Manuel Noriega

"Drug trafficker"  Manuel Noriega   (soldier, politician, puppet leader)
For a year or two, Noriega was enemy image number 1
Born	Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno 11 February 1934 Panama City, Republic of Panama
Died	May 29, 2017 (Age 83)
Cause of death	brain tumor
Alma mater	Chorrillos Military School, School of the Americas
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Children	3
Spouse	Felicidad Sieiro de Noriega
Maximum Leader of National Liberation In office December 15, 1983 - December 20, 1989  Military Leader of Panama In office August 12, 1983 - December 20, 1989

Manuel Noriega was a Panamanian military officer and politician who was de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 until 1989, when he was toppled in a US invasion.

Career

Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking

Noriega - coming from a poor family - failed to get into medical school before joining the National Guard. In the guard he would abuse girls while on the job. In 1963, he had been accused of raping a sex worker in his patrol car and a few years later he raped a teenage girl. The last scandal got him reassigned to a remote region, but he was never sentenced.

Noriega rose through the ranks of the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) and became a key figure in Panamanian politics and military leadership. During his rule, he maintained close ties with the United States and its intelligence agencies, which saw him as a useful ally in the region. However, Noriega's relationship with the United States deteriorated in the late 1980s for various reasons, including the perception of him growing out of control. In December 1989, the United States invaded Panama in an operation called "Operation Just Cause," with the primary goal of capturing Noriega and "bringing him to justice".

How the CIA Created a Cocaine Dictator - VICE NEWS In December 1989, 25,00 US troops invaded the small, Central American republic of Panama. But this was not a war against some communist regime or terrorist group – this was a drugs bust, aimed at arresting Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, who was wanted on trafficking charges in Miami. Awkwardly for the US, Noriega had been a major CIA asset for decades – even as they knew he was becoming massively embedded with the cartels flooding the streets of the US with coke. This is how US intelligence shielded Noriega, even as he trafficked cocaine and laundered cartel millions – and also how the War on Drugs came to replace the Cold War as the central feature of US foreign policy.

Early CIA friend

“I’ve got Bush by the balls”
Manuel Noriega (1988) 

Manuel Noriega worked with the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies primarily because of his early cooperation, his strategic importance due to Panama's location, and his role in providing intelligence on communists movements in Latin America during the Cold War. However - officially - his involvement in drug trafficking and human rights abuses eventually turned local media and populations against him. Noriega's relationship with U.S. intelligence began in the 1950s when he was a young military officer. At the time, the United States saw him as a valuable asset in the region due to his knowledge of Panama's political landscape and his willingness to assist in anti-communist efforts during the Cold War. Noriega provided information to the CIA about leftist movements and political developments in Latin America, particularly in countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In this form, Noriega's operation greatly facilitated the infamous Contras in Latin America later on.

Arrest

Full article: Invasion of Panama

“He was a pawn in an international game that was way bigger than him and he certainly paid dearly," said Barbara Trent, a filmmaker who directed "The Panama Deception," a 1992 documentary about the U.S. invasion.

"He was a small-time player catapulted to international fame by the U.S. government and the media to drum up support for a ruthless invasion," Trent added. Working with the CIA Noriega ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989. Before and during that time, he worked with multiple U.S. intelligence agencies who agreed to ignore allegations that he was a drug trafficker in exchange for a staunch anti-communist ally in Central America during the height of the Cold War. Noriega was paid handsomely for his help, about $10,000 per month at one point, according to John Dinges, author of "Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United States and Made Millions in Drugs and Arms (1990)."

"The relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon was quite intense in the early '80s," Dinges told ABC News. "He was considered an important asset, and everyone in the documents I've read spoke very highly of him. He was trusted to the extent that you trust someone who is a paid intelligence asset.”
Kaelyn Forde,  ABC (2017) 

After the invasion, Noriega sought refuge in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City but eventually surrendered to U.S. authorities in January 1992. He was subsequently transported to the United States, where he faced trial on charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering. Noriega’s counsel moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that United States laws could not be applied to a foreign leader whose alleged illegal activities all occurred outside the territorial bounds of the United States. Counsel further argued that Noriega was immune from prosecution as a head of state and diplomat, and that his alleged narcotics offenses constituted acts of state not properly reviewable by the US Court. In 1992, he was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Noriega was extradited to France in 2010, where he was convicted and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for money laundering. In 2011 France extradited him to Panama, where he was incarcerated for crimes committed during his rule, for which he had been tried and convicted in absentia in the 1990s. Diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2017, Noriega suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later. Manuel Noriega's rise and fall illustrate the complex and controversial history the CIA drug trafficking and thus U.S. involvement in Panama and its relationship with strongman leaders in the region during the Cold War era. Noriega's case also highlighted the connections between military regimes, drug trafficking, and international politics in Central America during that period.

“[Manuel Noriega] allied himself with the Medellin Cartel, his country serving as an important transit point for cocaine towards the United States. The Reagan administration worked with Noriega in support of the Nicaraguan contras, but by 1989 the dictator was growing out of control and had become such a liability to the United States, that George H. W. Bush ordered an invasion of Panama to capture Noriega. During his trial in the early 1990s, numerous witnesses/drug traffickers accused Noriega of drug trafficking, along with ties to George H. W. Bush, Colonel Oliver North and other CIA Contra figures. As the torture-murder of Hugo Spadafora in particular revealed, Noriega also was an extreme human rights violator who, similarly to the drug cartels and the CIA, had no problem torturing his enemies to death.”
Joël van der Reijden (August 27, 2016) 

9/11 Connection?

Noriega's planes were still used decades later. Arne Kruithof is the Dutch-German owner of flight school "Florida Flight Training", the flight school used by the 9-11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. The plane Jarrah was trained in by Kruithof was allegedly traced back to Noriega's associates by Daniel Hopsicker.

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