Results for Manuel Noriega
On this page:
 

(1936–), Panamanian general and dictator

A Creole born of humble origins in Panama City, Manuel Noriega was an opportunist who joined Panama's National Guard in 1962. As a protégé of Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos, Noriega took classes at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in the Canal Zone. In August 1970, he became commander of G2, the Guard's intelligence branch. G2 maintained close ties with U.S. Army Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Soon after Torrijos's death in 1981, General Noriega became the most powerful man in Panama.

Though suspected by the DEA of collusion with Colombian drug lords, Noriega proved immensely useful to the United States. He guaranteed a safe haven for the shah of Iran, who went into exile in 1979; then, in 1983, he agreed to help the counterrevolutionary Nicaraguan Contras destabilize the Sandinista government. He also worked closely, though selectively, with the DEA—all the while enhancing his own power.

By late 1989, in the wake of the Iran‐Contra Affair, Noriega's usefulness as a security asset had ended. President George Bush attempted various measures to undermine his regime and finally, following a contested election in Panama, sent in U.S. forces to overthrow the Panamanian dictator on the immediate grounds that Noriega had authorized hostile acts against U.S. military personnel. Subsequently, a U.S. court convicted Noriega on money‐laundering and other charges related to drug trafficking. July 1992, he was sentenced to forty years in a U.S. prison.

[See also Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Panama, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

  • John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, 1990.
  • R. M. Koster and Guillermo Sánchez, In the Time of the Tyrants, 1990
 
 
US Military Dictionary: Manuel Noriega

Noriega, Manuel (1936-) Panamanian general and de facto head of state (1983-89). Although he was a dictatorial ruler and suspected of collusion with drug lords, the United States supported Noriega, a one-time operative for the Central Intelligence Agency, in return for his help against the counterrevolutionary Contras in Nicaragua. When his was no longer needed and Noriega's involvement in drug trafficking became apparent, U.S. officials urged him to step down but he refused. When a U.S. marine was murdered in Panama City, President George H. Bush ordered troops to Panama (1989). Noriega was brought to the United States, where he was tried, convicted on charges related to drug trafficking (1992), and sentenced to forty years in prison.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Biography: Manuel A. Noriega

First a friend, then an enemy of the United States, Manuel A. Noriega (born 1934), the strongman of Panama, was finally deposed by a U.S. military invasion, captured, and brought to Miami for trial in 1989.

Manuel Antonio Noriega was born the son of an accountant and his maid in a poor barrio of Panama City in 1934. At the age of five he was given up for adoption to a schoolteacher. He attended the National Institute, a well-regarded high school, with the intention of becoming a doctor, but a lack of financial resources prevented fulfillment of this career choice. Instead, Noriega accepted a scholarship to attend the Peruvian Military Academy. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in engineering. Returning to Panama, he was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in the National Guard and assigned to a unit at Colon, the city lying near the Caribbean terminus of the Panama Canal.

Colonel Omar Torrijos liked Noriega and obtained for him the command of Chiriqui, the country's westernmost province. In October 1968, military conspirators overturned the civilian government of Arnulfo Arias (twice before turned out by coups). Noriega's troops seized radio and telephone stations in David, the provincial capital, and thus severed communications with the capital. Torrijos emerged from the coup as the strongman. In December 1969, when Torrijos was out of the country, a trio of rebellious officers tried to seize power, but Torrijos flew into David. The airport had no facilities for night landing, but Noriega lined up motorcars alongside the runway and Torrijos made it safely down. With Noriega's troops at his service, Torrijos retook the capital.

From that moment, Noriega's career blossomed. In 1971 he became useful to U.S. intelligence and, at the behest of the Nixon administration, went to Havana to obtain the release of crewmen of two American freighters seized by Fidel Castro's government. He was also already involved in narcotics trafficking. (Panama's National Guard had been implicated in the heroin trade from the late 1940s.) American officials learned that Noriega was the Panama "connection," and a high-ranking drug enforcement officer recommended that the president order his assassination, but Nixon demurred. Noriega was useful to U.S. counterintelligence. As head of G-2, Panama's military intelligence command, Noriega was the second most powerful man in Panama. In 1975 G-2 agents rounded up businessmen critical of Torrijos' dictatorial populist style, confiscated their property, and sent them into exile in Ecuador. Torrijos once said of him, "This is my gangster."

