Word: panamas
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Noriega's extraordinary performance was carefully scripted melodrama, but he was not the only one wondering if he would ever face a verdict in a U.S. court. The government last week found itself floundering even further in its bid to convict Noriega of allowing Panama to be used for drug shipments by the Colombian cocaine cartel. During his hearing, Noriega's three attorneys sought to have Hoeveler dismiss the case on the basis of government misconduct, including the alleged illegal taping of Noriega's telephone conversations with his lawyers from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center near Miami. Said...
...rebuilding a country devastated by corruption and the financial squeeze applied by the U.S. during the final two years of Noriega's reign. Though Bush Administration officials praise Endara for his good intentions, they fear that he and his government may not be up to the task of converting Panama into a stable democracy...
...example of Panama's woes is the Atlantic Coast city of Colon (pop. 100,000). Once a prosperous port of call for ocean liners, today the country's second largest city seems to harbor only misery. Rotting tenements line the streets, unemployment exceeds 25%, drug use and violent crime are rampant. Deane Hinton, the American ambassador to Panama, first visited Colon in 1938, when it was "a beautiful city." Now, he says, it is "a disaster area...
...city's tragic transformation began in the 1950s, when an economic boom in Panama City diverted investment and, later, government spending from Colon. But after Noriega was overthrown, there was hope that Colon might begin to recover. More than 80 residents, most of them unarmed civilians, were killed in the U.S. invasion, but even that toll seemed an acceptable price for Colon's rehabilitation. "We thought maybe this government would remember us," says Father Carlos Ariz, bishop of Colon. "Instead the government says it has no way to help...
Since the U.S. military invaded Panama last December and brought back General Manuel Noriega for trial in Miami on drug-trafficking charges, the former dictator has had just one link to the outside world: a beige telephone sitting on a shelf outside his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The phone has two little stickers attached, one in Spanish, one in English, warning him that all calls are monitored. If Noriega wants to make a call, a guard dials the number and waits for a reply before handing over the instrument. Only conversations with Noriega's defense lawyers are deemed...