TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052289/05228900.030

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.3 KB | 176 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 44

Is Panama Worth the Agony?


By Jill Smolowe


    What a difference five years can make. In 1984, when Panama
staged its last presidential election, the exercise in
democracy proved a thuggish sham. Tabulation sheets vanished,
vote counting was suspiciously slow, and when citizens stormed
the streets in protest, soldiers fired on the crowds with
rifles. Through it all, the U.S. remained silent. Five months
later, as protesters chanted, "Fraud! Fraud!," Panama
inaugurated Nicolas Ardito Barletta, the candidate favored by
Manuel Antonio Noriega -- and the man, many Panamanians charged,
handpicked by then U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz.

    True, the blatancy of the fraud was more pronounced this
time around, but the greater change was the startling shift in
the U.S. response. Then, as now, the continued security of the
Panama Canal was the centerpiece of relations between the U.S.
and Panama. Yet in 1984 the Reagan Administration did not regard
U.S. interests as threatened by the challenge to Panamanian
democracy. So why is Washington so obsessed now about democracy
in a country barely larger than West Virginia? And why is it
apoplectic about the ouster of a dictator whom it comfortably
did business with for many years? The answers rest less with
quantifiable strategic and economic interests than with U.S.
credibility and prestige.

    For decades, the operation of the Panama Canal has
dominated relations between Panama and the U.S. However,
strategically and economically, the canal is no longer the vital
crossroad it once was. Since World War II, the U.S. has
developed fleets in both the Atlantic and Pacific as well as
major ports on both coasts. Today U.S. military vessels make
only about 30 trips a year through the canal; the Navy's largest
carriers are too big for the locks. "It's only useful now to do
some rearranging of the fleet in preparation for war," says
Ambler Moss, a former U.S. Ambassador to Panama. "It's not vital
enough to the national interest to fall on your own sword."

    While the canal remains an important artery for commerce,
it accounts for only about 5% of seaborne world trade, a figure
that has held steady for the past 16 years. New pipelines,
including one that cuts through Panama, have stolen much of the
oil trade, and air freight and sea-to-rail transport compete for
canal business, particularly consumer goods that are moved in
containers. Still, the canal remains competitive in the movement
of bulk cargoes, such as wheat and coal. Last year traffic
through the canal reached almost 156.5 million tons of cargo,
the second highest load in canal history. The U.S., the canal's
largest user, sends 13.7% of its international seabound trade
through the canal. Japan, the second largest user, relies
heavily on the canal for food imports. A shipment of grain from
the U.S., for instance, would take about 20 days longer if it
had to be rerouted. Even so, traffic may peter out as trade
vessels get larger; already a sizable portion of cargo ships
cannot fit through the canal.

    Thus the furor in Washington last week seemed out of
proportion to the canal's importance to the U.S. Some in
Washington seem more interested in keeping the U.S. Southern
Command in Panama after 1999, but like the canal, that may be
a misplaced concern. Panama provides an important and secure
base for U.S. intelligence gathering in the region, but many of
those activities could be moved elsewhere. Moreover, with
rapid-deployment units in California and the South, potential
Latin American hot spots can easily be covered from the U.S.

    A more convincing case for why Americans should care about
Noriega is Bush's assertion that the U.S. is "committed to
democracy in Panama." But the lack of a democracy in, say,
Saudi Arabia or, closer to home, in Guatemala, where a President
rules at the suffrage of an edgy military, fails to excite
Washington. "As long as we thought Noriega was our kind of guy,
we didn't care about democracy in Panama," says Wayne Smith, a
professor of Latin American studies at the Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies in Washington. "We put
emphasis on democracy when it suits our purposes."

    The Reagan Administration was responsible for redefining
the U.S. purpose in Panama -- and then turning up the noise
level. Noriega drew Washington's wrath by becoming an
embarrassment on two policy fronts. At a time when the U.S. was
proclaiming a war on drugs, it was difficult to justify
consorting with a dictator who not only personally profited from
the drug traffic but also put his country's resources at the
narcotraficantes' disposal. Moreover, as democracy became the
Administration's watchword, dealings with Panama's dictator
rendered Reagan's denunciations of Nicaragua's "dictator in
designer glasses" patently hypocritical. Noriega, the White
House proclaimed, had to go.

    But Noriega refused to go, and Washington's campaign to
unseat him eventually deteriorated into a pathetic exercise
geared as much to saving U.S. prestige as to making Panama safe
for democracy. Even if Bush would like to ignore Noriega, he
cannot, because the adversarial relationship has been
established. "His Administration inherited an absolute fouled-up
mess," says Moss. Beyond frustrated aims, the Bush
Administration was left to grapple with the ongoing
embarrassment of having the leader of the free world thwarted
by a two-bit despot. "Noriega has made us look bad," says
Richard Millett, a professor of history at Southern Illinois
University at Edwardsville. "He's humiliated us in front of the
world, something that has not done much for our credibility."

    Given the past fury of the confrontation, Bush should be
commended for the restraint he displayed last week. Instead of
signing on to the hotheaded clash between the U.S. and the
Panamanian commanders in chief favored by the Reagan White
House, Bush redrew the battle lines. He described the crisis in
Panama as "a conflict between Noriega and the people of Panama."
He cast the U.S. in a supporting role, seconding the calls of
Latin American leaders for Noriega "to heed the will of the
people of Panama." That puts the Panamanian people at the center
of their country's drama, where they belong, with Latin
Americans hovering closest and the U.S. standing by to provide
support.

    The Bush Administration might also do well to downplay the
"Noriega must go" mantra. A kidnaping would be imprudent, and
the U.S. lacks the means to get rid of Noriega unless it plans
to mount an invasion, a move that would prove far too costly.
If Washington's Latin allies perceive even a hint of Yanqui
aggression in the region, they might rally around Noriega, as
happened when the U.S. imposed economic sanctions 14 months ago.
Moreover, by one U.S. military analyst's estimate last year, an
invasion, while feasible, could result in the loss of up to
1,000 U.S. military lives, a cost that most Americans would
judge too high.

    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."

    Bush would do well to remember that Noriega does not
respond constructively to threats. Each time the Reagan
Administration rattled a saber, he dug in harder. The most
promising effort to negotiate Noriega's departure was engineered
last year by Spain and Venezuela, which listened attentively to
his demands and appreciated the need for face-saving measures.
That attempt was cut short by disagreements over who would
handle Noriega's exodus.

    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.

    Beyond that, patience may be the soundest tactic. Noriega's
intransigence is not the only problem. The Panamanian people,
though exercised last week by Noriega's outright contempt for
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.