Transcription
American intervention in the Caribbean and Central America is nothing new. The big stick has been the policy of choice in the region for at least a hundred years. The last example, Operation Just Cause, almost 5 years ago. George Bush's aim was to get rid of Panama's military dictator Manuel Noriega and restore democracy.
Last Thursday, President Clinton pointed to George Bush's intervention in Panama as justification for his intervention in Haiti. He said just cause showed how force can lead to stability, democracy, and prosperity. Did it? Not by a long shot. The poor have gotten poorer. The murder rate has soared nearly 300% since the invasion. Panameanians are armed to the teeth. Even the most routine transaction requires private protection. Just Cause was designed to stop drug trafficking, money laundering, and corruption. All are bigger today than ever.
From 1968 to 89, Panama was ruled by military dictators. First, Omar Torios. Tough but popular. He demanded and got sovereignty over the Panama Canal. There were rumors of involvement in drug trafficking. After Tori's death in 1981, Manuel Noriega took power and the drug trade flourished. President Reagan and Vice President Bush largely ignored it. After all, Noriega was a paid American agent. By 1988, presidential candidate Bush, who was touting his war on drugs, found Noriega an embarrassment. He withtood two years of American sanctions, but could not withstand Operation Just Cause. December 20th, 1989, history's biggest drug bust. 23 American soldiers killed, hundreds of Panameanians, mostly civilians. Norria snatched. They took out Alibaba and they left the foritives and this is the problem that we still have here in this country.
Miguel Bernal, a professor of constitutional law, fought long and hard against the military dictatorships of Panama. Almost beaten to death, sent into exile twice. As bad as Noriega was, he says he at least maintained stability.
"During the Noa years, he was the chief. He has the monopoly and the control of the money laundering and the drug traffickers. Now we have more money laundering and more drug traffickers than before."
"Are you saying that that corruption has increased is worse since?"
"Certainly it's worse because this is a civilian government. This is a government that was supposed to work with the rule of law. And what they did is that they established something like a cartoon of a democracy. Now we have people who were corrupt before, people who are corrupt now and people who wants to be corrupt. And this is a real problem."
The problem may be democracy itself, imposed democracy. The new president installed and paid for by the United States, GMO Andara, quickly became tainted by corruption. He was a member of the board and an attorney for Interbanko, which after pressure from the US was closed down for money laundering. And last year, President Andara's chief law officer, Attorney General Rohilio Cruz, was found guilty after he'd released $38 million in drug money back to the people it had been taken from. Cruz did not serve a day in jail.
"Obviously, we're very disillusioned with the results of the first democratic government after 21 years of dictatorship."
Roberto Eisenman, publisher of Panama's most popular newspaper, La Prrenzo. It was the main opposition voice to the Noriega dictatorship.
"Does it disturb you that there's a almost a nostalgia growing in the in the barrier? People wanting the missing the good old days of Noriega."
"Uh what disturbs me is that 50% of our population is poor. That we have a polarization that we never had before. And that we have what I would call a social time bomb. People are more armed than never before. People don't believe, don't have confidence in our judiciary system, in our laws. And people want to resolve each one their problem like if we were in the far west."
This tiny country, only 2 and a half million people, went on a post invasion crime spree. Guns which had been rare, are everywhere and legal. Panama became a mirror image of the United States. It now has an epidemicized drug using problem. Before the invasion, drugs mostly passed through the country. Now the dealers have found a market at home. Since the invasion, the price of cocaine dropped from 50 to $2 a gram. Crack is 50 cents a pop.
"Because you buy anywhere, kids sell it, old people, young people, everybody. Everybody else say no."
The government response, a campaign, just say no. Which might work in some places, but not in Panama. Ask Dr. Carlos Smith, who runs a government rehab center. He says for the poor, drugs are easier to find than food.
"You find drugs anywhere. I had a patient that he went in the Cologne city and he found a a kids, a group of kids playing in the other part of a church with something the kids thought was chalk and the patient say it was a kilo of cocaine and the street you see. So it's a kind of a overwhelming amount of of drug in the country."
