New President Takes a Hammer to Noriega’s Redoubt : Panama: Demolition begins on the building where fallen dictator ruled. ‘Housing for the poor will go up in its place,’ Endara says.

President Guillermo Endara, swinging a heavy sledgehammer, began the demolition Thursday of the Comandancia, the seat and symbol of Manuel A. Noriega’s power.

“It is a good feeling to see a hated institution come down,” Endara declared. “And it is good to see that housing for the poor will go up in its place.”

The hammer blows Endara delivered against a cement railing at the front of the building signaled the start of a two-month dismantling project that is to be followed by a multimillion-dollar public housing project.

The Comandancia, built just after World War II, served many purposes, but after Noriega took power in 1981, its main purpose was to remind Panamanians of the control he exercised from his corner office on the second floor.

From the barred windows, Noriega could see the headquarters of his secret police and the warehouse-like building where agents known as sapos (toads) beat Noriega’s enemies.

Down the street were the barracks of the Machos de Montes, a special battalion of the Panama Defense Forces thought to be particularly loyal to Noriega and particularly brutal in carrying out his wishes.

Within a few minutes in the early morning darkness of Dec. 20, the Comandancia and the other nearby symbols of power were all but destroyed. Their roofs were blown off, their walls raked by artillery and rockets.

The Comandancia was among the first important targets of invading U.S. troops, who used mortars, tanks and helicopter gunships in the attack.

For a handful of foreign journalists who were brought to the Comandancia and abused one night last May, the sight of the wrecked compound provided feelings both of satisfaction and detachment. The buildings that had seemed so forbidding were now no more threatening than a child’s playhouse, one said.

On Thursday, President Endara, Vice President Ricardo Arias Calderon and other victims of Noriega’s brutality took turns in hammering at the Comandancia.

Harmodio Arias, whose father’s newspapers were confiscated by the military rulers, looked on and commented: “Fantastic. I never imagined I would see this day, and I can’t tell you in any language how this makes me feel.”

The Comandancia, an architectural oddity that was meant to be futuristic, did not fall easily to the U.S. weaponry, and it resisted the blows that fell on it Thursday.

“It is so solid,” Capt. Kirk Amundson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. “We would have to use so much explosive to bring it down that the damage in the surrounding neighborhood would be unacceptable.”

Instead the walls will be brought down by wrecking balls, bulldozers, backhoes and men swinging 16-pound sledges.

The weight of the hammer was almost too much for Endara. His first blow was on target, but the next went awry, and the flying debris it dislodged sent onlookers scurrying. Endara laughed.

Vice President Arias grinned broadly as he delivered two strong blows directly on target, tearing out large chunks of material.

Arias told the crowd: “It was an affront to have this in this neighborhood. Now we can use the money, the resources that were wasted on corruption, to build housing for the poor.”

The site is El Chorrillo, one of Panama City’s poorest districts, and the shooting that destroyed Noriega’s offices also destroyed several acres of slum housing.

Now, under a plan drawn up by the military in 1981, the new government plans to construct apartments for 2,880 families. The land where the Comandancia stood will become a park called the Plaza of Democracy.

To speed the project along, hundreds of people took part in Thursday’s demolition ceremony. Chunks of walls were pulled loose and carried away. Plumbing fixtures were ripped out, along with floor coverings.

The most sought-after souvenirs were documents, magazines, pamphlets and personal papers left by the soldiers, including a 1988 Christmas card to Noriega signed by the British military attache, Lt. Col. Robert Lawson.

And there was a singed copy of a 1988 pamphlet complaining about U.S. influence all through Panama’s history. Its title: “Panama, the Country Invaded by the United States.”