Noriega Seeks Papal Refuge : Surrenders to Envoy, Asks Asylum in Cuba or Spain : Panama: Startling development sets off demonstrations by elated citizens. ‘He drove up in a private car and asked for asylum,’ archbishop says.

Manuel Antonio Noriega, ousted as Panama’s dictator five days ago by a U.S. invasion force, surrendered Sunday to the Vatican’s embassy here and asked for sanctuary from his American pursuers.

The development sparked a spontaneous demonstration of pot-banging and horn-honking elation as the news spread quickly through the city.

Noriega’s surrender came near the end of a day that for the first time since the U.S. invasion began was unmarred by reports of serious violence.

Archbishop Marcos G. McGrath, Panama’s Roman Catholic primate, told reporters that Noriega “simply drove up in a private car and asked for political asylum.”

An American official, speaking on condition that he not be identified by name, added that Noriega rang the bell on the ornate iron gate of the papal nunciature, as the embassy is formally known, at 3:36 p.m. Noriega said he was seeking protection and ultimately wants political asylum to be arranged in either Cuba or Spain.

He was then escorted through the yellow wall that surrounds the Victorian mansion housing the embassy by Father Joseph Esspeteri, secretary to the papal nuncio, Bishop Jose Sebastian Laboa.

The papal envoy did not immediately announce that Noriega’s request had been granted, but church officials and U.S. sources said they understood that it would be.

At the Vatican, the news arrived a few minutes before Pope John Paul II celebrated his traditional Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. “There is nothing to say. Later today, we shall see,” said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro.

Spanish diplomats here would not comment, but the Spanish ambassador was reported to be in close touch with Madrid, awaiting instructions. The Cuban embassy did not answer its phone.

Noriega has successfully eluded the Americans from the moment U.S. troops attacked and burned his military headquarters and sacked his various homes in Panama City in the early morning hours of Dec. 20.

Although he was deemed responsible for directing a series of hit-and-run attacks that harassed and frustrated American forces in the first days after the invasion, Noriega’s hope of survival dissolved as his allies increasingly deserted him and U.S. troops gradually gained control of the streets.

That dwindling support and indications that U.S. agents were about to close in on his hiding place in Panama City prompted his surrender, European diplomats said, an assessment confirmed by a U.S. military source with a curt grunt of agreement.

Indeed, one U.S. commando unit was hot on his trail Sunday. When its members burst into a villa a mile from the Marriott Hotel, a few miles east of downtown Panama City, they found two women cooking a Chistmas turkey and evidence that the dictator had been there only 90 minutes earlier.

Lt. Col. Harry Axson of the 82nd Airborne Division, Ft. Bragg, N.C., who led the 2 p.m. raid, said the women were Noriega’s mistress and her daughter.

“They told us he was going to turn himself in. . . . They told us he was thinking of turning himself in,” Axson said.

The officer said he had no doubt that the raiders had just missed Noriega. Neighbors confirmed that a helicopter had lifted off from the villa grounds just an 90 minutes earlier. That was just after a surveillance team, acting on a tip, had approached the plush villa in a heavily wooded area and had decided to get reinforcements before launching a raid.

Axson said the surveillance party had gathered at the Marriott in the morning after being tipped that Noriega was nearby. The four-man commando team was sent to the villa soon after noon in a hotel vehicle that looked like a small moving van. When they returned to fetch back-up, they were sent out in the same van with 25 members of the 82nd Airborne, who then stormed the house, Axxon said.

A U.S. official here, when asked if Noriega had made a good move, answered that, “It was the only move. He had nowhere else to go.”

Noriega’s surrender met the most important of the American policy demands set in 1987 when the man who had been personally honored by two U.S. presidents as a loyal and dedicated friend was cast adrift because of his major role in the international drug trade.

Even though Noriega was indicted by two federal grand juries in Florida, Washington officials found the criminal charges to be impeding their real objective, that of ending his political and military control here.

That view was expounded Sunday by a U.S. official. “Sure, we would have been happy to try him,” he said, “but this (his surrender) is positive. It is good news. Noriega is out of circulation and that is the key.”

He explained that the three crucial aims of U.S. policy were “one, (get) Noriega out of power; No. 2, out of circulation; and No. 3, he’s going to be (stay) out of power.”

This official and military sources denied suggestions that the United States had botched its effort to apprehend Noriega by not staking out the Vatican’s embassy, as they had done the Cuban and Nicaraguan embassies here.

They also rejected any suggestion that they could simply enter the Vatican territory and seize Noriega. “If this were the Rwandan embassy, you’d say ‘Screw them.’ But you’re not going to do that with the Vatican,” said one official.