Dr. Smith comes from Panama City's poorest bario, El Chillo. It was also the part of the city that was devastated during the American invasion. Dr. Smith, his two brothers, and his father Nathaniel had hoped democracy would bring a better life.
"You're suggesting that things are worse?"
"Since democracy."
"So, what are you saying? Democracy is not so good."
"Well, I'd like to hear from you."
"No good at all."
"No."
"If you could choose right now,"
"Bring Noriega back"
"And get rid of this democratically elected government, which would you choose?"
"I choose bring me bring back Nora."
"Bring back Nora."
"Yeah."
John McGre, a priest from Philadelphia, has been in Panama for 18 years. He lives among the poorest of the poor in Colon, and he has seen their lives only get worse. Whatever social services Noriega had in place have virtually disappeared.
"This sounds incredible that I think there's more democracy under the military regime. If you see democracy as more than just free elections, democracy in the sense of people having a chance to have their voices be heard. There was more of that under the dictatorship of of of Niega and the other generals. Obviously, that wasn't a dem democracy either, but maybe it was closer to to a democracy than we than we have now, even though we have free elections."
Noriega or no Noriega, Panama remains the perfect place to turn dirty business into clean money. Banking secrecy, shell corporations, and electronic transfers make Panama a multinational laundromat. The so-called free zone in the city of Colon only makes things easier. It's a massive distribution center for consumer goods bound for most of the hemisphere. A wholesale shopping mall for all the world's goodies. And most of the business is cash business. The sheer volume of the legitimate trade makes it an easy place to do less savory business. Whole container loads of blocks of cocaine pass through here. There are no hard numbers for the value of the drug trade, but there are hints. Panama is going through a building boom. One estimate is that almost half of the new construction is being paid for in cash. No loans, no mortgages. But if I were utterly cynical, I would say the Panameanians have a choice between a dictator, a military dictator, and democratically elected corruption.
"It's like if you told to me to make a choice between cancer and kolera, I can make a choice. But if you put me against the wall, I prefer democracy corruption than a dictatorship because democracy is not corrupt. Democracy becomes corrupted. Dictatorship is a corruption since the beginning." [applause]
A few weeks ago, a new democratically elected president was inaugurated. Ernesto Perez Bayader. He's an interesting embodiment of panameanian politics and its lively history of brute force and big bucks. Paris Bayeris, former minister of finance under dictator torios, associate of dictator Noriega and former manager of the local Chase Manhattan bank.
"You yourself were very closely allied with General Torios and General Norie."
"Stop there."
"And their party."
"Stop there. General Torios. Yes. Nora never"
"But with his party."
"Not his party. He was never a member of my party. Never. And I feel the way to describe it is our party was um uh put to the service of Noriega uh almost kidnapped."
"Was to involved in the drug trade?"
"Not that I know of. No. And I was very close to him and I can assure you no."
In fact, US authorities suspected Torios was dealing in drugs as early as 1971.
"What were you doing between 1981 and '89?"
"I was a private businessman. No public office whatsoever."
No public office, but Perez Baderas ran the political arm of Noriega's regime, and he ran the campaign for Noriega's presidential candidate in 1989, an election that was a total fraud.
"We all hoped that that his habits are are not those of Migga. But there's a big difference. He's a legitimate president. He was voted into office in a very clean election and that's a heck of a difference."
"We cannot forget that these people were the political arm of the military dictatorship in this country. Now they present theirel as people who are you know really nice very very smart but uh we are waiting to see how smart they are going to be with our freedoms with our economy with our social situation and if in reality they are going to attack corruption."
"Is he corrupt himself?"
"I think that he is the result of the corruption that was established by the military."
"What about the people around him?"
"Well, people around him I am really worried. I found very difficult to believe that a tiger can become a as a vegetarian."
"There is a a real cancer of corruption that allows people to get away with everything short of murder and occasionally murder."
"I wouldn't say a cancer of corruption. I think that the amounts of money that are being handled by drug launderers and drug traffickers uh would corrupt almost everybody."
"To what extent is the the money laundering end of the economy vital to the economy?"
"It isn't it isn't vital."
"It's billions of dollars though."
"Doesn't permeate any system. It doesn't help anybody. We don't have money launderers that are panameanian, you know."
"None."
