On Saturday, Americans learned that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro had been taken from Caracas by U.S. forces and flown to Manhattan for trial. The most obvious comparison between the ouster of Maduro by the U.S. is the ouster of General Manuel Noriega of Panama. Although the cases of Maduro and Noriega on their faces do look the same, as in a Latin American dictator is engaged in drug trafficking and is wanted by the United States, there are some significant differences between the circumstances that resulted in Operation Just Cause.
Relations between the U.S. and Panama have had a complicated history, and part of this was the control of the U.S. over the Panama Canal, which they had constructed, and the area they owned called the Panama Canal Zone. Starting in the 1960s, agitation for Panamanian ownership of the Panama Canal began, and U.S. leaders began supporting turning over the Panama Canal to improve relations with Latin America. President Gerald Ford endorsed the idea while Jimmy Carter came around to it once he was president. With the signing of the Panama Canal treaties in 1978, the U.S. and Panama had certain treaty obligations, such as the U.S. reserving the right to militarily intervene if neutrality over the canal was violated. Carter had signed the treaty along with Panama’s leader, Omar Torrijos. However, Torrijos was killed in an air crash in 1981, and the power vacuum that followed was resolved by the rise to power of Manuel Noriega. Noriega was never officially the leader, rather he had puppet presidents.
The U.S. and Noriega: From Friends to Foes
Manuel Noriega had a long and complicated relationship with the United States, which began with his recruitment from the Panamanian military to study at the School of the Americas through the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1950s, which trained many anti-communist fighters in the Western Hemisphere. Noriega rose up through the Panamanian military and in 1968, he bet on the right horse when he backed the coup that deposed President Arnulfo Arias for Omar Torrijos. As a reward, Torrijos made him chief of military intelligence. In 1971, the CIA began paying him for intelligence (Graham). In 1981, however, Torrijos was killed in a mysterious plane crash and out of the power vacuum Noriega became the unofficial leader of Panama. He was never president, rather he had figureheads serve his interests as president. The U.S. was initially supportive of Noriega as an anti-communist leader in Panama, and indeed he provided military support for the Contras in Nicaragua. However, the CIA wasn’t his only outside source of income. In 1982, Noriega cut a deal with Pablo Escobar to allow his cocaine to move through Tocumen International Airport. In return, Noriega would get $1000 per kilo of cocaine that reached the U.S. Although the U.S. knew of this arrangement, they valued him for his providing weapons and funding of Contra rebels in Nicaragua. However, what they didn’t know until later is that the CIA wasn’t the only intelligence agency paying him. Despite his anti-communist stance, Noriega was also a double-agent, accepting money from Cuban intelligence in exchange for information on the U.S. He also became increasingly brutal as a ruler, including beheading political rival Hugo Spadafora in 1985. After the president he had rigged the 1984 election for, Nicolas Ardito Barletta, promised an investigation, Noriega forced his resignation. On February 4, 1988, Noriega was indicted in Miami for drug trafficking and money laundering. In May 1989, Noriega again stole the election, much like Nicolas Maduro had in Venezuela in 2024. Noriega afterwards amped up the hostility to the U.S., including stating that the U.S. and Panama were in a “state of war” and with his forces firing on U.S. marines, killing one, and abducting another marine and his wife, brutally beating him and threatening her with sexual assault. Given that Noriega was acting with such impunity there was certainly an existing risk for the neutrality of the Panama Canal.
On December 20, 1989, Operation Just Cause, or the invasion of Panama, was ordered by President Bush. A tremendous amount of American public support already existed for such an action, unlike the sudden operation and capture of Maduro, which came a bit out of left field for most, as prediction markets showed (the success of this however certainly serves to blunt a lot of criticism). The invasion of Panama proceeded quickly, and Noriega fled to the Vatican’s embassy for diplomatic sanctuary. The US forces proceeded to surround the embassy and blast disturbing chicken sounds and numerous songs including “Give it Up” by K.C., “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, and “Panama” by Van Halen as a form of psychological warfare to get Noriega to come out (Myre). Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990 and he was brought to the U.S. for trial.
Noriega was convicted by a Miami jury and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. He served 17 years after which he was extradited to France where he was convicted of money laundering in 2010 and then extradited back to Panama where he was imprisoned for murder, corruption, and embezzlement, having previously been convicted in absentia. He died in a Panama City hospital of cancer on May 29, 2017. Some differences that exist between Maduro and Noriega is that although you could say that Venezuela is a national security issue for the U.S. given their relationships with China and Russia and that under Maduro it had become a narco state, there were more clear open hostilities with the U.S. with Panama and the Panama Canal lay in the balance.
References
Graham, D.A. (2017, May 30). The Death of Manuel Noriega – and U.S. Intervention in Latin America. The Atlantic.
Retrieved from
Myre, G. (2017, May 30). How the U.S. Military Used Guns N’ Roses To Make a Dictator Give Up. National Public Radio.
Retrieved from
Panama invasion: The US operation that ousted Noriega. (2019, December 19). BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50837024
The Rise and Fall of Manuel Noriega. Noiser.
https://www.noiser.com/real-dictators/the-rise-and-fall-of-manuel-noriega
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 