In Panama, the paths of drug trafficking and U.S. foreign policy have crossed in the person of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega -- and the Reagan administration now wants Noriega out of power.
Noriega is the Panamanian general-behind-the-scenes, the de facto ruler of a nation dominated by the military since 1968. For 13 years Noriega was chief of military intelligence, but after the unexpected death of Gen. Omar Torrijos in 1981, Noriega began to assert more influence. By 1983 the general had become the strongman of Panamanian politics.
Early in February the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) presented evidence in U.S. courts that brought indictments against Noriega on 12 counts of bribery and drug trafficking. Noriega was charged with taking $4.6 million in bribes from an infamous cocaine cartel based in Medellin, Colombia. Shortly thereafter, a former aide to the general, Jose I. Blandon, testified before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the extent of Noriega's involvement in the regional drug trade. Among other services, Gen. Noriega reportedly provided the cartel access to Panamanian air space for cartel drug flights, credit on drug money deposited in Panamanian banks, and information about U.S. drug interdiction operations.
A second witness, Ramon Milian-Rodriguez, said the cartel, with Noriega's help, was shipping as much as $200 million worth of cocaine to the United States each month during the late '70s and early '80s. And a third witness said Noriega promised in 1982 to protect Medellin cocaine shipments on their way to the United States through Panama. Milian-Rodriguez also said that Noriega picked up as much as $320 million for his services.
Very little of the Panamanian general's history of shady dealings in drugs is news to the U.S. government. But Gen. Noriega has a history of dealings with the United States government that may be just as long and just as shady. And as with the Medellin cartel, Noriega, in his business with the United States, gave a little, and he got a little.
MANUEL NORIEGA HAS BEEN on the CIA payroll since the mid-'70s, and, according to National Public Radio, perhaps as early as 1966. William Jordan, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Panama from 1974 to 1978, confirmed that Noriega received payments that totaled $200,000 a year. The Washington Post reported that both former and current U.S. officials say that the Panamanian ruler has been "an important conduit for information" and had a "close working relationship" with the CIA from his service as intelligence chief up to and including his most recent period as de facto ruler.
More recently, Noriega apparently committed Panama to playing a role in the U.S.-sponsored contra war in Nicaragua, by providing training grounds and by offering Panama as an intelligence station and a resupply base. According to In These Times, Noriega also assisted the contra-support work of retired U.S. Gen. Richard Secord by allowing Secord to channel Iranian arms sales funds through front companies he established in Panama.
But the links between the contra war, the international drug traffic, Gen. Noriega, and the CIA may well be shadier still. In September 1985, Dr. Hugo Spadafora, a Panamanian who fought alongside contra leader Eden Pastora, was found decapitated. According to some reports, Spadafora had knowledge of Noriega's drug connections to the Medellin cartel and of the drug trade, in which U.S. citizens allegedly were involved, that helped finance the contra war efforts.
While Noriega is reported to have approved of, and perhaps ordered, the killing of Spadafora, Blandon told the Senate subcommittee that the CIA station chief in Costa Rica, Joe Fernandez, also known as Tomas Castillo, helped to cover up the murder. Blandon said that Fernandez sent a man sometimes employed by the CIA to appear on Panamanian television claiming that Spadafora was killed by Salvadoran rebels.
In return for Noriega's assistance, U.S. officials appear to have closed their eyes to his regional drug dealings. The general's drug connections were known to U.S. agencies as early as 1972, according to a 1978 Senate Intelligence Committee report.
Gen. Noriega is also reported to have received a phone call from Vice President George Bush just hours before the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983. According to The New York Times, Noriega, known to have had contacts with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was asked by Bush to communicate to Castro the United States' desire to avoid conflict with Cuban soldiers who were based on the island. The vice president has denied making the call.
For years U.S. officials have found working with Manuel Noriega quite useful -- useful to the CIA and useful to carrying out a war against Nicaragua. But now things have changed. As Secretary of State George Shultz put it, "Noriega is a drug runner, and he has to go."
IN RECENT WEEKS the Reagan administration has gradually increased its pressure on Noriega to resign. Panama has lost its certification as a nation that has helped stem the international drug flow; the Reagan administration has endorsed Eric Arturo Delvalle's claim to power and has directed U.S. banks not to honor claims made by Noriega or his government on Panamanian funds held in the United States. And the U.S. government is considering placing in an escrow account payments it is required to make to Panama under the 1977 canal treaties.
What is at stake in Panama, according to President Reagan's spokesperson, Marlin Fitzwater, is "civilian constitutional rule in Panama." But, to be truthful, the stakes are considerably higher. Political unrest and instability in Panama puts at great risk important political, military, and economic interests of the United States.
U.S. political and military interests in Panama are centered on the canal. As the seaway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Panama Canal is essential to the U.S. hemispheric defense. Panama also is home to the U.S. Southern Command, which employs almost 20,000 military and civilian personnel on 14 bases. And until recently, Panama was the site of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Tens of thousands of Latin American military officers and soldiers have attended this U.S. military training school, receiving training in military tactics and strategy that included counterrevolutionary warfare doctrines and, according to many reports, interrogation and torture techniques.
Panama's economic importance to the United States has steadily increased in recent years. Under Gen. Torrijos, Panama became an international banking center in the Western Hemisphere because of its liberal banking laws and regulations and because its national currency is the U.S. dollar. Today, approximately 130 domestic, foreign, and offshore banks conduct operations in Panama, and a climate of political stability is essential to the international banking community, in which the U.S. banking sector is a major actor.
What is at stake in Panama, therefore, are critical U.S. interests, and maintaining those interests requires political stability. Gen. Noriega -- though he has provided stability until recently, though he has been a useful ally in the U.S. war against Nicaragua, though he has been involved with the CIA for more than 20 years -- is now a source of instability in Panamanian politics.
In a thinly disguised orchestration of political events, the Reagan administration has switched its support to Eric Arturo Delvalle, who was himself installed in the president's office in 1985 by Noriega because the previous president was no longer acceptable to the general. Delvalle is part of Panama's economic elite, and the bulk of support that has rallied around him comes from the country's middle and upper classes. In the eyes of the U.S. government, Delvalle, who holds forth the promise of re-establishing a stable political and business climate in Panama, may be a president it can work with.
ALTHOUGH THE REAGAN administration has used the language of "civilian constitutional rule" to justify its campaign against Noriega, we are witnessing something else altogether. The Reagan administration is exercising the prerogatives of empire according to the priorities of empire: Noriega is no longer useful; he must go.
But considering Noriega's CIA past, his assistance to the contra war, and his drug connections, one has to wonder if the general came to be a threat to the Reagan administration at another level. Given that Noriega was so involved in the Medellin cartel's drug trade, the flow of drug money through his country, and the U.S. contra war, does he know more about the involvement of U.S. officials in the war in Nicaragua?
Did CIA officials participate in a cover-up of Spadafora's murder, and if so, why? Did Spadafora know about Noriega, the CIA's Central America operations, or U.S. civilians trading in drugs? Does Noriega have information on the drug trade and the financing of the contra war? Exactly what is the nature of the contacts between Vice President George Bush, who headed the CIA in the mid-'70s, and Noriega, who was paid by the CIA during Bush's directorship?
These are the questions that lie between the lines of the testimony of Blandon and others. They are also the questions that seem to have been ignored as the erupting governmental crisis in Panama has become front-page news. One has to wonder if the Reagan administration, and particularly George Bush, are hoping these questions remain ignored until November.
Joe Lynch was assistant editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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