NBC Nightly News, Feb. 1, 1988. Federal authorities quoted on the pending indictment of Manuel Noriega in Miami federal court. Noriega said to have allowed Colombian cartel to process cocaine in Panama and smuggle it into the States. Noriega and cartel leader Jorge Ochoa reportedly worked together. Noriega also said to have ties to LaRouche. Panama's former consul-general in New York, Jose Blandon, is reported as testifying Noriega paid LaRouche for propaganda attacks on Senators Jesse Helms and John Kerry. NBC's continued coverage is here.
"Ex-Panamanian official links LaRouche to Noriega" (1988). Loudoun Times-Mirror provides what is probably the most detailed account anywhere of the LaRouche-Noreiga connection. Reporter Bryan Chitwood interviews Blandon, Noriega opponent Roberto Eisenmann and unnamed sources. Examines court records in a travel agency's lawsuit against the LaRouchians to establish dates of trips to and stopovers in Panama. Outlines LaRouche organization's attempt to smear Hugo Spadafora, a pro-democracy activist tortured, murdered and decapitated by Noriega's soldiers:
"Blandon confirmed that Noriega knew the details of Spadafora's murder because he had ordered it. Blandon said he was also present when members of the Panamanian military intelligence prepared the official report on Spadafora's murder, which was then delivered to the organization. Blandon added that he had read the LaRouche version of the Spadafora affair and that it matched the report prepared by Panamanian intelligence."
Chitwood also describes how the LaRouchians tried to smear Spadafora's grieving family (just as they would do two decades later in their attacks on the family of Jeremiah Duggan).
LaRouche and Seineldin both issue statements denouncing the U.S. invasion of Panama (Dec. 1989). Writes Seineldin: "With the deepest spiritual grief, I share the just indignation and the suffering of the defense forces and the people of our sister republic of Panama, martyred by aggression against the principle of National Sovereignty...." (Note that in the usage of LaRouche, as adopted by some military fascists in Latin America, "national sovereignty" is a code word for military dictatorship without interference by outside human-rights do-gooders.) Seineldin also comments on his personal connection to the struggle: "As an Argentine officer, I have served on a long-term professional mission in Panama, contributing to the consolidation of its Armed Forces in compliance with the highest goals of Argentine foreign policy."
LaRouche's EIR gloats when Noriega removes Panamanian president Barletta from office in retaliation for demanding an investigation of the torture-murder of Hugo Spadafora. EIR's absurd spin is that Noriega forced Barletta out because the latter was an IMF puppet and an advocate of University of Chicago economic ideas. Barletta's allies are dismissed by EIR as pimps and smugglers; Spadafora is described as having been a life-long international terrorist. EIR alleges that although governments in Latin America are mostly capitulating to the IMF and the narco-terrorists, grassroots coordination and resistance has grown among political figures, trade unions and military officers: "Fidel Castro's infantile radicals have been rejected as protectors of the IMF's drug traffic, as nationalists take up their fight as a defense of western civilization itself."
Advertisement in EIR (Aug. 8, 1986) for Noriega-financed "White Paper" that the LaRouchians circulated in Washington. Calls Noriega's regime a "U.S. ally," demonizes the dictator's opponents by calling them "drug-money launderers, lawyers for cocaine and marijuana traffickers, terrorists, and gun-runners."
"Argentine Rebel Linked to Noriega," The New York Times, Dec. 16, 1988. Seineldin, who was serving as a "trainer" for the Panamanian military, may have been helped by Noriega to return to Argentina to lead the unsuccessful 1988 coup. Article reports allegations that Seineldin "flew from Panama to Paraguay on a plane provided by General Noriega," then crossed clandestinely into Argentina and "went directly to the Campo de Mayo base to take command of the uprising."
"Noriega's Comic Strip War: It's Deadly Serious," The New York Times, Jan. 4, 1989. Reports that the Noriega regime may have secretly supported Col. Seineldin's 1988 coup attempt; says that a close crony of Noriega had advance knowledge of the coup and endorsed it on Panamanian radio, while lavishing praise on Seineldin.
EIR (March 7, 1986) trashes family of pro-democracy advocate Hugo Spadafora, who was tortured and murdered by Noriega's thugs. Note how both the magazine cover and the editorial slyly link the Spadafora family to Ariel Sharon (among other things, this is an allusion to "Spadafora" being an old Sephardic name). In fact, much of LaRouche's propaganda re Panama and Noriega was aimed at trying to persuade the cocaine caudillo to target prominent members of Panama City's Jewish community for repression (read here). The verbal sadism of the attack on the Spadafora family would later be repeated in the LaRouche organization's attempts to slime the grieving families of Jeremiah Duggan and Kenneth Kronberg--two Jewish men who are dead because of the atmosphere of hate created by LaRouche.