THE BOULDER DAILY CAMERA - Guest Opinion
November 26,1991
Less than two years ago, the Panamanian dictator, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, was considered so dangerous that the United States took the unprecedented step of invading a foreign nation to arrest its chief of state. Now, in anticipation of the 1992 presidential campaign,, the exposure of Noriega's crimes that forced this extraordinary actionmay reveal that the United States government was inextricably an accomplice to these crimes, and is itself on trial.
The record that the U.S. prosecutor is certain to bring to light in Noriega's ongoing trial will show that his checkered history is punctuated by some pretty horrendous deeds, probably including such crimes as assassination, drug trafficking, bribery, money laundering and gun-running. One may assume, however, that the case for the prosecution will not contain one word suggesting U.S. complicity in any of Noriega's crimes. The defense, will, no doubt, present a different story. Provided, of course, that it helps their client, the defense may choose to reveal the little-known drug connection to the otherwise well known Iran-Contra saga. The drug connection has thus far been assiduously avoided by most of the print and television media; even now, the vast majority of Americans remain blissfully oblivious to it. Few are awareof the pivotal role played by their own government in the epidemic increase in drug traffic and drug-related crime in the 1980s.
The facts are that the Reagan-Bush White House illegally, covertly, and consistently endeavored to protect elements of the cocaine-smuggling network, dominated by the Medellin Cartel, because this network rendered invaluable logistic and monetary support in the secret war against the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Manuel Noriega, as the key mediator between the White House and the Cartel, was the linch-pin of this arrangement. Until his fall from grace, Noriega also enjoyed ironclad immunity from prosecution for his many nefarious crimes that were well-known to the administration. Now, of no further use, he languishes in prison, a victim of his own misdeeds and the duplicity of the U.S. government.
As early as 1967, Noriega was on the CIA payroll. A year later, as head of Panama's G-2 (intelligence service), he was the agency's most treasured asset in Central America. Perversely, friendly intelligence agencies sometimes not only fail to cooperate with one another, but mayeven engage in intense counter activity. Such was the case in 1971 between the CIA and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration).
While the CIA coveted and paid Noriega for intelligence, the BNDD pursued him as a dangerous criminal and even considered assassination as one possible remedy. At the urging of the State Department, the heat was eventually turned off, and by 1976 then-CIA Director George Bush arranged to pay Noriega $110,000 a year. However, in the course of sweeping reforms within the CIA, the Carter Administration removed Noriega from its payroll. Then, when Ronald Reagan took office in1981, Manuel Noriega was back, at a salary that rose to $200,000 per year by 1985.
Perhaps initially unaware of Noriega's early support of the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran rebels (the main cause of his eventual downfall), the Reagan Administration was fully apprised of his connections with the Medellin Cartel, essentially from 1982. U.S. intelligence tracked and duly reported Noriega's activities even while the administration continued to pay his inordinate salary. After all, they had in him no ordinary mole, but an intelligence asset of the highest order - not only head of Latin America's best-run intelligence service, but, after 1981, Panama's Chief of State as well.
1984 and 1985 were critical times for the Reagan Administration in its support of the Contras since the Boland Amendment had shut off all its legal funds in their behalf. This action left the Contra cause in desperate condition, but the White House marshaled its covert resources and sustained the Contras despite the explicit illegality of the undertaking.
As dictator of Panama, Noriega was in position to aid the administration in many Contra-related operations; chief among these was the shipment of arms. Israel supplied the weapons, which went directly to Panama. Noriega then redistributed these to Contra bases in Honduras and Costa Rica, flying the same planes used by the Cartel for transporting cocaine to the U.S. In 1985, Noriega helped Oliver North in an operation to sabotage Sandinista facilities in Nicaragua. It seems the administration could hardly have managed without him.
In a stunning stroke of evil genius, Noriega engineered a scheme to keep the Cartel, the DEA and the Reagan White House simultaneously happy. Through his intelligence arm, Noriega was keenly familiar with the drug trade throughout the Caribbean, especially those elements who competed directly with his employer, the Medellin Cartel. He fingered those miscreants for the DEA, and the DEA easily made the appropriate arrests.
Everybody was a winner (except for the busted small timer). The Cartel was rid of the competition, the DEA got credit for the busts, and the White House had use of Panama as a staging base for covert operations against Nicaragua. Naturally, the DEA was obliged to heap lavish praise on Manuel for his 'unstinting' assistance in the War on Drugs.
By standing back and allowing the activities of the hemisphere's most notorious criminal to go unchecked because he contributed to an illegal war patronized by the White House, the Reagan administration was surely as culpable as the criminal himself.
Leslie Cockburn cautioned in the Foreword of her book, "Out of Control,""At the close of the Iran-Contra hearings in August 1987, Ronald Reagan told the nation that all of this must be put behind us. If that is to be the case, it is essential that the American people know exactly what it is we are being asked to forgive and forget."
Howard Garcia, physicist, lives in Boulder.