[NYTr] No return [to Panam] for Noriega

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The Guardian lays it on with a trowel, the evil of bad Gen. Noriega
and the progress and democracy of "gleaming" Panama. Rory Carroll does
admit that Noriega was once a favored CIA asset, but soft-pedals the
nefarious US motives for turning their boy into an enemy.  Drugs and
repression hardly were the real reasons: Noriega bucked Big Brother and
refused to cooperate in the USA's contra war against Nicaragua. That
isn't even mentioned here. -NY Transfer]

The Guardian - Sep 10, 2007 ia rick kissell
http://www.guardian.co.uk

No return [to Panam] for Noriega, 
the dictator whose nation is still trying to forget

Former general set to face charges in France after 18 years in US jail - 
to the relief of his country's ruling elite

Rory Carroll in Panama City

Out of sight and mind for almost two decades, inmate number 38699-079 
completed his sentence yesterday an older, frailer figure than the world 
remembered. Manuel Noriega served out his time at Miami's Federal 
Correctional Institution with a gammy leg, his hair dyed and in the 
uniform of an army which no longer exists, a bogeyman from another era.

It was a return to the limelight, but not a return home. The former 
dictator is to be sent across the Atlantic to become France's prisoner; 
only afterwards, truly a relic, can he return to Panama. The 73-year-old 
general no longer has a machete in his fist nor an army to command, but 
he still inspires enough anxiety for three governments to play an 
elaborate game of pass the parcel.

Noriega has served almost 18 years for drug racketeering in a special 
Miami cell, dubbed the presidential suite because it had two rooms, a 
television and an exercise bike.

He wants to return to Panama, the country he ruled and ravaged in the 
1980s, despite convictions there for embezzlement, corruption and 
murder, including that of an opponent who was decapitated.

Rather than allow him back, the US has decided to extradite him to Paris 
to face money laundering charges and up to 10 years behind bars. Noriega 
will remain in US custody while appealing, but is likely to lose. Few 
want him back in Panama.

"There has been a deal to keep him away from here," said Mario Rognoni, 
a friend and former cabinet minister who is one of those few. "It's not 
right."

The extradition fight is the latest chapter of a spectacular downfall. 
Once Central America's alpha strongman and CIA ally, Noriega fell out 
with Washington in the late 1980s over deals with cocaine cartels and 
increasing repression. President George Bush ousted him in a 1989 
invasion named Operation Just Cause. Civilian casualties, looting and 
suspicion over US motives prompted critics to rename it Operation Just 'Cuz.

But the similarities with Iraq end there; today, few Panamanians 
question the price of deliverance. While Noriega languished in Miami, US 
troops withdrew and the country transformed from a cowed, bankrupt 
backwater into a democratic, economic dynamo. The question is whether it 
is ready to have him back.

"Noriega's time brought a lot of pain and suffering, but we have been 
able to overcome that," Samuel Lewis Navarro, Panama's vice-president 
and foreign minister, told the Guardian. "Democracy is flourishing and 
the economy is producing jobs and prosperity."

Consecutive elections have been peaceful, and economic growth has roared 
ahead at more than 8% in 2006 and the first quarter of 2007. A forest of 
cranes and new skyscrapers loom over Panama City and 4x4s clog the 
avenues. A £2.5bn expansion of the Panama Canal started last week, and a 
£2.4bn Dubai-style centre is planned for the city's outskirts. 
Inequality and squalor endure but are largely invisible to the tourists 
who pack hotels and restaurants. "We're fashionable, everyone wants to 
come here to do business," beamed Aristides Hernandez, an economic 
consultant.

The area around the Vatican embassy, where Noriega sought refuge before 
surrendering to US forces, is unrecognisable. In place of the school 
football pitch where thousands of protesters gathered to demand his 
head, there is a gleaming shopping centre selling Lacoste and Calvin 
Klein; where the Americans once used loud rock music to unnerve the 
general, the air is filled with construction drilling. "I actually 
prefer that to the music. God it was awful, boom boom boom, day and 
night," said Alcibiadez Correa, 58, a security guard present during the 
acoustic assault in 1989.

With more than half the population aged under 30, and Noriega's army and 
"dignity battalions" of militia long since abolished, Panama is a 
different country. Does it fear the return of Noriega, a limping 
septuagenarian grandfather who says he has found Jesus?

No, said Mr Navarro, the vice-president. The general is "politically 
irrelevant" and the government was "disappointed" he would face justice 
in France instead of Panama, where he faced much more serious charges. 
"We would like him back."

That claim is widely scorned. "They do not want him, it's obvious," said 
Julio Berrios, one of Noriega's lawyers. Commentators and diplomats 
agree the government soft-pedalled its extradition request to keep 
"Pineapple Face", so-called because of his pock-marked features, on the 
far side of the Caribbean.

In return for pursuing his extradition for buying three Paris apartments 
with drug money, France will be rewarded with commercial contracts in 
Panama, alleged Mr Berrios, echoing widespread cynicism about contracts 
and tenders.

The US has made no secret of its desire to keep Noriega out of Central 
America. The former intelligence chief is wealthy and astute enough to 
unsettle Panama's small ruling elite, an oligarchy of half-a-dozen 
families which includes so many former regime cronies, such as Daniel 
Delgado Diamante, the justice minister, that it has been nicknamed 
Noriegaville.

A recent law change to allow those aged over 70 to serve jail sentences 
at home fits the general so well the tailor of Panama could not have 
done better.

President Martin Torrijos and other senior officials do not harbour 
sympathy for Noriega and could be embarrassed by his return and genteel 
incarceration in his own home.

"His presence would be a reminder of what many in the government did 
before," said Mario Rognoni, Noriega's friend and confidant. "People 
have to learn to live with their pasts."

Some don't need lessons. In Chorillo, a foul-smelling slum which bore 
the brunt of the fighting when the Americans invaded, many carry 
injuries from the missiles and gunfire.

Along with his lower left arm, Ricardo Samanel, 46, lost his wife and 
his job as an electrician. Bitter and angry, he blamed Noriega for 
sowing disaster, the Americans for being trigger-happy, and, most of 
all, successive governments for ignoring him and the 40% of Panamanians 
who live in poverty.

"What do I care if Pineapple Face comes back? Makes no difference." He 
pointed his stump skyward to a flock of seagulls circling overhead. "The 
sewage brings them here. Noriega went away, but the sewage never left."