FEMALE ON THE FLOOR! The storming of Panama *7

The big worry for the Americans was that their number-one objective, General Noriega, still eluded them, although all exits had been immediately blocked and embassies where it was thought he might seek refuge were guarded. In a hopeful gesture Gen. Thurman put a price on Noriega’s head, offering $ 1 million for information leading to his capture.

Another worry was the restoration of civil order in Panama City. Immediately after the attack, mobs of looter took to the streets. Unrestrained and in many cases led by armed “Dig bats”, as members of the Dignity Battalions were called, they smashed into stores, supermarkets, warehouses and factories in all parts of the metropolitan area, taking everything movable—or removable, even to tearing out electric and plumbing fittings. It was re-distribution of wealth on a grand scale, especially on Vía España and Avenida Central where the electronics stores which make Panama a shopping mecca, were crammed with televisions, videos, cameras and computers awaiting the last-minute Christmas rush.

Owners who tried to defend their stores were pushed aside and some bloodied. It wasn’t only the poor and needy who looted. Mercedes Benzes and BMWs could be counted among the bicycles, carts and other wheeled haulage contrivances. Wanton damage was enormous. It appeared that the Dignity Battalions were operating a pre-ordained plan of destruction against properties of opposition and Civilista ownership. When the booty from the shopping areas was exhausted, the mobs began to converge on residential areas, but here it was a different story. Many residents had weapons stashed away. Would-be intruders were met with street barricades and well-armed neighbourhood vigilante groups. They retreated hurriedly, perhaps reflecting that a store owner who just lost his pre-Christmas stock could be counted on for an itchy trigger finger.

Apart from the attack on Río Hato, there was little or not fighting in the interior provinces. By December 23 it was reported that the majority of the PDF 3rd Infantry Co. (“Red Devils”) soldiers in Chiriquí had laid down their arms. In the remote Indian reservation of San Blas, on the Atlantic Coast, a contingent of PDF forces stationed there raided an island used as a Smithsonian Institute marine research station and captured about a dozen U. S. research scientists, taking them to the mainland where they marched them into the jungle. The hostages were abandoned the following day and left to make their somewhat painful way back to their island.

On Christmas day, the fifth day of a massive manhunt which left the U.S. authorities baffled and frustrated, General Noriega materialized. He turned up at a Dairy Queen soda fountain at Punta Paitilla with several aides and associates and the group was escorted from there into the nearby papal Nunciatura, the residence of the Vatican Embassy, where he was granted asylum.

He had once again outwitted the U.S. who had the Cuban and Nicaraguan and several other embassies staked out but apparently had overlooked the Vatican Embassy, perhaps not considered a run-of-the mill refuge for a dictator on narcotics charges who practices black magic. Once inside, the Nunciatura the U.S. had to be content with surrounding the building which stands on an ample tree-covered lot at the entrance to the residential district of Paitilla Point. In an effort to exert psychological pressure, they set up giant loudspeakers and beamed loud rock music in over the garden wall, much to the delight of the foreign press, especially when they began to play songs like… “El Solitario”.

(continued in following post)