PANAMA: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : Planeloads of Supplies and Food Flowing Into Panama

With the fighting in Panama City subsiding, U.S. government and relief agencies are shipping planeloads of medical supplies, food and tents for the thousands of Panamanians left injured or homeless during the invasion, officials said Monday.

The threat of hunger and disease remains serious because many people, particularly those living in poor neighborhoods around Panamanian military headquarters devastated by the U.S. forces, lost their homes and possessions in fires that swept the areas.

The Defense Department, coordinating official U.S. aid in the country, is “currently obtaining enough food for 50,000 people for up to 30 days,” a State Department official said.

Combat operations have cleared snipers loyal to ousted dictator Manuel A. Noriega from much of Panama City, allowing the aid to be distributed more widely.

Officials said that the U.S. government will provide financial assistance to help rebuild destroyed neighborhoods but that it is not clear yet how many people need help and how the assistance effort will work. Relief officials are to meet to plan a system this week.

In the meantime, a Defense Department spokesman said, the U.S. military is delivering cots, tents and medical supplies. About 10,000 Panamanians are being fed and sheltered at a soccer stadium near the Panama Canal and others are being housed in gymnasiums and other large buildings.

The effectiveness of the aid effort is important to the Bush Administration and the new Guillermo Endara government as well as to the victims. Prolonged suffering by those who were caught between the U.S. forces and Noriega troops could intensify anti-American sentiment in the country and trigger a backlash against Endara, brought to power by the U.S. incursion last Wednesday. No reliable estimate on civilian casualties from the fighting is available, but they are believed to be numerous.

A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross said the private agency is sending two planes containing five tons of medical equipment and medicine--enough to care for 500 people. She said the supplies had been in warehouses in Guatemala and El Salvador, where the organization has been active because of recent strife.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has sent in three doctors with emergency care expertise and a group of international delegates who act as human rights observers, the spokeswoman said. The Red Cross is appealing for monetary donations--not food or clothes--to buy needed provisions in Panama.

In Costa Rica, Sgt. Robert Brito, spokesman for the disaster office of the Red Cross there, said the organization is sending five planes into Panama, including two loaded with medicine and food and three to be used to evacuate stranded Costa Ricans who wish to get out of the country.

“It is not a presidential order, but all Costa Ricans who want to voluntarily leave Panama will be picked up, women and children first,” Brito said. He said about 4,000 Costa Ricans were in Panama when the United States invaded Panama City, including many tourists.

Other humanitarian organizations sending significant relief to Panama include the Miami-based Panama Support Group, which the State Department spokesman said is delivering 120,000 pounds of food and a planeload of medical supplies.

Another group, MAP International in Georgia, is also sending medical supplies to Panama, the spokesman said.

The U.S. Embassy has been authorized to spend $25,000 in emergency disaster funds on food, fuel, medical supplies or any other needs, the State Department spokesman said.

The emergency aid is only the first phase of U.S. assistance that will be funneled to the nation, battered as much by the U.S. economic sanctions imposed more than a year ago as by the massive combat operation.

Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs, said an economic reconstruction bill he sponsored should become part of a stepped-up U.S. plan for repairing Panama’s financial and commercial institutions.

The bill, introduced in August, proposed providing about $200 million in economic aid to a post-Noriega democratic government for a range of economic development and stabilization programs, including housing loans. He said the State Department contacted his staff about the measure last week.

Times staff writer Douglas Frantz contributed to this story.