In fact, they said, the U.S. strategy was to provide Noriega with an incentive to do exactly as he did by signaling that the relatively lenient treatment accorded his previous allies would be applied in some form or another to him.

In a meeting between the papal envoy and U.S. officials two days ago, a conscious decision was reached to be as non-threatening as possible, Western diplomats said.

It was hoped that as former Panama Defense Force officers turned themselves in and were treated lightly, Noriega would realize both that he had no viable support and that the American goal was to get rid of him, not to send him to prison in the United States.

“The key thing was not to put up a threatening posture,” one source said. “The big thing was to maintain public order by removing the one-time strongman as both a leader and inspiration of violent opposition.”

Noriega’s fears may have been further eased by a statement earlier Sunday from the new Panamanian president, Guillermo Endara, who told a news conference that his American-sponsored government was not searching for the former dictator and would not extradite him to the United States if he were apprehended.

“At this moment, we are not looking for him. We have other priorities,” Endara said. He added that under the country’s constitution, “we may not extradite any Panamanian citizen.”

In military action Sunday, U.S. troops discovered a cache of arms in a rented house near Noriega’s family home in an upper-middle class section of the city. Neighbors said the house had been rented by Noriega.

Officials said the cache included 300 G-3 rifles, 72,000 rounds of ammunition, at least 360 concussion grenades, about 300 AK-47 assault rifles with 20,000 rounds of ammunition and 30 light anti-tank weapons.

Also Sunday, three senior Panama Defense Forces officers turned themselves in to American troops. They were identified as Lt. Cols. Carlos Arosemena King, Daniel Delgado Diamante and Arnulfo Castrejon.

Although the United States was apparently willing to allow Noriega to seek sanctuary in the Vatican’s embassy, American authorities were determined that he not change his mind and walk out.

As soon as American diplomats and officials were informed that Noriega was in the building, soldiers, a helicopter gunship, several light tanks and armored personnel carriers blocked the streets, sealing off the area at least four blocks away.

The American soldiers, their faces totally covered with green camouflage paint and brandishing weapons from assault rifles to rocket launchers, prevented celebrating Panamanians from getting anywhere near Noriega’s sanctuary.

“We secured the hell out of the place,” said one American source. “He is not leaving without us knowing about.”

But as cheering, clapping citizens and frantic journalists gathered at the barricades, an American UH-1 Huey helicopter gunship lifted off from a vacant lot across the street from the mansion. It appeared to be an escort for a caravan of diplomatic cars, including one bearing a U.S. Embassy license plate, that emerged from the Vatican embassy compound.

Speculation and rumor immediately had Noriega being kidnaped by the Americans.

As it turned out, Laboa, as the senior serving diplomat in Panama, was to host a 4 p.m. reception for other envoys to meet the country’s new foreign minister, Julio Linares.

Laboa notified the invited guests, including American Ambassador Arthur Davis, but suggested that the meeting go on to avoid premature disclosure of Noriega’s arrival.

Davis declined, but he sent an armored embassy car as security for Linares. Other diplomats did attend. Diplomatically, they did not ask to see Noriega and left about 4:30 p.m.

The city began its celebration as news of what had happened spread. People lined Via Argentina, a major Panama City thoroughfare, and stood on balconies to bang kitchen pots and cheer for the Americans who set off the chain of events with their invasion.

“Now Panama can have a merry Christmas,” one exultant Panamanian, Larry Larrinaga, exclaimed.

“I am very happy for my country,” said Ruben Carles, chairman of the board of directors of La Prensa, a liberal newspaper closed by Noriega for most of its eight-year existence. “We will now gain our goal of getting rid of the military system,” he said.

But some expressed another sentiment.

“It would have been much better if he had shot himself or someone would have shot him,” said a bitter businessman.

But for the most part, the reaction was happy, the people looking forward rather than complaining about the Noriega past.

In the provincial town of Penonome, 95 miles west of the capital, stores reopened to sell liquor to the people who filled the city’s square and streets in wild celebration.

As 120 U.S. soldiers stood guard over an equal number of captured Noriega military supporters, the people chanted their praise for the American invasion.

“We are broke this Christmas but thanks to you gringos, we can now be happy,” said Isaac Guardia, a mechanic who says he was impoverished by Noriega’s rule.

Earlier in Washington, President Bush declared himself very pleased with progress in the military situation in Panama.

“It’s a very good pre-Christmas report that I have received,” Bush said after a briefing at the Pentagon.

