Word: panama
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Bush's most sensible option is to continue to enlist Panama's neighbors in the campaign to oust Noriega. Now that Bush has pointedly consulted half a dozen Latin American leaders on his game plan, they will make a mockery of their own calls for "regional solutions to regional problems" if they run off the field and hide. "A lot of countries are coming on board with Milquetoast statements," says a U.S. official. "We need to get Mexico and some of these other fence-sitters to come out publicly and totally isolate Noriega...
Once again, Noriega's minions are putting out the word that he might be willing to step down if the terms of the arrangement are presented to him in the right light. In the meantime, the U.S. can build on the overture Bush made to the Panama Defense Forces last week and pursue a relationship with reformist elements within the ranks. The discontent is there to tap. According to government advisers in Panama City, perhaps half the Panamanians in uniform who went to the polls last week voted against Noriega...
...popular opinion, cannot be counted on to remain in the streets. They have mounted sizable protests twice before over the past two years, only to retreat back into their comfortable homes. "What we need here is 20 good Korean students," a U.S. official wryly notes. "The people ((in Panama)) seldom put it on the line." Frustrated as they may be, middle-class Panamanians have not suffered the misery that galvanized Filipinos and Haitians. And Noriega is no Marcos or Duvalier: he is wilier, stronger -- and more bloodthirsty...
CAPTION: AMERICANS IN PANAMA...
Members of the gang that carried out the bloody attack on Panama's opposition leaders last week did not try to hide their identities. In fact, they wore T shirts advertising themselves as members of Batallon Dignidad, or the Dignity Battalion. It is one of at least 20 paramilitary squads, with a total membership estimated at 7,000 to 10,000, that were founded last year ostensibly to help block a Yanqui invasion that Manuel Antonio Noriega insisted was imminent. According to Bush Administration officials, the squads were created with help from a small group of Cuban advisers in Panama...