Word: noriega
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Endara will have to establish his legitimate claim to the Panamanian presidency over Francisco Rodriguez, whom Noriega picked after calling off the election last May. Rodriguez urged Panamanians to resist the U.S. troops, then disappeared. Endara had little international support last week, except from the U.S. Neither the United Nations nor the Organization of American States would accept his ambassadors...
Most foreign experts agree that Endara, the candidate of an eight-party anti-Noriega alliance, won the May presidential election over Carlos Duque. Noriega declared that election null and void, and in the ensuing violence, Endara, Calderon and Ford were beaten by the pro-Noriega vigilante groups known as Dignity Battalions. Endara embarked on a two-week hunger strike to protest Rodriguez's subsequent appointment. After last October's failed coup attempt against Noriega, Endara went into hiding. "Nobody doubts ((his)) courage," says a senior U.S. official, "but it's a lot easier to get yourself beaten up than...
Endara might have an easier time if he were starting from scratch. His biggest challenge is to obtain the loyalty of the 12,000-strong Panama Defense Forces, a militia created and nurtured by Noriega and bent on its own survival. As the nation's police force, the P.D.F. will be essential to maintaining order. But given the army's continuing loyalty to Noriega and the rampant corruption within the officer corps, it is a breeding ground for future plots against any civilian government...
...does Bush hesitate these days to take long risks. The Panama invasion was supposed to accomplish three goals: 1) swiftly rout resistance; 2) capture the country's dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega, and bring him to trial in the U.S. on drug-running charges; 3) install a stable, democratic government headed by politicians who had apparently won May elections, which Noriega later overruled...
...invasion turned out to be less than fully successful, the Administration would be running grave dangers. At the extreme, it could bog down in a Viet Nam-style guerrilla war directed by a fugitive Noriega in the jungles. The Panamanian government that the U.S. installed may be regarded as American puppets; President Guillermo Endara was sworn in by a Panamanian judge, but on an American military base at about the time the attack started. A drawn-out crisis could sour U.S. relations with other Latin American nations, eternally nervous about Yanqui intervention against however noxious a government...