In February 1988, grand juries in Miami and Florida filed drug smuggling, money laundering, and racketeering lawsuits against General Noriega. Panamanian assets in the United States were frozen, which severely affected Panama that already was reeling as a result of the United States suspension of military aid a year earlier. In March 1988, a coup by security officers failed to overthrow General Noriega. President Reagan also began to explore more forceful ways to depose the Panamanian leader, but preferably to be carried out by Panamanians, and supported or led by the Panamanian military.
(Taken from United States Invasion of Panama – Wars of the 20th Century – 26 Wars in the Americas and Caribbean: Vol. 7)
Background During the Cold War, the United States viewed Panama as a vital and necessary ally in the Western Hemisphere, took great efforts to maintain friendly relations with Panama, and provided substantial economic and military assistance to that Central American country. American interests in Panama centered on the Panama Canal, a shipping waterway that linked the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through the Caribbean Sea. The U.S. government operated and de facto owned the Canal after completing its construction in 1914. For the United States, the Canal was not only an enormous economic asset, generating large profits from international shipping operations, but more important, it served as a strategic and political statement of American power in the region.
Panama had gained its independence on November 3, 1903 after seceding from Colombia. The new country then signed a treaty with the United States that allowed the U.S. government, in exchange for monetary payments to Panama, to finish the construction of the Panama Canal, which had been abandoned by a French firm. The treaty also allowed the United States to operate and protect the facility “in perpetuity”.
From the outset, most Panamanians were opposed to the treaty, perceiving it as a violation of their country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Opposition, particularly with regards to the perpetuity clause, grew over time, peaking in January 1964 when riots broke out in Panama City, Colon, and other areas when Panamanian students tried to raise the Panama flag in the Canal Zone. Some 28 people were killed in the violence, including 4 U.S. soldiers.
International condemnation of the United States followed, prompting the U.S. government to open negotiations with Panama on the future of the Panama Canal. These talks subsequently led to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, signed in September 1977 (by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian de facto ruler, General Omar Torrijos), which stipulated the turn over of full control of the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999. Despite the treaties, U.S. forces continued to control the Panama Canal’s 14 military bases, which were located at the Pacific and Caribbean ends of the waterway.
Since its independence, Panama had been ruled by a succession of civilian governments. In 1968, military officers overthrew the government. General Torrijos, the coup’s leader, established a de facto military regime that ruled behind a façade of a civilian government that was subservient to the military. Then in December 1983, the Panamanian armed forces came under the control of General Manuel Noriega who increased the military’s stranglehold over the country. In general elections held in May 1984, General Noriega manipulated the results of the presidential race to allow his chosen candidate to win.
In the early 1980s, Central America became a major battleground of the Cold War. In search of support, the United States was willing to ignore General Noriega’s abuses of power and have the Panamanian strongman, a staunch anti-communist, as an ally. General Noriega already had a long-standing relationship with the United States, having been an asset and informant of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since the early 1960s, and had even mediated for the U.S. government with Cuban leader Fidel Castro for the release of American prisoners in Cuba.
General Noriega transformed Panama into a center for smuggling cocaine and other narcotics from Colombia to the United States and other countries. He masterminded and led these operations and later asserted that the CIA and other U.S. government agencies knew and even supported these activities. Meanwhile in the United States, President Ronald Reagan was himself under pressure from an investigation by the U.S. Congress for possible involvement in the “Iran-Contra Affair”, a covert operation where the U.S. government sold weapons to Iran (for the release of American hostages), and the proceeds were then used to fund pro-U.S. “contra” rebels in Nicaragua.
Soon, relations between General Noriega and the U.S. government deteriorated. Then as more reports from Panama indicated General Noriega’s involvement in the drug trade, President Regan put pressure on the Panamanian leader, even urging him to step down from office. President Reagan also was alarmed at the increasing military repression and political instability in Panama, generated by growing opposition to General Noriega’s rule and government corruption. General Noriega particularly was condemned by the local opposition following the murder of Hugo Spadafora, a government critic who had returned to Panama to present evidence of the military leader’s involvement in the drug trade and other crimes. In response to public opposition to his rule, the Panamanian strongman released his forces, resulting in violent confrontations where many civilians were beaten up in street protests.
In February 1988, grand juries in Miami and Florida filed drug smuggling, money laundering, and racketeering lawsuits against General Noriega. Panamanian assets in the United States were frozen, which severely affected Panama that already was reeling as a result of the United States suspension of military aid a year earlier. In March 1988, a coup by security officers failed to overthrow General Noriega. President Reagan also began to explore more forceful ways to depose the Panamanian leader, but preferably to be carried out by Panamanians, and supported or led by the Panamanian military.
In January 1989, George H.W. Bush succeeded as the new U.S. President. By then, the Cold War was drawing to a close – at the end of 1989, Eastern Bloc countries had shed off communism for democracy, while the Soviet Union itself was on the verge of collapse. In Central America, the ongoing Cold War conflicts also were winding down in response to the improving global security and political climates, and the United States felt less the need to continue funding its allies in the region. For the United States, General Noriega’s many faults, which long had been set aside because of his strong anti-communist position, now became too glaring to ignore.
Shortly after taking office, President Bush announced that one of his government’s domestic priorities was to tackle the growing drug problem with a so-called “war on drugs’, aimed at expanding a similar anti-drug campaign that had been in force since the previous administration. A decade earlier, Bush had served as CIA Director (in 1976) and had dealings with Noriega, who was then Panama’s intelligence chief and whose services would become vital for the United States in the heightened Cold War situation in Central America from the late 1970s through most of the 1980s.
Now as U.S. head of state, President Bush sought to distance himself from General Noriega, and made a determined effort to remove the Panamanian leader from power. In May 1989, Panama held general elections. The U.S. government openly supported the main opposition party, hoping that a new government would remove General Noriega as head of the newly created Panama Defense Forces (the Panamanian military and police forces). As election results showed a clear defeat for the government’s hand-picked presidential candidate, General Noriega stopped the tabulations and voided the elections, declaring that meddling by the United States (by supporting the opposition) had undermined the election’s legitimacy. Panama’s electoral tribunal concurred, declaring that widespread fraud had taken place, tarnishing the results. However, international poll observers, which included former U.S. President Carter, concluded that the elections generally were free and fair, and that the opposition’s wide lead in the results genuinely reflected the electorate’s choice. Mass rallies and demonstrations broke out in Panama City; General Noriega responded by sending his paramilitary, called the Dignity Battalion, that attacked and broke up the crowds. In the melee, leading opposition candidates were beaten up, scenes of which were caught by the television news media and aired in the United States. Thereafter, the Organization of American States (OAS) condemned the violence and joined the United States in calling for General Noriega to resign which, however, was rejected by the Panamanian leader.