to happen for at least another year.”

Added another diplomat: “Noriega looks stronger now but he could be like the ill patient in remission.”

U.S. WEIGHS OPTIONS: The U.S. has not ruled out using force to oust Noriega. Page 20