Latin Leaders to Get No Apology From Quayle : Diplomacy: The vice president will talk about the ‘liberation of Panama’ during south-of-the-border missions.

Vice President Dan Quayle, spearheading U.S. efforts to repair a rift with Latin America over the invasion of Panama, said Monday that he will offer no apology to leaders of the region for “the liberation of Panama.”

Quayle begins the first of two diplomatic missions to Latin America when he attends a presidential inauguration ceremony Jan. 27 in Honduras. A more extensive trip will be undertaken in February, but no dates have been set.

“I’m not going there in a defensive posture,” Quayle told reporters at a news conference in Cleveland. “I’m going to talk about the liberation of Panama.”

Quayle said he will stress that “we’re all Americans” during his missions, which will be devoted primarily to listening to the hemisphere’s leaders.

President Bush acknowledged Friday that the invasion that toppled Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega has rekindled fears in Latin America about the willingness of today’s American leaders to use force to get their way in the region.

Quayle has been named by Bush to head U.S. diplomatic efforts to repair the rift in relations between Washington and most of Latin America over the Dec. 20 invasion.

During an address to the City Club of Cleveland, the vice president said, “There are those who have criticized the President’s decision as an illegitimate exercise in gunboat diplomacy.

“The critics are wrong,” Quayle said. “In fact, what was accomplished in Panama was the liberation of the Panamanian people.

“The President sought a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Panama,” he said. “His character leads him to seek to lead by persuasion, debate and conciliation, rather than by use of force.”

He insisted that Bush “will seek to avoid the use of military force except where clearly justified and necessary.”

Quayle also praised the announcement by El Salvador’s President Alfredo Cristiani, disclosing that members of the country’s armed forces were responsible for the massacre of eight people, including six Jesuit priests, last November.

In Panama, meanwhile, First Vice President Ricardo Arias Calderon said that the country’s new security force will include specialized military units, but they will not be big enough to threaten the government.

Arias and other civilians in the administration installed by last month’s U.S. invasion are trying to limit the size of any new security-police force to avoid the danger of coups. Panama’s old security force, which combined all military and police functions in a single institution, ruled the country from 1968 until Noriega’s overthrow and was an important political factor in Panama from the late 1930s.