"Not that I know of. You know, the very few, probably a couple lawyers."
"Can you say with your hand on your heart, Yes."
"That you and every one of your appointments are absolutely clean of any shadow of doubt about activities in the drug trade, the moneyaundering trade?"
"Without doubt."
"Or corruption?"
"Without doubt."
"Everyone."
"Yes."
"Do you think there might have been a more positive effect if the Panameanians themselves had gotten rid of Noriega?"
"I think there's something we can safely say and that is an invasion was not necessary to get rid of Noriega. He could have been snatched if that's the um if that was the objective without subjecting our country to an invasion."
Invasion opposed or otherwise will happen in Haiti. Then what? President Clinton promises the restoration of democracy. If Panama is any example, the future for Haiti looks pretty bleak. Panama at the very least had certain institutions in place, a bureaucracy, a system, no matter how decrepit, to continue functioning as a country. Haiti has virtually none. Only a history of bitterness, bloodshed, and abuse. and of course invasion and occupation by the United States. Panama is one of the countries that's offered to take the Haitian dictators if they leave Haiti before an invasion.
Tonight, General Manuel Noriega, the strong man who has run Panama the past five years, the 49-year-old intelligence officer who was reportedly paid $200,000 a year by the CIA, talks for the first time about the drug charges leveled at him by the United States government last week in two federal courts in Florida. Those federal indictments are being seen as an effort to topple him. But, as you will see, the general has no intention of going gently. Instead, he has begun to level some stunning charges of his own.
"As you know, General, the American people are being told at this moment that Manuel Noriega is a criminal. He is a drug dealer. He is an arms dealer. He is a money launderer. Not just the indictment. US senators are charging you that way. The State Department wants you out of this job. Question. Why Noriega? And why now?"
"Precisely. Now we're at the critical stage. We're 9 years away from regaining our full sovereignty in the canal. The problem is the Panama Canal."
"You're saying then, General, that the reason behind all this is because the United States wants to reneg on the treaty, wants to keep the canal and not hand it over to Panama in 1999."
"They want the US military presence here after the year 2000. The presence of US troops here offends the nation of Panama. These troops will be used to attack other countries. They're not here to defend the canal nor to defend Panama. The US troops in Panama are for aggressive purposes and not for defensive purposes."
"And so you want all US troops out of Panama. Is that what you are saying?"
"On the 31st of December 1999, you have to go. We want them out."
The US Justice Department is charged that Nuriega runs a drug empire in Panama in cahoots with a Colombian drug cartel. Some of the most damaging allegations against him have been leveled by Floyd Carlton, a former Noriega pilot who is now in prison in the United States.
"You know Carlton?"
"I know who he is. He says that you told him what to charge the Colombians what price to land drug shipments from Colombia here in Panama. He says that you started at $100,000 per shipment. Then you raise the price to $150,000 per shipment, then $200,000. Carlton said that he would call you and you would send over a bag man to pick up the money for you."
"Ridiculo."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's stupid to think that a general would be doing any dealings with a drug trafficker."
"Well, then what about Steven Kish, the convicted drug dealer who told the Congress last week that he personally paid Noriega millions?"
"You know, Steven Michael Kishan."
"Here in Panama, many people come by. When you work in my profession and also as a politician, you see a lot of people."
"Not that you know them."
"I would know Kish if he gave me $300,000. And he said that the first time he met you, he left a bag behind with $300,000 inside. And he also said that you were a full-scale co-conspirator in his drug operation, that he paid you eventually millions."
"You're talking of two convicts that say they both gave money. Two convicts. If that doesn't invalidate them, what does?"
"Jose Blandon. Jose Blandon is not an ex-convict. He is not a convict. He was your political adviser. He was your council general in New York. Occasionally, he would show up in this room, I am told. He says he has personal knowledge that the Colombian drug lords paid you $5 million that they would be able to set up a drug processing laboratory here in Panama. Benedict Arnold."
"He is a Benedict Arnold. He's being used now for the political group in the US against Panama to give the seal of approval to the accusations against us."
Another Noriega accuser Norman Bailey, formerly chief economist at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan. Bailey had access to the NSC's secret files. He saw hundreds of classified documents and based on those documents, he told us this.
