Toward a Truly Free Panama

By surrendering to Vatican diplomats on Christmas Eve, former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega saved himself, at least temporarily, from the U.S. military forces that ousted him. But that doesn’t mean the wily general is home free. For even if Noriega evaded the U.S. government again, he’s still stands deposed and discredited--and that’s an important victory.

To paraphrase the poet, Noriega’s bloody dictatorship ended not with a bang but a whimper. After years of macho bluff and bluster--years in which the brutish strongman pretended to be a Panamanian nationalist standing up to the Yanquis but was really stealing everything he could from a small but proud country and lording it over his political opponents in blood--Noriega quietly drove himself to the papal mission in Panama City and asked for asylum. It was a meek anticlimax for a once-arrogant thug.

For now, Noriega’s future is uncertain, but it seems unlikely he’ll be turned over anytime soon to the United States, which wants to put him on trial in Florida for drug trafficking. The Holy See may give him to the new civilian government in Panama, which also wants to put Noriega on trial. Or it may negotiate Noriega’s departure to a third country like Cuba. But, frankly, now that Noriega’s come to a pathetic end, he’s no longer of any real concern. There are far more important tasks facing the United States in Panama, among them:

--Getting U.S. forces out of the country as quickly as possible to limit the damage that the latest military intervention south of the border may have on U.S.-Latin American relations.

--Helping Panama’s new civilian government build the genuine democracy that has never had a chance to develop in that country.

--Rebuilding Panama’s badly damaged economy. U.S. officials have a special responsibility to help restore what was once Central America’s most robust economy but nearly ruined by Noriega’s avarice and by two years of economic pressure the U.S. government used to weaken the dictator.

It’s understandable that some people in this country might be frustrated because Noriega was not clamped in irons by U.S. soldiers and shipped to the dankest jail cell in Miami to await trial like any other drug suspect, and certainly efforts to bring him to the United States should continue. But if all efforts fail, it doesn’t mean that the U.S. soldiers killed fighting to bring Noriega down, or the hundreds of Panamanians who were also killed in the fighting, or who were victims of his dictatorship, died in vain. They will have a far greater tribute--a Panama that is a more truly free and just nation.