White House Was Told of Peril in Panama Trip

American military and security agencies warned the White House more than a week earlier that President Bush faced serious danger if he carried out plans to speak at a public rally during his brief stop in Panama, and they urged that his appearance be canceled, U.S. and diplomatic sources say.

“Within 72 hours after Bush’s staff told us he would be coming here, SouthCom (the U.S. military’s Panama-based Southern Command) sent the Pentagon a ‘trip book’ saying the President should not speak (in public), in part because of the likelihood of anti-American demonstrations and because the National Police were not trained in riot control,” according to one U.S. military expert.

The warning was disregarded, another U.S. source said in a telephone interview from Washington, “because Bush’s political advisers ignored the risk; they wanted television pictures showing Bush speaking to cheering Panamanians about returning democracy to Panama.”

What was shown on television, of course, were pictures of Bush and his wife, Barbara, coughing and wiping their eyes, being rushed off the speakers’ platform here Thursday amid clouds of tear gas fired at a few hundred anti-American demonstrators by Panamanian police never trained in crowd or riot control.

The situation developed when about 400 demonstrators lined up behind a barbed-wire barricade a city block from Bush’s downtown speech site. Intelligence sources said they were mostly members of former dictator Manuel A. Noriega’s army, the Panama Defense Forces, pro-Noriega unions and leftist students. A small number were relatives of Panamanians killed when the United States invaded Panama in December, 1989, to overthrow Noriega.

Just as Bush was being introduced, some of the demonstrators began burning tires, pushing against the barricade and throwing fruit, bottles and rocks. Police started firing tear gas and later pistols in the air. The clouds of gas drifted over the speech site and caused Bush’s hurried departure.

“We knew this could and most likely would happen,” one military source said. “The barricades should have been pushed back another block, and there was no reason for all the tear gas. It just shouldn’t have happened. The people here (at SouthCom) are still wondering what caused them to be overruled.”

Their bewilderment was particularly intense because of events of Wednesday, 24 hours before Bush’s arrival.

That day an American soldier was killed and another was wounded in an attack outside Panama City, followed by a series of demonstrations in the capital, including a confrontation at the site of Bush’s planned speech, which ended with police firing tear gas.

“It was a dress rehearsal,” one diplomatic source said. “They did on Wednesday exactly what they repeated on Thursday. So why the police didn’t react better is beyond me. What is worse,” he said, “is why Bush kept on with his speech (plans). I know SouthCom recommended he call it off.”

The genesis of the affair was a plan made by Bush’s staff earlier this month for the President to make a four-hour stop here on his way to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The idea, sources here and in Washington said, was to provide the President with some good publicity to offset negative news coming from the Brazil meeting, where the United States was under heavy criticism for refusing to sign environmental protection treaties.

SouthCom sources said they had no doubt about the political nature of the trip because the White House staff had turned down alternative stops in South and Central America, “not just for security reasons but for political gain.”

The plan for the Bush visit caught even the Panamanians off guard. “We couldn’t say no,” said one adviser to President Guillermo Endara, “but right now was not a good time for Endara to be seen as too close to Bush unless he was coming here for a positive reason, not as a conqueror. But it was clear this was for domestic (U.S.) consumption when the Americans declined our suggestions for private talks.”

The lack of substance to the trip was underlined in an interview that Vice President Guillermo (Billy) Ford gave to foreign reporters Tuesday, only two days before the visit. “We (Endara, Ford and the presidential Cabinet) are going to meet this afternoon to decide the agenda,” he said.

The original plan presented to SouthCom headquarters here and the U.S. Embassy called for a Bush motorcade through Panama City, a private lunch with Endara and other officials, a closed address to American military personnel at a U.S. air base and a public speech at one of three sites in the capital: Parque Porras, Parque Omar on the city’s outskirts or a square in front of the city’s cathedral.

Parque Porras, a city-center square surrounded by government offices, embassies and office buildings, was preferred as the best of a bad lot because access could be more easily controlled, the sources said. The American Embassy replied to the White House initiative by “identifying the problems” with the three sites but made no recommendations for or against any of the locations, an embassy source said.

However, military security experts advised the White House that while there would be no problems with the motorcade, the luncheon at the presidential palace and the private air base speech, none of the locations for a public speech were suitable, sources said.

That finding was underlined, one source said, by a strong warning of the likelihood of anti-Bush demonstrations and the conclusion about “the total lack of training and capability of the National Police.” All of this, he said, “was included in the ‘trip book’ and in other communications.”

“You have to remember,” said one American military expert, “that the National Police are badly trained even at directing traffic. They have never received any training in crowd and riot control.”

The police here are a mixture of former members of the Panama Defense Forces and a few hundred recent civilian recruits. The police force is widely considered to be demoralized, underarmed, badly paid and largely ineffective.

An FBI school to give training in court procedures and related issues is in operation here, but a U.S. military police training program was halted in December, 1990, a year after President Bush ordered the invasion to oust Noriega.

The lack of police capability was evident this past week, experts said. “There weren’t enough police at the park,” one American security expert said. “And most important, they let the demonstrators get too close.”

Most observers said the total police presence at the park was no more than 50 officers. The barricades were set up only a block away.

To make matters worse, the National Police chief was out of the country and no one, including Panama City Mayor Mayin Correa, knew who was in charge of the police detachment at Parque Porras, the sources said. And one police major approached by Mayor Correa refused her order to stop firing tear gas.

In a country where gossip is a way of life and conspiracy theories are as numerous as names in the Panama City telephone directory, some Panamanian sources point to the refusal of the mayor’s order and the other circumstances and suggest that there was more to the affair than police mismanagement and even White House political manipulations.

“It is clear to me that the police planned this,” said one former senior government official who had resigned because of concern over Endara’s refusal to eliminate all former Panama Defense Forces members from the police.

“The idea was to show that the situation here is so unstable that a strong police or even military force is needed.”