"I would characterize the Panama Defense Forces as a major element in the trans shshipment of narcotic drugs into the United States. That is you, General, because you run the Panama Defense Forces."
"In what year was Norman Bailey referring?"
"First term, Ronald Reagan. So, it would be between 1981 and 85."
"It's totally false. Bailey's remarks are political and false. Why didn't they do the indictment then if they had seen a 100 classified documents?"
"General Nora, have you yourself never profited from the trans shshipment of drugs from Colombia to Panama to the United States?"
"Na."
"Never."
"Na."
"Never."
"Question. How much do you make? What's your salary? Hard question. Simple question." [laughter]
"You want time break. Say break. Break."
"Look, you say break. It is my understanding that you make about $50,000 a year. in your job."
"But you have several homes here in Panama, home in Paris, fabulous art collection. You are said to be worth [laughter] said to be worth $400 million. I don't know. Your your your supporters laugh at that. You're a very wealthy man. Where does all the money come from, General Nora? Your money."
"It's all false."
And Noriega asks, "If he is making so much money smuggling drugs to the United States, how come he's received dozens of letters of commenation from the US Drug Enforcement Administration?"
"They know what we have done, and the best proof is in this set of letters that we have been receiving through the years."
Here's one of the DEA letters to Noriega from last February. "Your long-standing support of the Drug Enforcement Administration is greatly appreciated." Signed, John, Administrator, DEA. And this past May, "Your personal commitment to Operation Pisces and the competent, professional, and tireless efforts of other officials in the Republic of Panama were essential to the final positive outcome of this investigation. Drug traffickers around the world are now on notice that the proceeds and profits of their illegal ventures are not welcome in Panama."
Now that the US Justice Department has indicted General Noriega, does John Lawn of the DEA want to retract his praise for Noriega? Not at all. When we spoke with you on Friday, he said he stands by everything he wrote. So, here is something to contemplate. On the day the Justice Department brings General Noriega to trial, should that day ever come, one of Noriega's best defense witnesses could well be the DEA's own John Lawn.
In our interview last Thursday, Noriega told us his problems with the United States can be traced to a meeting he had in Panama in December of 1985 with President Reagan's national security adviser, Admiral John Po Dexter.
"You're saying that there was a meeting in December of 85 with Po Dexter and you 17th of December of 85."
"Admiral John Po Dexter, national security adviser to Ronald Reagan. He said he was coming on Reagan's behalf. He said Panama and Mexico were acting against US policy in Central America because we were speaking of peacefully solving the Nicaraguan crisis and that was not good for the Reagan administration's plans. The only thing that would save us from being hit both politically and economically by the US would be if we allowed the contras to be trained in Panama in their fight against Nicaragua. He point Dexter told you that that you would be hit economically if you fail to train the contras here in Panama."
"Panama would be affected economically. Their interest was for us to help the Contras and we told them no."
Then General Norie dropped a bombshell. He said that Admiral Po Dexter told him that the US was planning to invade Nicaragua.
"Nicaragua."
"Yes, they were going to hit Nicaragua. they were going to invade Nicaragua and the only reason they hadn't done it was because Panama was in the way and that all they wanted was Panama to get out of the way and allow them to continue with their plans."
"John Po Dexter told you this when he was national security adviser to Ronald Reagan that the United States was going to hit Nicaragua."
"I see you're looking over my shoulder at one of your adviserss."
"Come here, sir."
"I mean, look, we're talking history here. We might as well get it straight."
"Yes, sir. This man was present at that point dextter meeting. He is a Panameanian officer, Captain Moises Cortiso, a West Point graduate in 1980. And he says that Po Dexter told Niega that he wanted Panama to find a pretext for invading Nicaragua and that then Panama should ask the US for military assistance in the invasion."
"They wanted Panama forces to go in with American forces. But we'd go in first. Then we'd get the support from the American troops that would be taking part in the invasion."
"And why were we going to be invading Nicaragua at that time? Simply to overthrow that Sandinistas."
"I don't know. That wasn't our business. That was Mr. Po Dexter problem."
Nora says he turned down the Po Dexter proposal. The National Security Council told us Friday they would have no comment.
