Panama: New Strongman

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Paredes takes charge

The gambit was carried out swiftly and efficiently. One year after his mentor, the popular dictator Omar Torrijos Herrera, died in a plane crash, Panama's President Aristides Royo, 41, resigned from office last Friday. In a letter dispatched to the president of the National Assembly and read to the public, Royo declared that he could no longer carry out his responsibilities "due to health problems that make a checkup necessary." Shortly after his Vice President, Ricardo de la Espriella, 47, was sworn in as his successor, Royo explained that a "throat infection" had seriously hampered his ability to govern.

Few people believed him. As a former student activist and Minister of Education, Royo was regarded by the country's all-powerful National Guard as a potentially dangerous leftist, and the ex-President was far from popular with Panama's private sector. The rightist guard leadership had been grumbling especially loudly in recent weeks that changes in the government were long overdue, even though Royo's term in office was not scheduled to expire until 1984. In an interview three weeks ago, National Guard Commander Rubén Dario Paredes mused: "Twenty-four more months, it's a bit long." When Royo's decision to quit the presidency became known, there were few doubts that the National Guard had forced him to resign and that the country Torrijos had kept balanced between the extremes would now be tilting right. Panama, for the last decade one of the few stable nations in strife-torn Central America, now faces a decidedly uncertain future.

Soon after De la Espriella took the oath of office as interim President, Commander Paredes ordered all Panamanian newspapers to suspend publication for seven days. He also "suggested" the resignation of all Cabinet ministers, mayors and Governors until "some are reconfirmed and others replaced." Among the ministers slated for replacement were the country's Attorney General and Comptroller General. Paredes also suggested that there would be changes made in the composition of the country's Electoral Tribunal, which oversees national elections. By no coincidence, Paredes is expected to quit his post as National Guard commander to run for President in new elections within the year.

Paredes' ambitions are not expected to encounter resistance from the new President. A Stanford-trained economist and head of Panama's National Bank until he became Vice President in 1978, De la Espriella was regarded as a competent financial manager. He poses no threat to the dominant influence of the National Guard. Upon his assumption of office, he quickly obeyed a summons to a meeting of the guard high command.

For all his current prominence, Paredes is not likely to emerge as Panama's new strongman. Behind him is Colonel Manuel Antonio Noriega, the chief of intelligence, who is likely to become guard commander once Paredes resigns to start his election campaign. Noriega is considered a brutal militarist and ideological hard-liner who may ultimately surface as the most influential force in the country. "All the musical chairs are now in place in the National Guard," says a Western intelligence analyst. "Now they have to go through the façade of democracy."