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Title : BREAKING NEWS: Former Military Ruler Dies
link : BREAKING NEWS: Former Military Ruler Dies
BREAKING NEWS: Former Military Ruler Dies
Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian dictator whose regime was marked by brutal repression, ultimately disastrous collusion with the CIA and the establishment of “the hemisphere’s first narcokleptocracy”, has died at the age of 83.
Juan Carlos Varela tweeted: “The death of Manuel A Noriega closes a chapter in our history; his daughters and their families deserve to bury him in peace.”
Noriega had been put into an induced coma in March after undergoing brain surgery. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Noriega died at about 11pm local time after his condition suddenly worsened.
Noriega ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, spying for the CIA before the US invaded in 1989, toppling his repressive regime and ending a drug-trafficking career that associated him with the Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar.
With the knowledge of US officials, Noriega formed “the hemisphere’s first narcokleptocracy”, a US Senate subcommittee report said, describing him as “the best example in recent US foreign policy of how a foreign leader is able to manipulate the United States to the detriment of our own interests”.
Aurelio Barria, who led the Cruzada Civilista (Civil Crusade) opposition movement that staged many street protests against Noriega’s regime, said the dictator’s death “ends a period that we should try not to forget so it is not repeated in Panama”.
Carolina Cruz, a 65-year-old housewife out shopping in the capital, told the Associated Press that his demise “leaves open wounds”, adding: “Many died during his government, but he had deteriorated a lot and served many years in prison.”
Like many authoritarian Latin American figures of the latter half of the 20th century, Noriega was trained at the notorious, US-run School of the Americas, whose graduates include the disgraced former Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and the former Argentinian dictator Leopoldo Galtieri.
He joined Panama’s defence forces in 1962 and rose steadily through the ranks, mainly through loyalty to his mentor, Gen Omar Torrijos, who became Panama’s de facto leader after a coup in 1968.
As Torrijos’s intelligence chief, Noriega monitored political opponents and developed close ties with US intelligence agencies guarding against possible threats to the Panama canal.
Two years after Torrijos died in a mysterious plane crash in 1981, Noriega became the head of the armed forces and Panama’s de facto ruler. He was considered a valued CIA asset, helping the US seize drugs at sea and track money laundering in Panama’s banks, and reporting on guerrilla and terrorist activities.
His relationship with Washington eventually turned toxic, especially after a top political opponent was killed in 1985 and Noriega appeared to join forces with Latin American drug traffickers.
His foes in the Panamanian military made several coup attempts but failed, and their leaders were summarily executed by firing squad.
The beginning of his downfall came in 1988 when federal grand juries in the Florida cities of Miami and Tampa indicted Noriega on drug-trafficking charges.
Initially he reacted with defiance, thumbing his nose at US economic sanctions designed to drive him from power. He famously waved a machete at a rally while vowing not to leave, and in 1989 he nullified elections that observers say were easily won by the opposition.
The US president George HW Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in December 1989, and Noriega was captured and taken to Miami. During the operation, 23 US military personnel died and 320 were wounded, and the Pentagon estimated 200 Panamanian civilians and 314 soldiers were killed.
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