Finally, Noriega insists that the US indictment leveled against him last Friday is a political fraud engineered by the Justice Department.
"Look, Blandon says this, Carlton says this, Kish says this, uh Bailey says all of this. All of these people are in a conspiracy forced by the United States Justice Department to testify against you or to say nasty things about Manuel Noriega."
"See, see, see Norman Bailey."
"Yes. Yes. Yes. And Norman Bailey worked with Point Dexter. And Norman Bailey is the man who tried to recruit Panameanian officers. So this is all a big conspiracy by the United States, the Justice Department of the United States against Manuel Noriega. A political conspiracy against you."
"There is a political conspiracy of the United States against Panama. Not against Norie against Panama."
"Oh, but you are in the indictment. See Peru."
"Yes. But it is to lower the people's morale so that they will not fight anymore and that of the other Latin American leaders who will also not fight because he who fights gets indicted."
"Well, under those circumstances, General Noriega, then you will come you will go to the United States and stand trial for all of these charges, all of these charges, and and you'll have a a platform in which to uh indict the United States government back as as coming after you for purely political reasons."
"We will have a strategy and we will show that due process of law in the US has been violated in this case. We will show it in the US court and we will show it legally. We will show how politicians in the US have been covering up for lawyers, bankers and even panameanian politicians who are involved in drug trafficking."
"Are you telling me that you are going to show up in court in the United States?"
"We're going to show that this is a political scheme. Period."
"But you're not going to show up in the United States. Your attorneys will answer for now."
Tonight, General Manuel Noriega, the Panameanian strongman who the United States charged with being a drug dealer, talks for the first time about the abortive attempt this week to oust him from power. Just a few hours ago, Mike Wallace sat down with Noriega at his beach house in Panama and discussed with him the bitterness that now exists between him and the United States. Noriega remains firmly in control. President Delva, the man who tried to get rid of him, is on the run.
"Where is President Delv at this moment? Do you know?"
"He says that he's with the North Americans with the ambassador of the United States. So, he's in the embassy."
"At this time, we don't know."
"How did he manage to escape your officers who went there? I believe yesterday in the morning to see him and to tell him to leave the country."
"No, he didn't escape. He was not under arrest. So therefore, he didn't have to escape anything. He went out the back door and and nobody knows where he is. and he is afraid. He says that he could also leave through the front door and he would have saved himself to be uh afraid."
"Is he safe in Panama?"
"Eric Auro according to the Panamean laws. Everybody here is safe. Not only the Delva, but also the foreigners, also the North Americans and the population. This is a very uh calm and uh country where tranquility exist"
"Because we are not tribal system. We don't have tribal system."
"You in other words you are you are not brutal. You are not going to try to throw him in in jail or put him under house arrest."
"Absolutely. Absolutely not."
"Okay. What have you told the United States so far? General Noriega, any threat to US interests in Panama, to the canal, to the 10,000 US troops, to the 40,000 other Americans here?"
"No."
"No. No. We we are a civilized country. We have reiterated what the president of the republic has manifested that here the foreign communities including the North Americans uh civilian and military have uh don't have any problem. There is no military confrontation here. The problem here between Panama and the United States is a political problem."
"Prediction. How long will you remain in power in Panama? If I come down here a year from now, will you still be in power?"
"Only only a seer, a a witch doctor, a man with a crystal ball can know the destiny of man, the destiny of societies. Let Panama decide its own destiny. That is the message."
"If they drop the indictments, you're not going to go away."
"The the accusations are are a low political blow to to bend the dignity of of a man, a patriotic man who believes in his country in Panama, just like you believe in respect the United States. I believe in my flag. I believe in the dignity of my country."
"There are people, General Noriego, who would say that you you interfere with our affairs in the United States by putting drugs into the streets of America."
"For 18 years, I have been cooperating in the battle against drugs. The proof is there that the American people are being lied to. When nobody else was working to stop drugs, Panama was. And we have the documents from your own drug enforcement agencies. We have the documents to to prove it."