Torrijos died in 1981 in a mysterious plane crash. In the ensuing two-year contest for power between civilian politicians and ambitious military officers, Noriega emerged triumphant. In late 1983, following his promotion to general and commander of the National Guard, the guard was combined with the navy and air force into the Panama Defense Forces (which also included the national police). The following year Noriega's choice for president, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, won a narrow victory over Arnulfo Arias. But there was widespread fraud in the election. Barletta tried manfully to grapple with the country's growing economic woes, he failed, and Noriega forced him out. (Panama had received no windfall from the canal treaties Torrijos had negotiated with President Jimmy Carter.)

The reason had less to do with Barletta's economic policies than his alleged threat to investigate the brutal slaying of Hugo Spadafora, who had publicly accused Noriega of being a drug trafficker. G-2 agents had taken him from a bus near the Costa Rican border. In September 1985 searchers found his tortured, decapitated body stuffed in a U.S. mailbag on the Costa Rican side of the border. In June 1986 journalist Seymour Hersh reported that U.S. Defense Intelligence agents had evidence implicating Noriega in Spadafora's death and, just as disturbing, that in the mid-1970s Noriega had obtained National Security Agency classified material from a U.S. Army sergeant and had given it to the Cubans. In addition, Hersh wrote, Noriega had used his position to facilitate sale of restricted U.S. technology to Eastern European governments. In the process, he had earned $3 million.

Noriega denounced these and other allegations as a conspiracy of right-wing U.S. politicians looking for a way to undo the Panama Canal treaties before the canal became Panamanian property on December 31, 1999. It was becoming evident that Noriega had outfoxed his U.S. benefactors. During the Reagan administration's covert war against the government of Nicaragua, Noriega helped to supply arms to the Nicaraguan resistance called the Contras (Congress prohibited any expenditures to bring down the Nicaraguan government). At the same time, he received arms from Cuba and sold them to Salvadoran leftist guerrillas and supplied Nicaraguan leaders with intelligence reports. Although Noriega was a gun-runner, money-launderer, drug trafficker, and double agent, he was still useful to the U.S. government.

The furor caused by the Hersh articles diminished but revived in June 1987 when Noriega's former chief of staff, Colonel Roberto Diaz Herrera (forced into retirement), stated that Noriega had fixed the 1984 election and ordered Spadafora's killing. He also implicated Noriega in the death of Torrijos. Middle-class Panamanians organized street demonstrations, demanding his ouster. Noriega responded by declaring a national emergency. He suspended constitutional rights, closed newspapers and radio stations, and drove his political enemies into exile. A special riot squad - nicknamed "the Dobermans" - laid siege to the home of Diaz Herrera, who was captured and compelled to recant. Church leaders, businessmen, and students organized into the National Civil Crusade, dressed in white, and went into the streets banging pots and pans. The riot squads dispersed them. By now Americans were outraged, and in June 1987 the U.S. Senate called for Noriega's removal. Noriega retaliated by removing police protection from the U.S. embassy. A pro-Noriega mob attacked the building and caused $100,000 in damages.

From that day, the administration of President Ronald Reagan began looking for a way to bring Noriega down. U.S. economic aid and military assistance ended. Noriega lamented that his erstwhile friends in Washington were deserting him. Panamanian bankers began withdrawing their support - Torrijos had transformed the country into an international banking center - and Noriega rapidly lost favor everywhere save for the Panama Defense Forces. The American strategy was to induce discontented officers in the PDF to overturn him. In this way the United States would rid itself of Noriega but not be saddled with a leftist successor to him.

Secret negotiations between U.S. officials and Noriega's representatives called for him to resign and leave the country before the 1988 U.S. presidential election, thus saving George Bush, who as director of the Central Intelligence Agency had dealt with Noriega, from embarrassing revelations in the campaign. There were dark rumors that Noriega was prepared to name high U.S. officials also involved in money-laundering and drug smuggling. As matters turned out, the Justice Department filed indictments against Noriega in federal court in early 1988, which was intended as a warning. Assistant Secretary of State Eliot Abrams went to Panama in a futile effort to get President Eric Del Valle to fire Noriega. Instead, Noriega forced out Del Valle and named a puppet president, Manuel Solis Palma.

Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis tried to make an issue of the "Noriega connection" in the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign, but Bush suffered no apparent damage. After assuming office, President Bush increased pressure. Economic sanctions severely hurt Noriega but did not bring him down. In May 1989 Noriega declined to run in the election but chose yet another puppet candidate, Carlos Duque. The opposition Panameñista Party nominated Guillermo Endara. Sensing opportunity, the Bush administration provided Endara with $10 million. Former President Jimmy Carter and other foreign representatives went to Panama to monitor the election. But as soon as Noriega realized that Duque was losing, he ordered the PDF to seize ballot boxes. When the opposition took to the streets in protest, "dignity battalions" of Noriega goons assaulted them. Endara and a vice-presidential candidate, Guillermo Ford, were severely beaten.

Noriega declared the election void, installed another puppet as provisional president, and, in October 1989, survived a coup hatched among discontented PDF officers and openly supported by U.S. forces. In the aftermath, Noriega was vengeful and boastful; President Bush, humiliated. In this despair over the nation's declining international image and concern that Noriega was in a position to name a crony as canal administrator, Bush acted. Using as pretext Noriega's declaration that U.S. actions had created a virtual state of war, fear that Noriega would jeopardize the security of the canal (which was untrue), and the firing on U.S. soldiers passing the PDF headquarters, the United States launched a full-scale attack (Operation Just Cause) with 24,000 troops on December 20, 1989.

Fighting continued for four days, at times heavy, with U.S. casualties running into the hundreds and Panamanian into the thousands. Noriega evaded capture for a few days but ultimately took refuge in the Papal Nunciature. Under pressure from Vatican officials, Noriega surrendered to the Vatican Embassy in Panama City on January 3, 1990. In a deal worked out with the U.S.-created government headed by Guillermo Endara, U.S. authorities brought Noriega to Miami for trial. However, legal obstacles and technicalities delayed the trial into the early 1990s. He was convicted of cocaine trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. He was sentenced to 40 years in a Miami prison, and was ordered to pay $ 44 million to the Panamanian government. The trial was not without controversy, however. In late 1995 charges of bribery were brought about. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was told that the Cali drug cartel had paid a witness, Ricardo Bilonik, to testify about Noriega's ties to the Medellin cartel, Cali's rival. Federal prosecutors have determined that the bribery charges are not enough to justify a new trial.

Further Reading

For more on Manuel Noriega consult Steven Ropp, Panamanian Politics: From Guarded Nation to National Guard (1982); Walter LaFeber, The Panama Canal (1978); David Farnsworth and James W. McKenney, U.S.-Panamanian Relations, 1903-1978 (1983); William C. Jorden, Panama Odyssey: From Colony to Partner (1983); Frederick Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator: America's Bungled Affair with Noriega (1990); and, especially, John Dinges, Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United States - and Made Millions in Drugs and Arms (1990).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Manuel Antonio Noriega Morena

(born Feb. 11, 1938, Panama City, Pan.) Panamanian general who was the actual power behind a civilian president. Born into a poor family, he attended military school in Peru and joined Panama's National Guard on his return. As chief of military intelligence in the 1970s, he cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency and negotiated the release of U.S. freighter crews held by Cuba, but he was tainted by persistent reports of drug trafficking and brutality. In 1989, as head of the armed forces, he canceled election results that displeased him. The U.S. government then invaded Panama, primarily to capture Noriega. He was brought to trial in the U.S., convicted of racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. His jail term was later reduced. Noriega completed his sentence on Sept. 9, 2007, but he remained in prison as he appealed his extradition to France, where in 1999 he had been tried in absentia and convicted of money laundering and other crimes.

