Panama City - Former Panamanian dictator
Manuel Noriega, who spied for the United States before his drug
trafficking and brutality triggered a US invasion to oust him
in 1989, has died aged 83.
President Juan Carlos Varela announced Noriega's death late
on Monday, saying it marked the closing of a chapter in the
Central American country's history.
Noriega, who ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, was a longtime
collaborator of the Central Intelligence Agency and a useful
U.S. ally in a region that was prone to leftist insurgencies.
The invasion ordered by President George H.W. Bush brought
an end to his career of money-laundering and cocaine smuggling,
in which he worked with traffickers like Colombian Pablo
Escobar. He was initially sentenced in the United States in
1992, but was serving a sentence for murder in Panama when he
died.
Noriega was let out of prison under house arrest in January
to have an operation to remove a brain tumor. The surgery went
ahead in early March, but he suffered a hemorrhage, underwent a
second operation, and had been in a coma ever since.
A Panamanian government official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said Noriega died at around 11 p.m. local time in a
Panama City hospital after his condition suddenly worsened.
Miss USA, Christy Fichtner, left, and Miss Panama, Gilda Garcia Lopez, salute while flanking General Manuel Antonio Noriega in Panama City on July 5, 1986. Pictured right is Miss Colombia, Maria Monica Urbina. File picture: Jim Ellis/AP
President Varela said Noriega's family should have the right
to bury the former leader in peace. Ezra Angel, Noriega's
lawyer, said the former strongman's three daughters would not
issue any public statements.
Most Panamanians had gone to bed by the time the
announcement was made close to midnight in the isthmus nation,
so local reaction was initially muted.
"We Panamanians must remember the (Noriega) era as something
that cannot be repeated in Panama, it was a really painful time
for the country because it ended with an invasion," said Aurelio
Barria, a former leader of the Cruzada Civilista, a civil
society campaign against the dictatorship.
Born less than a mile from the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal
Zone in a tough Panama City neighborhood, Noriega was raised by
a family friend. A poor but intelligent youth, his options were
limited until a half-brother helped him join the military.
Noriega became head of military intelligence under Omar
Torrijos - who had seized power in a 1968 coup - and oversaw the
army's corrupt off-book deals, and ran the secret police force.
Torrijos died in 1981, and as ruler in his own right Noriega
hit the headlines as his relations with Washington turned sour,
culminating in Washington sending nearly 28,000 troops to seize
Panama City and capture him in a house-to-house hunt.
Noriega spent the remainder of his life in custody between
the United States, France and Panama for a host of crimes
ranging from murder to racketeering and drug-running.
Panamanian military strongman General Manuel Noriega talks to reporters in Panama City on November 8, 1989. File picture: AP
With US officials in the know, Noriega had formed "the
hemisphere's first narcokleptocracy," a US Senate subcommittee
report said, calling him "the best example in recent US foreign policy of how a foreign leader is able to manipulate the
United States to the detriment of our own interests."
After his capture, Noriega tried to turn the tables on the
United States, saying it had worked hand in glove with him.
Writing on Twitter, journalist Jon Lee Anderson said Noriega
told him in an interview last year that he had made a mistake in
challenging the United States.
According to Anderson, Noriega said: "I wouldn't do that
again."