He calls his memoir America's Prisoner. Manuel Antonio Noriega, former dictator of Panama. After seven years of his 40-year sentence in a Miami prison, he gives his version of the events that led to his downfall, the invasion by the United States and his arrest for drug trafficking. Noriega was hardly a friendly ally, but neither was he a bitter enemy. And on the scale of Latin American dictators, he was relatively benign. Nevertheless, Noriega is today America's only prisoner of war and as such under the Geneva Convention is allowed to wear his generals insignia. The beginning of the end came for him in 1988 when George Bush portrayed him as the very embodiment of evil. The end came January 3rd, 1990. Noriega the general became Noriega, the indicted drug trafficker.
"Did you ever run drugs? Did you ever benefit from the running of drugs between Panama and the United States?"
"Hamas never."
"Hamas never."
"Hamas never."
Noriega says the US invasion, what George Bush called Operation Just Cause, came as a complete surprise.
"Let me give you an example of how surprised I was. I was as surprised as the Japanese when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bombing, which was the worst, bombing."
"Bombing."
"The ostensible reasons for the invasion were he was a brutal dictator, rigged elections, dealt in drugs. More than 25,000 US soldiers took part. 23 servicemen died. The number of Panameanian casualties is still in dispute. The estimate between 300 and perhaps thousands. In exchange, they have one man."
"One, one man. Just one man."
"The man. The man. Our man in Panama."
"That does not have any historical justification."
"The attorney general assures me that our case is strong, our resolve is firm, and our legal representations are sound."
"Did he want to kill you or capture you?"
"No."
"No. He wanted to kill me. To kill me. We already knew the key to the situation was not to capture General Noriega,"
"But rather to kill General Noriega."
He says he knows that because as the bombs were falling, he received a call from a mole inside the US embassy who told him the word was out. Kill the man. Kill Manuel Antonio Noriega. For 20 years, Noriega had been our man in Panama, supplying intelligence and acting as a back channel to Fidel Castro for CIA directors William Casey and George Bush. Why did that cozy relationship turn sour? Noriega says it began when he demanded that the school of the Americas, the Americanrun training base for Latin American armies be closed down.
"That was the first no. That was the first no from Noriega. When Noriega said no, the head of the southern command said,"
"But Noriega said no."
"That's impossible. Our friend, our friend whom we love so much has said no."
"Do you understand the magnitude that he has actually said no? And a few years later, Noriega says Oliver North working with Admiral John Po Dexter, President Reagan's national security adviser, tried to get Noriega to help in a secret war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the rebels in El Salvador. The second no was Po Dexter. When Po Dexter was saying, "We need Panama as a spearhead against Nicaragua so that the United States can go ahead and carry out an invasion."
"But Niega said no."
"Now I became unfriendly."
"Now I was considered ugly."
"And they wanted your help. Correct?"
"Your territory,"
"Your weapons,"
"Correct?"
"Your training facilities."
"Correct. Correct."
"And Manuel Noa said,"
"No."
"And this was the turn in the relationship."
"A second."
"And as ever in Panama, there was the canal. There was a US pledge to hand over control at the end of 1999. Noriega says Reagan and Bush had no intention of allowing anyone but a puppet to run it."
Peter Eisner is Noriega's co-author. He says he has little doubt that the campaign against Noriega had little basis in solid fact. Washington leaked stories about his drug deals. Stories with very little foundation. I think it has to do with a a propaganda campaign that made it much easier to invade the country because if you invade an amorphous country for an amorphous cause, it's one thing, but if you have a target, if the target is evil, the embodiment of evil, it seems easier to do.
The campaign of vilification says Noriega was bought, hook, line, and sinker by the opposition press in Panama and by American reporters. The conspiracy, he said, became the obsession of one man.
"You're Herbert Walker B."
"You write in the book that when you try to ponder why George Bush would do this, you say because of an inferiority complex and because he wanted to prove that he wasn't a wimp."
"He wanted to show that he was strong. and the police always want to show that they're strong"
"Either with their hands"
"Or with their clubs."
As for George Herbert Walker Bush, he declined to respond to General Noriega, but did send us a letter saying in part, "I would not want to dignify, much less lend credibility to anything Manuel Noriega might have to say. He is an incarcerated, convicted drug trafficker who has poisoned the lives of millions of American kids."