For more information on Manuel Antonio Noriega Morena, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Noriega, Manuel
(mänwĕl' nôryā') , 1938–, Panamanian general. Commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces from 1983, Noriega consolidated the strong-armed rule inherited from Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrera, and became the de facto leader of Panama. A one-time operative for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, he was implicated in drug trafficking, the sale of U.S. secrets to Cuba, and other illegal activities. U.S. officials urged him to step down (Jan., 1988), but he refused. Following the murder of a U.S. marine on the streets of Panama City, President George H. W. Bush ordered troops to Panama (Dec., 1989). Noriega was captured and brought to the United States to stand trial. He was convicted (Apr., 1992) on charges of racketeering, money laundering, and drug trafficking, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
 
Wikipedia: Manuel Noriega
Date of birth
February 11, 1934 or 1938
Place of birth
Panama City, Panama
Occupation
Career soldier
Education
Military School of Chorrillos
Lima, Peru
School of the Americas
Fort Gulick, former Panama Canal Zone
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Remarks

Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (born February 11, 1934[1]) was a Panamanian general and the de facto military dictator of Panama from 1983[2] to 1989, despite never being the official President of Panama. He was initially a strong ally of the United States and worked with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s to the 1980s, however the relationship had not become contractual until 1967.[3] By the late 1980s, relations had turned extremely tense between Noriega and the United States government, and in 1989 the general was overthrown and captured in the United States invasion of Panama. He was detained as a prisoner of war, and taken to the United States, and convicted under federal charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering and money laundering.

In December 2004, he was briefly hospitalized after suffering a minor stroke. Voice of America[4] reports Frank Rubino, Noriega's attorney, said Noriega was due to be released from prison on September 9, 2007.[5] On August 24, 2007, a federal judge in Miami, Florida refused to block a French request to extradite Noriega from the United States to France. On August 28, 2007 Noriega's extradition to France was approved. He is facing an additional 10 years in prison if convicted of money laundering in connection to his previous drug-trafficking conviction. Noriega has also received a long jail term in absentia for murder and human rights abuses in Panama.

Early life

Born in Panama City, Noriega was a career soldier, receiving much of his education at the Military School of Chorrillos in Lima, Peru. He also received intelligence and counterintelligence training at Fort Gulick in 1967, and also a course in Psyops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was commissioned in the National Guard in 1967 and promoted to lieutenant in 1968. It has been alleged that he was part of the military coup that removed Arnulfo Arias from power, although in Noriega's account of the 1968 coup, neither he nor his mentor Omar Torrijos were involved. In the power struggle that followed, including a failed coup attempt in 1969, Noriega supported Torrijos. He received a promotion to lieutenant colonel and was appointed chief of military intelligence by Torrijos. In this post, he conducted a ruthless campaign against peasant guerrillas in western Panama, and there are allegations that he orchestrated the "disappearances" of political opponents. However, Noriega also claims that, following Torrijos' instructions, he negotiated an amnesty for about 400 defeated guerrilla fighters, enabling them to return from exile in Honduras and Costa Rica. According to statements made by former CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner in 1988, Noriega became a CIA "asset" in the early 1970s

Omar Torrijos died in a plane explosion in 1981. Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera, a former associate of Noriega, claimed that the actual cause for the accident was a bomb and that Noriega was behind the incident.

Torrijos was succeeded by Colonel Florencio Flores Aguilar, one year later he was succeeded by Rubén Darío Paredes, while Noriega became Chief of Staff. Paredes resigned to run for the presidency, ceding his post as commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces (as the Guard had been renamed) to Noriega. The two men had a deal in which Paredes would run as the Democratic Revolutionary Party's candidate for president. However, Noriega reneged on the deal.

Noriega enhanced his position as de facto ruler in August 1983 by promoting himself to General. Noriega, being paid by the CIA, extented liberties to the U.S. Despite the canal treaties, he allowed the U.S. to set up listening posts in Panama. He aided the American backed terrorist groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua by acting as a conduit for U.S. money, and according to some accounts, weapons. However, Noriega insists that his policy during this period was essentially neutral, allowing partisans on both sides of the various conflicts free movement in Panama, as long as they did not attempt to use Panama as a base of military operations. He rebuffed requests by Salvadoran rightist Roberto D'Aubuisson to restrict the movements of Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (leftist Salvadoran insurgent) leaders in Panama, and likewise rebuffed demands by American Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North that he provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras. Noriega insists that his refusal to meet North's demands was the actual basis for the U.S. campaign to oust him. This and the fact that Noriga was seen as a double agent, living up to his State Department nickname of "rent-a-colonel" by not only giving information to the U.S., and U.S. allies Taiwan and Israel, but also to communist Cuba. He also sold weapons to the leftist Sandanista government in Nicaragua in the late 70s.[6]

