Word: laboa
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Ordinarily Monsignor Jose Sebastian Laboa, the Vatican's Ambassador to Panama, greets visitors with a tray of coffee and cake. But when General Manuel Antonio Noriega strode into the papal embassy on Christmas Eve, such hospitality was hardly appropriate. The fugitive strongman was agitated, pacing the nunciature's marble floors like a caged tiger. The four aides who accompanied him were carrying suspicious vials of injectable liquids and an assortment of guns. Laboa demanded that Noriega relinquish the weapons. At first he refused, but then he apparently complied -- although a submachine gun was later found under...
Thus began an eleven-day test of wills as the Spanish-born papal nuncio used psychological pressure and logic to convince his guest that Noriega's best, indeed only, option was to give himself up. Upholding the Vatican tradition of granting sanctuary to anyone fleeing persecution, Laboa would not kick the general out. But he had no intention of allowing him to prolong his stay indefinitely...
...days dragged on, Noriega underwent abrupt mood shifts. One night he sat in the kitchen and swapped stories with Laboa while awaiting dinner. The next day he never left his room. Recalled Laboa: "He talked very little, nodded a lot. He is impenetrable." Some diplomatic observers thought Noriega was showing classic signs of drug withdrawal. But a pharmacist who examined him in the nunciature concluded that he was not an addict. "Poor Noriega," said a diplomat posted to the Vatican in Rome. "No drugs, no booze, no sex -- and eating Vatican food...
Meanwhile, Washington and the Vatican were trying to find a way out of their diplomatic deadlock. A Vatican statement asserted that Laboa was "doing his best to convince General Noriega to abandon the nunciature on his own," though it added that the legate "cannot force Noriega to leave." The White House for its part declared its "appreciation" of Vatican efforts and reassured the papacy that "there are no fixed deadlines...
...surrendered to U.S. forces in the western province of Chiriqui rather than organize a resistance. Noriega, accompanied by two bodyguards, drove to a Dairy Queen ice-cream store in Paitilla, a commercial neighborhood of Panama City. He dialed the nunciature's number and spoke to Monsignor Laboa. As a non-American diplomat who has been in touch with Laboa paraphrased the conversation, Noriega requested sanctuary. On what grounds? asked Laboa. Look, Noriega replied, at this moment the Pope is beginning to celebrate Christmas in Rome. He will be preaching about the inn where Joseph and Mary were turned away...