Bush said he had dispatched Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to Panama, but did not elaborate. A White House official said the trip was intended to boost the morale of the troops and to illustrate that the President, while proceeding with his own holiday plans, was closely in touch with the military and political situation here. Officials did not say how long Cheney would remain in Panama.

U.S. Concern

American officials have been concerned about a political backlash in both the United States and Panama if it is determined the U.S. assault caused heavy civilian casualties.

In a television interview, Bernard Aronson, assistant secretary of state for Latin America, acknowledged the figure could be as high as 1,000 Panamanians killed or injured in the attack.

He noted that an early report that a Panama City hospital was full of hundreds of dead civilians turned out to be false. But, he added, “I don’t mean to minimize the problem. There are clearly going to be civilian casualties, but I don’t think we should speculate (on figures) based on rumors.”

Before his departure, Cheney acknowledged that the presence of a massive American occupation force in Panama was making it more difficult for President Endara to establish a credible democratic government.

Endara said Saturday that news of the impending American invasion, which he received a day before American soldiers landed, was “like a kick in the head.” He said he had made no prior plans for forming a government.

“Perhaps Mr. Endara would say we are a mixed blessing,” Cheney said. “We did what we did partly to stand up for democracy in Panama, but also to protect American interests and American lives in Panama. We have a legitimate right to be in Panama.”

Cheney said that some pro-Noriega paramilitary forces, called Dignity Battalions, were still “running loose in the streets, but the situation appears to be steadily improving.”

Explaining why the looting got out of hand after the invasion, Cheney said, “We didn’t have any way to have people everywhere in Panama City at the same time. We sent in a large number of additional troops, but we had to focus in on specific targets.”

He said that many former members of the Panama Defense Forces were laying down their arms and that 1,000 of them had joined in efforts to restore civil order. “So, the situation does appear to be improving. It’s not all over yet. I mean we still have a lot of work to do, but clearly we’re in better shape today than at any point since the effort started.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Sunday that U.S. troops would remain in Panama “as long as it takes to get the job done.”

“We really ought not to put a date on it, because then we get into playing the old expectations game,” Baker added.

Aronson said that the chaos and looting that followed after the American military “neutralized” the PDF was regrettable, but predictable.

“Three months ago Hurricane Hugo hit St. Croix, Virgin Islands, which is U.S. territory. You saw the exact same pictures; in Detroit, in 1968; in Washington D.C. Wherever there is a temporary breakdown of law and order there’s going to be a small criminal element who will go in and break a window and steal a television set. We don’t minimize the loss; we obviously regret it. And it’s not a happy occasion.”

BACKGROUND Manuel A. Noriega became commander of the Panama Defense Forces Aug. 12, 1983, 12 days after receiving his star as a brigadier general. He had risen through the ranks after joining the old National Guard in 1962. As a lieutenant colonel, he had headed the intelligence unit under the late Gen. Omar Torrijos, a military dictator who negotiated the Panama Canal treaties with the United States in the 1970s. He became a colonel and chief of the general staff in 1982. Noriega defied a military rule and tradition when he refused to retire in 1987, after 25 years of service. He was deposed Dec. 20 by invading U.S. troops.

HOSTAGE’S ORDEAL: CBS producer tells of his abduction by Panamanians. A5

MISSION FOR CHENEY:Bush sends the Pentagon chief to Panama. A6

ASYLUM TRADITION:Thousands have sought diplomatic refuge over the years. A7

Staff writers Richard Boudreaux, Douglas Jehl and Bob Secter, all in Panama, and John Broder, in Washington, contributed to this report.

PANAMA UPDATE Noriega

Ousted dictator Manuel A. Noriega turned himself in to the Vatican embassy in Panama City and asked for political asylum, U.S. officials announced. Earlier, four of Noriega’s top commanders surrendered to U.S. soldiers.

The Fighting

Fighting tapered off, with some Panamanians trying to clean up streets and put up Christmas decorations. U.S. troops discovered a huge cache of arms in a rented house near Noriega’s family home in an upper-middle class section of Panama City. Neighbors who tipped off the military said the house had been rented by Noriega.

Local Government

U.S.-backed President Guillermo Endara said that he hoped the Americans would be able to leave soon but that he wasn’t optimistic. In Washington, President Bush said that American troops have accomplished “a real turnaround” in restoring law and order in Panama.

Casualties

The Pentagon said that U.S. casualties since Wednesday’s invasion were 25 American servicemen and two civilians killed, 281 servicemen wounded and one missing. U.S. figures on Panamanian casualties were 154 military dead and 113 wounded, with 2,969 troops being held prisoner.