Word: panama
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...gambit was carried out swiftly and efficiently. One year after his mentor, the popular dictator Omar Torrijos Herrera, died in a plane crash, Panama's President Aristides Royo, 41, resigned from office last Friday. In a letter dispatched to the president of the National Assembly and read to the public, Royo declared that he could no longer carry out his responsibilities "due to health problems that make a checkup necessary." Shortly after his Vice President, Ricardo de la Espriella, 47, was sworn in as his successor, Royo explained that a "throat infection" had seriously hampered his ability to govern...
...people believed him. As a former student activist and Minister of Education, Royo was regarded by the country's all-powerful National Guard as a potentially dangerous leftist, and the ex-President was far from popular with Panama's private sector. The rightist guard leadership had been grumbling especially loudly in recent weeks that changes in the government were long overdue, even though Royo's term in office was not scheduled to expire until 1984. In an interview three weeks ago, National Guard Commander Rubén Dario Paredes mused: "Twenty-four more months...
Paredes' ambitions are not expected to encounter resistance from the new President. A Stanford-trained economist and head of Panama's National Bank until he became Vice President in 1978, De la Espriella was regarded as a competent financial manager. He poses no threat to the dominant influence of the National Guard. Upon his assumption of office, he quickly obeyed a summons to a meeting of the guard high command...
...current prominence, Paredes is not likely to emerge as Panama's new strongman. Behind him is Colonel Manuel Antonio Noriega, the chief of intelligence, who is likely to become guard commander once Paredes resigns to start his election campaign. Noriega is considered a brutal militarist and ideological hard-liner who may ultimately surface as the most influential force in the country. "All the musical chairs are now in place in the National Guard," says a Western intelligence analyst. "Now they have to go through the façade of democracy...
...scandal began to unfold in May, when a special audit at the Banco Ambrosiano uncovered $1.4 billion in questionable loans that had been made to paper corporations based in Panama. The companies, it appears, were controlled by Roberto Calvi, the bank's president...