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A US judge has temporarily blocked the extradition to France of ex-Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to allow his defense to present a new appeal. His prison term in the US ends on Sunday. He was once one of Washington's top allies in Central America.

2007.08.24: Noriega Fails to Stop Extradition

A US judge has refused to block the extradition of ex-Panama leader Manuel Noriega to France, where he faces 10 years in prison for money laundering. Noriega, 72, is due to complete a 1992 prison term on drugs-trafficking and racketeering in Miami in September. He was made a US prisoner of war after his arrest during the US invasion of Panama more than 17 years ago.

Manuel Noriega was once one of Washington's top allies in Latin America, with close ties to former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. The Panamanian military ruler was seen as a stalwart supporter in the fight against Communism and drugs-trafficking in the region.

However, in 1988 a Florida court charged Noriega with helping Colombian drugs-traffickers smuggle tons of cocaine into the US. The White House then added to that accusations of election-rigging and violating human rights. That led to a US military incursion in 1989 in which hundreds of Panamanian civilians were killed, with some estimates saying as many as 4,000 died.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, 2004, Excerpts

For more than half a century, Panama was ruled by an oligarchy of wealthy families with strong connections to Washington. They were right-wing dictators who took whatever measures they deemed necessary to ensure that their country promoted U.S. interests. In the manner of most of the Latin American dictators who allied themselves with Washington, Panama’s rulers interpreted U.S. interests to mean putting down any populists movement that smacked of socialism. They also supported the CIA and NSA in anti-communist activities throughout the hemisphere, and they helped big American businesses like Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and United Fruit Company [which was purchased by George H. W. Bush]. These governments apparently did not feel that U.S. interests were promoted by improving the lives of people who lived in dire poverty or served as virtual slaves to the big plantations and corporations.

Panama’s ruling families were well regarded for their support; U.S. military forces intervened on their behalf a dozen times between the declaration of Panamanian independence and 1968.

Noriega built up his reputation as a colonel heading up the Panamanian Defense Forces G-2 unit, the military intelligence command that was the national liaison with the CIA. In this capacity, he developed a close relationship wit CIA Director William Casey. The CIA used this connection to further its agenda throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. The colonel also helped the CIA infiltrate Colombian and other drug cartels.

Noriega was also saddled with a U.S. president who suffered from an image problem, what journalist referred to as George H.W. Bush’s “wimp factor.” This took on special significance when Noriega adamantly refused to consider a fifteen-year extension for the School of the Americas.

The world should have anticipated it, but in fact the world was stunned when, on December 20, 1989, the United States attacked Panama with what was reported to be the largest airborne assault on a city since WWII. It was an unprovoked attack on a civilian population. Panama and her people posed absolutely not threat to the United States or to any other country. Politicians, governments, and press around the world denounced the unilateral U.S. action as a clear violation of international law.

Panama had merely dared to defy the wishes of a handful of powerful politicians and corporate executives. It had insisted that the Canal Treaty be honored, it had held discussions with social reformers, and it had explored the possibility of building a new canal with Japanese financing and construction companies.

Washington’s stated justification for the attack was based on one man. The United States’ sole rationale for sending its young men and women to risk their lives and consciences killing innocent people, including untold numbers of children, and setting fire to huge sections of Panama City, was Noriega. He was characterized as evil, as the enemy of the people, as a drug-trafficking monster, and as such he provided the administration with an excuse for the massive invasion of a country with two million inhabitants – which coincidentally happened to sit on one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world.

The U.S. Army had prohibited the press, the Red Cross, and other outside observers from entering the heavily bombed areas for three days, while soldiers incinerated and buried the casualties. The world was outraged by this breach of international law and by the needless destruction of a defenseless people at the hands of the most powerful military force on the planet, but few in the United States were aware of either the outrage or the crimes Washington had committed.

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney claimed a death toll between five hundred and six hundred, but independent human rights groups estimated it at three thousand to five thousand, with another twenty-five thousand left homeless. Noriega was arrested, flown to Miami, and sentenced to forty years’ imprisonment; at that time, he was the only person in the United States officially classified as a prisoner of war.

The Arias family and the pre-Torrijos oligarchy, which had served as U.S. puppets from the time when Panama was torn from Columbia until Torrijos took over, were reinstated. The new Canal Treaty became a moot point. In essence, Washington once again controlled the waterway, despite anything the official documents said.

Wikipedia Manuel Noriega

Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (born February 11, 1938) is a Panamanian general, and was the de facto leader and military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989, despite never being the official President of Panama. He was initially a strong ally of the United States and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the late 1950s to 1986. By the late 1980s, relations had turned extremely tense between Noriega and the United States government, and in 1989 the general was overthrown and captured in the United States invasion of Panama. He was taken to the United States, and convicted under federal charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. He remains imprisoned in a federal prison in Miami, Florida.