Ruler of Panama

In October 1984, Noriega allowed the first presidential elections in 16 years. When the initial results showed former president Arnulfo Arias on his way to a landslide victory, Noriega halted the count. After brazenly manipulating the results, the government announced that the PRD's candidate, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, had won by a slim margin of 1,713 votes. Independent estimates suggested that Arias would have won by as many as 50,000 votes had the election been conducted fairly. Barletta, who later became known as "Fraudito", was a former student of United States Secretary of State George Schultz at the University of Chicago, home of the Chicago Boys (los muchachos de Chicago).

About this time, Hugo Spadafora, a vocal critic of Noriega who had been living abroad, accused Noriega of having connections to drug trafficking and announced his intent to return to Panama to oppose him. He was seized from a bus at the Costa Rican border. Later, his decapitated body was found, showing signs of extreme torture, wrapped in a U.S. Postal Service mailing bag. His family and other groups called for an investigation into his murder, but Noriega stonewalled any attempts at an investigation. Noriega was in Paris at the time the murder took place, alleged by some to have been at the direction of his Chiriquí Province commander, Luis Córdoba.

In the book In the Time of the Tyrants, R.M. Koster relates a conversation captured on wiretap between Noriega (in Paris) and Cordoba:

  • Córdoba: "We have the rabid dog."
  • Noriega: "What do you do with rabid dogs?"

President Barletta was visiting New York City at the time. A reporter asked him about the Spadafora matter, and he promised an investigation. Upon his return to Panama, he was summoned to FDP headquarters and told to resign. He was replaced by First Vice President Eric Arturo Delvalle. As a friend and former student of George Schultz, Barletta had been considered "sacrosanct" by the United States,[citation needed] and his dismissal signaled a marked downturn in the relations between the U.S. and Noriega.

Díaz Herrera, a former member of Noriega's inner circle, told Panama's main opposition newspaper, La Prensa, that Noriega was behind Spadafora's murder and many other killings as well. This resulted in an immediate outcry from the public and the formation of the "Civic Crusade". Noriega claims that the Civic Crusade was the handiwork of U.S. Embassy chargé d'affaires John Maisto, who arranged for Civic Crusade leaders to travel to the Philippines to learn the tactics of the U.S.-supported movement to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos. Supporters of Noriega referred to the Civic Crusade as a creature of the rabiblancos or "white-tails", the wealthy elite of European extraction that dominated Panamanian commerce and that had dominated Panamanian politics before the advent of Torrijos. Noriega, like Torrijos, was dark-skinned and claimed to represent the majority population who were poor and of mixed Spanish Amerindian and African heritage. Noriega supporters mocked the demonstrations of the Civic Crusade as "the protest of the Mercedes Benz", deriding the wealthy ladies for banging on teflon-coated pots and pans (unlike the cruder and louder pots and pans traditionally banged by the poor in South American protests), or sending their maids to protest for them. The U.S. press, however, covered these demonstrations with great sympathy. Many rallies were held, with the use of white cloths as the symbol of the opposition. Noriega was always one step ahead of them however, having informants within their groups notify his police in advance and routinely rounded up leaders and organizers the night before rallies. Meanwhile he arranged rallies of his own, often under threat (for example, taxi drivers were told they had to attend a rally in support of Noriega or lose their licenses).

Nonetheless, he retained U.S. support until February 5, 1988, when the Drug Enforcement Administration had him indicted on federal drug charges relating to his activities before 1984.[7] On February 25, Delvalle issued a decree declaring that Noriega was relieved of his duties. Noriega ignored the decree, but instead instructed the National Assembly, dominated by the PRD, to remove Delvalle from office. Delvalle was forced to flee the country for his life. Noriega claims that on March 18, 1988, he met with U.S. State Department officials William Walker and Michael Kozak, who offered him $2 million to go into exile in Spain. According to Noriega, he refused the offer. In early 1988, he also attempted to buy thousands of Browning 9mm pistols from U.S. businessman and arms trader Leo Wanta.[8]

