Former dictator Noriega dies at 83
PANAMA CITY — Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, a one-time U.S. ally who was ousted by an American invasion in 1989, died late Monday at age 83.
Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela wrote in his Twitter account that “the death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter in our history.”
Varela added, “His daughters and his relatives deserve to mourn in peace.”
Noriega ruled with an iron fist, ordering the deaths of those who opposed him and maintaining a murky, close and conflictive relationship with the United States.
After his downfall, Noriega served a 17-year drug sentence in the United States, then was sent to face charges in France. He spent all but the last few months of his final years in a Panamanian prison for murder of political opponents during his 1983-89 regime.
He accused Washington of a conspiracy to keep him behind bars and tied his legal troubles to his refusal to co-operate with a U.S. plan aimed at toppling Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government in the 1980s.
In recent years Noriega suffered various ailments including high blood pressure and bronchitis.
In 2016, doctors detected the rapid growth of a benign brain tumour that had first been spotted four years earlier, and in January a court granted him house arrest to prepare for surgery on the tumour.
He is survived by his wife Felicidad and daughters Lorena, Thays and Sandra.
Following Noriega’s ouster Panama underwent huge changes, taking over the Panama Canal from U.S. control in 1999, vastly expanding the waterway and enjoying a boom in tourism and real estate.
Today the Central American nation has little in common with the bombed-out neighbourhoods where Noriega hid during the 1989 invasion, before being famously smoked out of his refuge at the Vatican Embassy by incessant, loud rock music blared by U.S. troops.
Known mockingly as “Pineapple Face” for his pockmarked complexion, Manuel Antonio Noriega was born poor in Panama City on Feb. 11, 1934, and was raised by foster parents.
He joined Panama’s Defence Forces in 1962 and steadily rose through the ranks, mainly through loyalty to his mentor, Gen. Omar Torrijos, who became Panama’s de facto leader after a 1968 coup.
Two years after Torrijos died in a mysterious plane crash in 1981, Noriega became the head of the armed forces and Panama’s de facto ruler.