Is Panama Worth the Agony?

By JILL SMOLOWE James Carney/Miami and Ricardo Chavira/Washington

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.

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