42 Panamanian Leaders of Failed Coup, Families Given Haven in U.S.

WASHINGTON — The United States has airlifted to Miami some of the leaders of the failed military coup in Panama and is treating them as refugees, the White House said today.

Presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the group includes coup figures as well as their relatives.

“We have a number of refugees in Miami that were flown in,” Fitzwater said. “I can’t identify who they are or where they are for personal safety reasons.” He said the action was taken under President Bush’s authority.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said 42 Panamanians were flown to Miami and admitted on humanitarian grounds. Some are relatives of Maj. Moises Giroldi, a top coup leader killed after the takeover failed, she said.

Giroldi’s widow, Adela Bonilla Giroldi, was conspicuously absent Monday from her husband’s funeral in Panama City.

Tutwiler said the Panamanians are being received by the U.S. Catholic Conference and “the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is prepared to review applications for political asylum if such requests are made.”

Meanwhile, Fitzwater continued to defend the U.S. role and the decision not to send in U.S. military forces to help depose Panamanian ruler Gen. Manuel A. Noriega.

‘Plenty of Information’

Amid charges that the Administration was operating in a void of information, the spokesman said Bush “had plenty of information, he made the decision that he thought was best and the decision we still think is right. We don’t have any question about the correctness of that decision.”

Asked if the United States is planning additional economic sanctions against Panama to increase pressure on Noriega, Fitzwater said, “We don’t have any plan” to do that.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Pete Williams said a review of the events during the coup now reveals that there was “confusion” and dissension among the coup plotters, and that there was some argument about what to do with Noriega.

Williams said it is now clear that Giroldi, the coup leader, “had no intention, ever,” of turning Noriega over to the United States and that an officer who wanted to turn Noriega over to the United States argued with Giroldi about it.

The spokesman declined to identify the officer or say where he is now.

Williams said the officer was one of those who met later with Maj. Gen. Marc Cisneros, second in command of the U.S. forces in the area.

Information Unknown

But Williams said he could not say whether that officer made clear to Cisneros that there was a dissident faction among the Panamanian officers who wanted to turn Noriega over.

The Pentagon spokesman said it is not entirely clear to what extent the people claiming to hold Noriega really had him under their control.

“You have someone who was one of the coup plotters, saying, ‘Well, we ought to (turn Noriega over to the United States).’ He doesn’t prevail, and he leaves. And he communicates (to the United States) that the people holding Gen. Noriega still have no intention of turning him over to the United States,” Williams said.

“There was never a request for us to come and get him; they never offered him to us.”