Senator John Kerry's 1988 subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics and international operations concluded that "the saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)." Manuel Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first 'narcockleptocracy'".[9]

The 1989 election

The elections of May 1989 were surrounded by controversy. A PRD-led coalition nominated Carlos Duque, publisher of the country's oldest newspaper, La Estrella de Panamá. Most of the other political parties banded behind a unified ticket of Guillermo Endara, a member of Arias' Authentic Panameñista Party, along with vice presidential candidates Ricardo Arias Calderón (no relation to Arnulfo Arias) and Guillermo "Billy" Ford. [citation needed]

According to Koster, the opposition alliance knew that Noriega had every intention of rigging the count, but had no way of proving it. They found a way through a loophole in Panamanian election law. The alliance, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, set up a count based directly on results at the country's 4,000 election precincts before the results were sent to district centers. Noriega's lackeys swapped fake tally sheets for the real ones and took those to the district centers — but by the time the intended rigging took place, the opposition's more accurate count was already out. It showed Endara winning in a landslide even more massive than 1984, beating Duque by a 3-to-1 margin. Noriega had every intention of declaring Duque the winner regardless of the actual results. However, Duque knew he'd been badly defeated and refused to go along. [citation needed]

Rather than display the results, Noriega voided the election, claiming "foreign interference" made it impossible to assure the results were valid--a claim that few believed. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, there as an observer, denounced Noriega, saying the election had been "stolen". Bishop Marcos McGrath did as well. [citation needed]

The next day, Endara, Arias Calderón and Ford rolled through the old part of the capital in a triumphant motorcade, only to be intercepted by a detachment of Noriega's Dignity Battalions. Arias Calderón was protected by a couple of troops, but Endara and Ford were badly beaten. Images of Ford running to safety with his shirt covered in blood were broadcast around the world. This image brought worldwide attention to Noriega's regime. When the 1984-89 presidential term expired, Noriega named a longtime associate, Francisco Rodríguez, as acting president. The United States, however, recognized Endara as the new president.[citation needed]

Capture, trial, and imprisonment

The U.S. imposed harsh economic sanctions, and in the months that followed; a tense standoff went on between the U.S. military forces (stationed in the canal area) and Noriega's troops. The U.S. forces conducted regular maneuvers and operations, which some feel were a violation of the Panama Canal Treaty. [citation needed] On the other hand, Noriega's forces engaged in routine harassment of U.S. troops and civilians. On December 15, 1989, the PRD-dominated legislature declared "a state of war" with the United States. Noriega subsequently claimed that his statement referred to U.S. actions against Panama, which he considered to be acts of war, and did not represent a declaration of hostilities by Noriega. The legislature also declared Noriega "chief executive officer" of the government, formalizing a state of affairs that had existed for six years.

The matter came to a head in December 1989: a U.S. Marine, returning from a restaurant in Panama City, was stopped and harassed to the point where he panicked and attempted to flee, and he was shot and killed.[citation needed]

In response, U.S. President George H.W. Bush launched an invasion of Panama. Losses on the U.S. side were 23 troops, plus three civilian casualties. The U.S. claimed Panamanian losses were "several hundred" though exact statistics remain disputed, and some Latin American and other international sources have estimated the civilian death toll may have been as high as 3,000 to 5,000.[10] The U.N. put the death toll at 500.[11] The conflict also caused some considerable domestic problems, with 20,000 to 30,000 having been rendered homeless. Probably the majority of those resulted from a fire that devastated much of a poor area of Panama City that surrounded the Comandancia, a fortified headquarters that was shelled.

Capture

Noriega fled during the attack and a manhunt ensued. He finally turned up in the Apostolic Nunciature, the Holy See's embassy in Panama, where he had taken refuge. U.S. troops set up a perimeter outside this building, as any direct action on the embassy itself would have violated the customs of international law (and perhaps treaties to which the U.S. was a party at the time as well). The troops guarding it used psychological warfare, attempting to force him out by playing hard rock music and the Howard Stern show, outside the residence.[12] Reportedly the song "Panama" by Van Halen was played repeatedly.

