Manuel Noriega Returns to Panama
In his glory
December 11
After spending more than two decades imprisoned in the United States and then France, former Panamanian dictator Manuel (Pineapple Face) Noriega was flown back to the Republic of Panamá on the evening of Sunday, December 11. More than one hundred journalists, as well as many others, awaited his arrival. A decoy was used for security purposes. He arrived at the jail where he is now being held shortly after the decoy arrived.
Seventy-seven and in poor health, he is now imprisoned at the El Renacer facility in Gamboa, a maximum-security prison located in a jungle area on the shores of the Panama Canal. Upon Noriega’s arrival President Ricardo Martinelli said that “he will go to jail as any convicted person” and that he will have no special privileges. That seems a bit obfuscatory, and it is expected that defense counsel will ask the court(s) where he had previously been convicted in absentia to grant home detention, as provided in Article 107 of the Panamanian penal code. Such requests may or may not be granted. According to the Panamanian foreign minister, Noriega will at least for the immediate future have a small and simple cell, where he will be isolated from other prisoners.
Sooner or later, he will be tried for various murders and other crimes against humanity in cases dating back to when he was head of the military area of Chiriquí province. That was during his reign in the Time of the Tyrants — an excellent but appropriately gruesome account of the period. According to two Panamanian friends, both then in positions to know and whom I questioned closely several years ago, the account of the Noriega years provided there is generally accurate. Noriega’s future trials can result in six judgments totaling more than sixty-seven years in prison or, under Article 107 of the penal code, house arrest.
Here is a twisted, as one might expect, 2010 Al Jazeera English language interpretation of Noriega’s activities in Panamá on his apprehension by the United States in 1990:
As bad as Noriega was, how much worse is it that he was assisting US govt agencies with Laundering money, smuggling on their behalf, and other activities…he was even praised by the Reagan administration.
It seems as long as criminals work for the US govt, and insure money is sent to US agencies, all is forgiven. As soon as they become independent, all bets are off
Noriega did bad things and the United States, in supporting him, did as well. However, Noriega was killing and torturing Panamanians well before the United States began supporting him. The United States, having eventually removed him from Panama during Operation Just Cause, did much good for Panama; few seem to remember what the United States had done for Noriega.
As noted in the article, Noriega’s mentor, Omar Torrijos, is still remembered fondly here; so is the United States’ Just Cause operation that removed Noriega.
As bad as he was? And how bad was that, alex? Bad enough that it had to have been America’s, or Reagan’s, fault? Yeah, we’ve got your Code Pink number, pal.
Noriega had worked for/with the CIA off and on starting in Lyndon Johnson’s administration, in other words, looooong before Reagan.
Whatever hopes the Reagan administration initially had for cooperation with Noriega dissolved pretty quickly as he accelerated his violence and consolidated his dictatorship. It was under Reagan that the US recognized (and publicly stated) that Noriega had become nothing but a criminal and a brazen tyrant. It was under Reagan that Operation Just Cause was planned, although it was left to GHW Bush to execute.
Blaming Reagan for Noriega’s crimes is absurd.