Noriega's supporters
rallied by his possible
return to Panama
By PABLO BACHELET,
MiamiHerald.com
One paragraph hints of a
once passionate
friendship torn apart by
prison. It is too
intimate, she says, to
be reproduced in a
newspaper. The letter
ends with the words
''subliminal kisses.''
It is signed ``Mantonor.''
That would be Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega,
the former Panamanian
dictator captured in a
1989 invasion by U.S.
troops and now serving a
30-year sentence in
Miami-Dade County on
drug charges.
Noriega, 70, is set to
be paroled Sept. 9 after
serving nearly 18 years
of his sentence. He
qualified for early
release because he was
automatically eligible
for parole and he earned
time for good behavior.
What happens afterward
is unclear. The
Panamanian and French
governments each want
him to serve prison
sentences for other
crimes.
But Gayle de Best, 55,
who kept her friendship
with Noriega a secret
for almost two decades,
and a small group of
other Noriega supporters
are now speaking out on
his behalf and saying
they hope to greet
Noriega with flowers,
not handcuffs.
She says Noriega looked
out for poor people like
her in a way that
Panama's later leaders
have failed to do.
''A rich person,'' she
says, ``can never
perceive Noriega like us
poor folks saw him.''
Noriega has quietly
served his sentence in
an apartment like cell
at the low-security
Federal Correctional
Institution in southwest
Miami-Dade, equipped
with exercise machines,
a telephone and a color
TV set. His lawyer,
Frank Rubino, says
Noriega wants to return
to a life of quiet
retirement in Panama.
That may not happen.
U.S. officials say the
French government plans
to file an extradition
request so he can serve
a sentence there for
allegedly moving
Colombian drug money
through Panama to banks
in France.
Panama wants Noriega to
serve multiple prison
terms for, among other
things, the murders of
critic Hugo Spadafora
and 10 leaders of a
failed 1989 coup against
Noriega. Opinion polls
here suggest that more
than 60 percent of
Panamanians want Noriega
to do jail time in
Panama.
''These are firm
sentences that [Noriega]
needs to come serve,''
said Panamanian First
Vice President Samuel
Lewis Navarro.
The Panama City that
Noriega would find if he
returns has a neo-Miami
air, with gleaming SUVs,
jammed restaurants and
soaring high-rises. The
economy is booming, the
country just signed a
free-trade agreement
with the United States,
and the Panama Canal is
getting a big expansion.
President Martín
Torrijos, son of Gen.
Omar Torrijos, the
country's ruler from
1968 to 1981, is
popular. Noriega, the
National Guard's
intelligence chief under
Omar Torrijos, took
power after Torrijos
died in a 1981 plane
crash.
But 37 percent of
Panama's 3.2 million
citizens live below the
poverty line, according
to government
statistics.
In Gayle de Best's
hometown of Colón, at
the Caribbean end of the
canal, tourists are
bused directly to the
duty-free shopping
enclave. The official
poverty rate for the
predominantly
Afro-Panamanian city is
43 percent.
''We have problems that
are worse than a
dictatorship,'' says de
Best, who twice ran for
mayor of Colón and now
does community work for
children of
drug-addicted parents.
The elected governments
that succeeded Noriega
have ``made us yearn for
the days of military
rule. It should not be
this way.''
De Best recognizes that
there were human-rights
abuses under Noriega.
But she says the
military was more caring
for the poor and the
streets were safer.
She says Noriega, now a
born-again Christian, is
probably more interested
in going door-to-door to
spread the Gospel than
in furthering any
personal ambitions.
She believes that he
deserves a warm return
home, so she is
organizing the Colón
chapter of a ''National
Welcome Home Committee''
known as ''an embrace in
freedom.'' So far, two
such committees have
been formed.
''Noriega,'' de Best
says, ``is coming to
receive his embrace.''
De Best met Noriega in
July 1988, when she was
a tough Panama Canal
security officer and a
member of Noriega's
infamous ''dignity
battalions'' -- bands of
street thugs that beat
up members of the
opposition.
''We looked into each
other's eyes and
connected,'' she says of
her first encounter with
Noriega, who considered
himself an
Afro-descendant like de
Best. He visited her,
she says, and she cooked
meals for him.
After Noriega's ouster,
the dignity battalions
faded away and de Best
lost her job. She sold
Caribbean-style pickled
pigs' feet on the street
to support her three
children.
One person who attended
a session to organize
celebrations for
Noriega's return is José
Squires, a municipal
employee. He says
''without doubt'' that
President Torrijos will
pardon Noriega. And he
complains bitterly of
the rising crime in
Colón.
''If this is democracy,
I prefer the way things
were before,'' he says.
``Here, you get shot for
nothing.''
De Best claims several
thousand adherents
throughout Panama in the
free-Noriega movement.
But she acknowledges
that only 60 residents
of Colón have signed
petitions for his
return, and that a June
5 organizing meeting
drew only five
activists. She says she
is just getting started
and there will be a
snowball effect once his
release date nears.
''Folks have mixed
feelings about this,''
de Best says. ``I have
been attacked, I have
been criticized. But
whatever happens, he is
going to be released.'' |
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