Word: panama
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bent toward a microphone under glaring television lights, a small man with gray hair and rimless glasses who could pass for an apothecary. In fact, Jose I. Blandon had been chief political adviser to one of the most corrupt dictators in Latin America, General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama. Testifying before a Senate investigative subcommittee last week, Blandon said Noriega and his henchmen had turned Panama into a "criminal empire," a "gigantic machine" that generated hundreds of millions of dollars through drug trafficking, money laundering and gunrunning...
Blandon's disclosures came just days after U.S. grand juries in Tampa and Miami indicted Noriega for conspiring with drug dealers to ship more than 4,000 lbs. of cocaine and more than 1 million lbs. of marijuana to the U.S. through Panama. Noriega, head of the Panama Defense Forces and de facto ruler of the country since 1983, is charged with accepting more than $4.6 million in bribes, most of it from the so-called Medellin cartel of powerful narcotics lords, who are based in Colombia's second largest city...
...bribes are just the tip of a huge iceberg. Not since the waning days of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has a national leader been accused of corruption on such an enormous scale. Before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, Blandon alleged that Noriega turned many of Panama's public institutions -- the customs and passport offices, the railroad, the airports -- into a huge kickback scheme. Among the beneficiaries: scores of army officers, top government officials and, above all, Noriega. By Blandon's account, Noriega is the richest man in Panama, with a dozen houses, a fleet of automobiles...
Blandon, who was guarded in the hearing room by a squad of U.S. marshals, was placed under federal protection after Noriega dismissed him last month as / Panama's consul general in New York. Two weeks ago he testified before the Miami grand jury. Last week he poured out such a flood of allegations -- many of which were unsupported by documentary evidence -- that Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, had to ask him to slow down...
Blandon outlined a series of deals and double-deals involving Central American conflicts. In 1985, he said, Noriega met twice in Panama City with Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, a principal figure in the Iran-contra affair. North asked Noriega, Blandon said, to train contra rebels in Panama at a time when the U.S. was forbidden by law to do so. Noriega agreed, Blandon said, though he was at the same time selling arms to Marxist insurgents in El Salvador. North could not be reached for comment...