Panama’s
Twisted Links With The Past
By Richard
Koster
Panama Star - In September 1977, after
signing the Panama Canal Treaties with Jimmy
Carter, Omar Torrijos went traveling. In
Israel, besides attending a dinner in his
honor given by Prime Minister Menachem
Begin, he negotiated an agreement with the
foreign minister, General Moshe Dayan,
whereby members of the Panama Guardia
Nacional would receive specialized military
training in Israel.
The first group learned underwater
demolition and were deployed near Gatun Dam
on the night of March 15 1978. Their
operation, called Huele a Quemado
(Something's Burning) was to blow the dam
and empty Gatun Lake if the US Senate failed
to ratify the treaties in the next day's
scheduled vote.
That same year Mike Harari appeared in
Panama. A Zionist secret agent since before
the founding of Israel, Harari had been
picked by Golda Meir to direct the death
squads set up to avenge the murder of
Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games
by the Palestinian organization Black
September.
The first missions went well, but in July
1973 in Lillehammer, Norway, Harari
blundered. He murdered a Moroccan waiter
instead of the Palestinian secret operative
Ali Hassan Salameh and had members of his
team arrested by the Norwegian police. The
matter became a huge scandal.
Harari left Israel in apparent disgrace,
first to Mexico then to Panama. He presented
himself as a man in private business but
remained a secret agent with access to the
highest circles of the Israeli government.
By vocation a spy and assassin, he found a
kindred spirit in the chief of Panama's G-2,
Liutenant Colonel Manuel Noriega.
Noriega and Harari were partners in the arms
smuggling business and collaborated in many
intrigues including Iran-Contra. Harari was
behind changing the name of the Guardia to
Panama Defense Forces (PDF) when Noriega
became commandant in August 1983. At the
ceremony Noriega publicly acknowledged
Harari as his mentor. Between them they
hatched the idea of forming an elite force
loyal to Noriega, the Special Anti-Terror
Unit or UESAT for its initials in Spanish.
UESAT numbered 70 men picked for their
devotion to Noriega. Its members were armed
with the Uzi sub-machinegun and Galil
assault rifle, both of Israeli manufacture,
the RPG-7 grenade launcher, and sniper
rifles. They wore camouflage and black
berets and body armor, and were based on
Flamingo Island at the end of the Amador
Causeway.
UESAT was trained by Israeli instructors in
the use of extreme violence, supposedly to
combat terrorists, though it was never
employed for this purpose. Its most
illustrious action was fought in Altos del
Golf at dawn on July 26, 1987, when it
assaulted the home of Colonel Roberto Diaz
Herrera. Diaz Herrera had an agreement with
Noriega to succeed him as commandant. When
Noriega double-crossed him, Diaz let loose a
flood of inconvenient truths about PDF
criminal enterprises--drug trafficking, etc.
Noriega used UESAT to make him shut up. Its
troopers blew the doors off the house with
high explosives and captured Diaz and 52
civilians, including several women and five
children.
On the morning of October 3, 1989, Major
Moises Giroldi, commander of the 4th
Company, Urraca, captured Noriega when he
arrived at PDF Headquarters and held him for
nearly five hours. Noriega, however, managed
to call his girlfriend Vicki Amado and told
her what had happened. She passed the
message to Major Gonzalo "Chalo" Gonzalez,
who commanded the 7th Company, Macho del
Monte, at Rio Hato.
Gonzalez readied his men to go to Panama by
air but first advised UESAT commander
Captain Ramon Diaz de Leon of the situation.
By training and location, UESAT was the
logical unit to recapture PDF Headquarters
and free Noriega, but it played no part in
the rescue. On crossing the causeway with
his men, Diaz encountered a Blackhawk
helicopter of US Southern Command hovering
in his path and made no attempt to pass.
Gonzalez's Unit ended up saving Noriega.
Giroldi was taken to the barracks at
Tinajitas and brutally tortured for several
hours. Later Noriega ordered Diaz to shoot
him. Diaz and and Major Heraclides Sucre
opened fire at the same time, Diaz with an
Uzi, Sucre with an AK-47. In 1995 a number
of people were tried for the murder,
including Noriega, Sucre, and Diaz. Of the
three only Diaz was present. Noriega was in
prison in Miami, Sucre a fugitive in Peru.
Diaz's lawyer argued that since the AK-47
bullet is larger than the Uzi's, Giroldi was
already dead when Diaz's first bullet struck
him. For this or some other reason the jury
acquitted him. Noriega and Sucre were
convicted.
According to an attorney who participated in
the trial, Noriega ordered Diaz to shoot as
a proof of loyalty. In punishment, Diaz was
separated from UESAT and transferred to the
interior of Panama. Captain Alexis Omar
Garrido replaced him as commander of UESAT
with Lieutenant Gustavo Perez de la Ossa as
second in Command.
Early on the morning on December 20, 1989,
with the US invasion of Panama in progress,
members of UESAT went to the Sonesta
Building in Punta Paitilla and kidnapped
Professor Raymond Dragseth of Panama Canal
College. His daughter told the New York
Times that they entered by force and said
they would kill Dragseth there and then if
he didn't accompany them. They also
kidnapped Fernando Braithwaite, an employee
of the US embassy.
Braithwaite and Dragseth were taken to the
police station at Rio Abajo and held bound
and gagged for almost 24 hours. They were
also tortured. It should not surprise anyone
if those who followed Noriega until the end
shared his sadistic perversions.
Early on the morning of December 21,
Sergeant Juan Barria Jimenez took
Braithwaite and Dragseth to Milla 8 in
Chilibre and murdered them with shots to the
back of the head.
In an interview on May 23 of this year,
Gustavo Perez de la Ossa denied that the
kidnapping and murder of Braithwaite and
Dragseth were done by UESAT. However, when
Sergeant Barria and others were tried for
the crimes in November 1995, UESAT's last
commander, Alexis Omar Garrido, testified
under oath that they acted in accord with a
so-called "Plan Barricada" that specified
the capture of US citizens in the event of
an invasion.
So went UESAT's last operation. It was
worthy in every way of the unit and of the
army to which it belonged--an army that
attacked Panama by surprise, that occupied
it by force for 21 years, that defended only
the criminal enterprises of its senior
officers, and whose most characteristic acts
were the torture or murder of unarmed
civilians.
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