And until the late 1990s, Panama only had two nationally viable political parties, both of which were associated with the regime era: on the one hand the PRD, and on the other the Partido Panameñista, heir to Arias’ deposed Partido Arnulfista. Touting a logo of a circled white number 11, the day of the coup, the PRD has over the years tried to distance itself from Noriega and whitewash what it calls the “revolutionary process”.įar from dealing with the regime’s legacy, several of Panama’s post-dictatorship administrations were forced to strike political pacts with the PRD just to be able to govern. The lack of interest in the past also owes something to the survival of the political party which the military founded in 1978 to safeguard its power, the Partido Democrático Revolucionario (PRD). Manuel Noriega after he surrendered to US forces in 1990. To this day, many view the Torrijos era in particular as an era of progressive caudillismo, and regard its victims with suspicion. The regime also expanded the state’s role in the economy, becoming not only the largest employer in the country, but also the largest sponsor of social and development projects. That, in turn, means that what victims there were are more easily forgotten. During my first visit in 2011, a cabbie told me that as many Panamanians see it, “Torrijos was a cool guy” – and in reference to Noriega, everybody’s favourite bad guy, “not like Pineapple Face.”īecause Panama’s military government made extensive use of carrots as well as sticks, it claimed relatively few victims compared to the juntas that controlled other Latin American countries. Instead, a sort of amnesia has set in – and along with it, a sort of revisionist nostalgia. Forgotten plightĭespite the work of a state-sanctioned truth commission, Panamanians themselves are largely unaware of the intricacies of the regime. It was only brought down on December 20 1989, when US troops finally invaded the country and removed Noriega from office. The regime returned to the business of raw repression around 1984, and its support duly eroded. It won the sympathies of civil servants and government advisors, and with the help of subsidised housing and expansive government assistance programs, brought in parts of the lower and middle class too.īut whenever this incentive-based style of political control failed, selected opponents were arbitrarily detained or forcefully exiled. In its violent early years, the regime fought to eliminate the pro-Arias guerrillas in the provinces of Chiriqui and Cocle, and struggled with in-fighting inside the security forces.Īfter relative stability was achieved in the early 1970s, the regime managed to gradually co-opt a large part of the commercial elite. There were two clear peaks of violent repression, one at the start of the regime and then another starting in the mid-1980s under Manuel Noriega. More than 100 people are thought to have been killed and disappeared during its reign, while countless more suffered torture and arbitrary detention. Once in control, Martinez and Torrijos discovered that they had no shared government project, and they could not agree on a date when they would turn over control to the civilian authorities – and yet the ensuing regime lasted for more than two decades. On October 11 that year, Arias was unseated in a coup led by Major Boris Martínez and Lieutenant Colonel Omar Torrijos. The military regime came to power in 1968, when the National Police lost patience with what they considered undue interference in their internal affairs by the newly elected president, Arnulfo Arias. And strangely enough, a similar sort of amnesia holds sway in Panama itself. While the world is well aware of how it ended, not many know how it began or what it entailed for the people who lived under it. By Latin American standards, Panama’s years under a military regime are something of a mystery.
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