Noriega's Possible
Return to Panama
Stirring Emotions
By MARC LACEY, New York
Times
If Manuel Noriega, the
deposed dictator, ever
returns to Panama,
Supreme Court Justice
Winston Spadafora has a
question for him.
"I'd like to ask him,"
Spadafora said in an
interview, "what he did
with my brother's head."
Panama has unfinished
business with Noriega,
who was taken from the
country in January 1990
after the U.S. military
invaded. There are
criminal convictions
against him, including
one for the beheading of
Spadafora's brother,
Hugo, a leading
opposition figure, in
1985.
And there is a sense
among the population
that despite his years
in prison in the United
States, he has not fully
paid for all the rough
years he put everyone in
Panama through.
Still, as his long
prison sentence in Miami
nears an end — with his
release scheduled for
Sept. 9 — there are
mixed feelings in Panama
about his possible
return and some relief
that the United States
is trying to send him to
France, where he has
been convicted of crimes
related to using illegal
drug profits to buy
property worth more than
$3 million.
Portrait of a dictator
The diminutive Noriega
appeared in federal
court in Miami on July
26, his hair dyed black,
his military uniform
neatly pressed under a
bulky black coat and his
bearing still ramrod
straight.
"Manuel Antonio
Noriega," he said in a
deep voice when the
magistrate handling the
U.S. government's
extradition request,
William C. Turnoff,
asked his name.
Noriega's lawyers are
fighting for him to go
to Panama, not France,
insisting that the
Geneva Convention
mandates that as a
prisoner of war he must
be sent back to his
country.
Many say that Noriega,
despite 17 years away
and his country's best
efforts to forget him,
continues to cast a
shadow over Panama.
Some of his former
cronies hold positions
in the government, which
is controlled by the
same Democratic
Revolutionary Party that
Noriega used to run.
Unlike Chileans — who
fought hard to have
their former dictator,
Augusto Pinochet, return
from overseas to face
justice — Panamanians
appear more ambivalent
about whether Noriega
ought to spend time in
local detention.
"If he comes back,
plenty of people are
going to use his return
for their own interest,"
said Miguel Antonio
Bernal, a law professor
and opposition leader
who clashed with
Noriega's government.
"Those who believe in
him will go to the
airport to meet him.
Those who hate him will
protest," he said. "And
some people will fear
that he will open his
mouth and tell all that
he knows." |