The Vatican complained to President Bush because of this and U.S. troops stopped the noise. After a demonstration a few days later by thousands of Panamanians demanding he stand trial for human rights violations, Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990.

Trial

Mugshot of Noriega
Enlarge
Mugshot of Noriega

Noriega was flown to the U.S. and tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. His trial was held in Miami, Florida.

The prosecution presented a case that has been criticized by numerous observers. The prosecution's case was completely reworked several times because problems developed with the witnesses, whose stories contradicted one another. The U.S. attorney negotiated deals with 26 different drug felons, including Carlos Lehder, who were given leniency, cash payments, and allowed to keep their drug earnings in return for testimony against Noriega. Several of these witnesses had been arrested by Noriega for drug trafficking in Panama. Some witnesses later recanted their testimony, and agents of the CIA, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Israeli Mossad, who were knowledgeable about Central American drug trafficking, have publicly charged that accusations were embellished. Noriega was found guilty and sentenced on September 16, 1992, to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations. His sentence was reduced to 30 years in 1999.

Under Article 85 of the Third Geneva Convention[13], Noriega is still considered a prisoner of war, despite his conviction for acts committed prior to his capture by the "Detaining Power" (i.e. the United States). This status has meant that he has his own prison cell furnished with electronics, which some have described as the "Presidential suite".[14]

Release

The Federal Bureau of Prisons website as of 16 September 2007 does not give a projected release date for inmate Noriega (ID # 38699-079).[5] However, he may be handed over to another country for trial or imprisonment instead of being released into the public realm.

In 1999, the Panamanian government sought the extradition of Noriega to face murder charges in Panama because he had been found guilty in absentia in 1995. He was condemned to spend 20 years in prison. Apparently, he may be able to serve his sentence under house arrest due to his age.

France has also requested the extradition of Noriega after he was convicted of money laundering in 1999.[15] On August 24, 2007, a Judge in Miami ruled Manuel Noriega could be extradited to France to serve a 10 year sentence for money laundering.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b
  2. ^ Panama Noriega's Money Machine MICHAEL S. SERRILL, Reported by Jonathan Beaty and Ricardo Chavira/Washington, '50th birthday last week' written February 1989
  3. ^ The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack William Blum, fpif.org, November 1996
  4. ^ Panama's Noriega to be Released from US Prison in September VOA 2007-01-24
  5. ^ a b
  6. ^ Central america inside out, Tom Banks, (The Resource Center) p.470 ISBN 0-8021-3260-X
  7. ^ DEA History Book, 1985-1990 dea.gov
  8. ^ Gedda, George. "Proposed Gun Deal Exposed by Panamanian Officer", Associated Press, April 9, 1988. 
  9. ^ Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy p.3
  10. ^ http://www.famoustexans.com/georgebush.htm
  11. ^ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/just_cause.htm
  12. ^ http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/1220.pdf
  13. ^ Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War Office of the High Comissioner for Human Rights
  14. ^ States line up to jail NoriegaJacobson, Phillip The First Post September 2007
  15. ^ States line up to jail Noriega Philip Jacobson, firstpost.co.uk, '70-year-old', 2006-02-15

External links

Further reading

  1. William Blum "The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack" at Foreign Policy in Focus
  2. CNN. Newsmaker Profiles: Manuel Noriega. United States of America: Cable News Network. 1988, 1992. (archive.org version retrieved on 2006-06-27)
  3. Cole, Ronald. Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. United States of America: Joint History Office – Defense Technical Information Center, US Department of Defense. 1998, 1999.
  4. Noriega, Manuel and Eisner, Peter. America's Prisoner — The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega. Random House, 1997.
  5. Koster, R.M. and Sánchez, Guillermo. In the Time of the Tyrants: Panama, 1968-1990. W W Norton & Co Inc, 1990.
  6. Ross, Rick. "Hustlin'." Port of Miami. The Island Def Jam Music Group, 2006


Preceded by
Rubén Darío Paredes
Military leader of Panama
1983–1989
Succeeded by
none

be-x-old:Мануэль Нар'еґа


 
 

Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Manuel Noriega" at WikiAnswers.

 

Copyrights:

US Military History Companion. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Copyright © 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Manuel Noriega" Read more

On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

 

Keep Reading

Mentioned In:

Related Topics