"You really hate George Bush, don't you?"
"No, no, no."
"So, Cristiano,"
"I'm a Christian."
"No,"
"I don't hate now."
Perhaps not. But a few years ago, the man with the machete loved to show he was not going to be pushed around by the North Americans. Washington wasn't impressed. In early 88, a 30-page drug indictment was drawn up. It took 25,000 troops and stealth bombers to bring Noriega to trial.
"My sense of it was that um there was a lot of equivocation on the part of the witnesses. Uh later it's become quite clear, more clear than it was even at the time, and it was somewhat clear that some of these witnesses were were not credible. For example, Carlos later, the drug kingpin who'd never met Noriega, testified against him and his sentence was reduced. More than half the witnesses were convicted felons. The government's so-called dynamite witness was a trafficker named Ricardo Bologonic, who simply gave himself up and offered to testify."
"He testified that the cocaine was loaded onto the planes with the consent and permission of General Noriega."
Frank Rabbino, Noriega's lead attorney, says Bologanic was so important to the case that the government made a real sweetheart deal with him. Instead of facing 20 years, he did 24 months.
"Was that the whole deal the government made with him?"
"That was the whole deal the government told us they made with him."
But there was more. If Balonic testified against Noriega, the US government would reduce the sentence of one Luis Santa Cruz Ete, a convicted trafficker and halfb brotherther of a member of the Cali cartel.
"But what was in it for Bolognic to give up his freedom in Panama? Ricardo Bologanic was paid by the Cali cartel $1,250,000 to testify against General Noriega and was also told that he basically had one of two choices. He could collect the million and a quarter, he could come and testify or he could be buried there."
"So in effect, a cynic would say that the US Justice Department and the Kali cartel were in cahoots to nail Noriega."
"Not only a cynic but the lawyer for the Ki cartel said wrote in a letter that we must keep this quiet"
"Because the letter to the US justice department went on to say the appearance will be that you have made a deal with the Cali cartel."
The US Attorney's Office in Miami refused our request for an interview but in court papers said that prosecutors knew nothing about the 1.25 25 million until after the trial. What the government knew and when it knew it is central to Noriega's request for a new trial.
"What you're saying is the whole drug accusation was pure fiction."
"Conspira-"
"Conspiracy."
"Conspiracy."
"Conspiracy. Among whom?"
"President Bush."
"President Bush."
"George Herbert Walker Bush. Why? Just imagine the United States spent $500 million with so much hunger, with so much poverty, with so much AIDS, with so many needs and the United States threw it away in order to bring this man here."
Noriega's assets, $20 million in various accounts, have been frozen. Noriega says that money had nothing to do with drugs.
"But you were saying that the source of the money was the United States"
"From the US government"
"For being a up to a point a loyal ally. First of all, without any doubt, it was not money that came from crime and much less drug trafficking."
"It had nothing to do with drug trafficking."
"Was there corruption going on in Panama? Of course. Was Noriega um receiving money for things that were going on in Panama? I can only say probably. Does that have anything to do with US law? I don't think so."
"You don't think that Manuel Norie is an angel?"
"Not at all. Uh, I I I think that um he's a self-admitted dictator of of his own country."
Before the invasion, the screws were tightened in Noriega. There was an attempted coup. It failed. The US made several offers of safe haven if Noriega would simply leave Panama. He writes, "The offers were tempting. You could be living in freedom now somewhere. Instead, you chose to stay. The Americans invaded and now you are, as you say, a prisoner of war."
"And if you haded to do over again, would you do it any differently?"
"There are times when dignity is more important than anything else. As time goes by, when history is recorded truthfully with honesty, people will ask about the coercion by presidents Reagan and Busher against the leader of a third world nation in order for them to uphold their ideas of being policemen of the world."
He really believes that he will be vindicated, that he will go home and walk out the front door of that prison. You think he's being naive? Well, I think that um optimism is a good way to serve your time. He probably knows that the odds of an appeal being successful are heavily stacked against him because of the system, but he does feel that the victim can eventually triumph. And he does take this as very much the case of a soldier having to put up with his ordeal to see a brighter day. So, yeah, he's an amazing optimist in that sense.
"I shall return."