Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Ryan Reynolds here from Int Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices
So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. How did you get 30, 30, how did you get 30, how did you get 20, 20, 20, how did you get 20, 20, how did you get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. We're in Panama in December 1989, the week before Christmas.
The United States has launched its biggest military operation since the Vietnam War. Their objective: to capture the country's military dictator, General Manuel Noriega. Helicopter gunships blast key Panamanian positions. Tracer fire lights up the skies. On a beach near Punta Paitia Airport in Panama City, a crack team of Navy SEALs and CIA Black Ops clamber out of their rigid inflatables.
No sooner are they on land than they're caught in a vicious firefight. They push past Noriega's men, fighting their way through the streets until they reach the airport. With a shot from a rocket-propelled grenade, the dictator's private jet is destroyed. Now it's time to grab the man himself. They find him nearby, holed up in a seedy hotel room.
Two guards are taken out with shots to the head. A third fatally stabbed in the side of the neck. Noriega raises his hands in surrender. Except that's not how it really happened. That is the version of Noriega's capture played out in a 2012 video game, Call of Duty Black Ops 2. At the time of its release, the real Noriega, meanwhile, has spent the last two decades in prison. At almost 80 years old,
He knows he'll never see the outside world again. But while his life as a free man may be over, Noriega is preoccupied with something else: his legacy. For years, as he sees it, he's been vilified by the Americans. Now he's literally been cast as a villain. So far, Noriega has lost every legal battle he's been involved in. He's been convicted in three separate countries, on charges ranging from money laundering to murder.
But once again, he's determined to have his day in court. This time, Noriega is suing Activision, the video game's publishers, for putting him in it without his permission, and in the process for distorting the true story of the US invasion of Panama. It's ironic that a man who spent his life trading in secrets, lies, and double bluffs should be so concerned with historical truth. But as far as Noriega is concerned,
His portrayal in the game as a kidnapper, murderer, and enemy of the state has damaged his reputation. At the very least, he should be entitled to a share of the game's profits. The judge disagrees, and the case is thrown out of court. A man guilty of as many crimes as Noriega has no reputation to protect. It's in the nature of entertainment to exaggerate, to fictionalize for dramatic effect. But in fact,
The true story of Noriega's capture is stranger than fiction. Sure, there are the dirigibles, the private jet and the helicopter gunships, just like in the game. But in the end, Noriega's downfall will come down to a pair of Catholic priests, a spy in a nail salon, and a playlist of heavy metal music. From Noisa, this is the final part of the Manuel Noriega story. And this is Real Dictators.
By late 1989, Noriega has gone from a US asset to a liability. Once the CIA's top intelligence source in Central America, he's now a thorn in the side of new President George H.W. Bush. A former CIA director, Bush has been doing everything he can to distance himself from Noriega. In the context of the US war on drugs, his ties to a major narco-trafficker are hard to explain. Professor Robert Harding
I don't think there was a matter of them having a relationship, having a friendship, but it was more of we can help each other. It was a one hand washes the other relationship.
And the fact that later Bush himself would order the invasion that would bring down Noriega was no different than, one might say, a boss who ends up firing an employee, right? It's just business. It's nothing personal. Right now, Bush is desperate for Noriega to disappear. But so far, every effort to get rid of him has ended in failure. Professor Margaret Scranton.
Diplomacy did not work to negotiate him out. Military coups did not work to remove him. The political class, which had failed so often before, missed an opportunity. The United States is inching ever closer to military action. But first, the groundwork must be laid. Intelligence operative Martha Duncan was born in the American-controlled Canal Zone. Now, after working in the United States as a Panama analyst,
She finds herself returning home. I was selected to be a part of the Joint Intelligence Fusion Cell, which was find, fix and predict Noriega. So the team was formed up from different elements, you know, different agencies, organizations, military and whatnot. And we went down to Panama in November of 1989.
We set up at Horry Heights in what's called the tunnel. Horry Heights was the headquarters for the U.S. Southern Command at the time. So that became the operational center, if you will. I did a lot of casing and going downtown and mingling with the people. I can speak the language. I can navigate different areas and try to get information.
I made it a routine to jog up and down the causeway, which I used to do when I lived there, because Noriega had special units that were assigned to the causeway. And during those jogging periods,
I would stop and chat up the guards at the gate and had my little run and shorts. And the guard at the gate was too pleased to talk with the chica and just see how things were going. And there was one home in particular that was known as the witch's house. And Noriega was very much into voodoo, into santeria. So he would frequent the place quite a bit.
And so that was one of the spots that I would look to see if I see any activity, any vehicles, and if Norega was there or not. By this point, the Americans had been planning a possible military intervention in Panama for over a year. Known initially by the code name Blue Spoon, the invasion plans now take on a more bullish moniker, Operation Just Cause. U.S. General Colin Powell.
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explains the name change in his memoirs. Even our severest critics would have to utter just cause while denouncing us. No president could have ordered something like this if the military had been opposed, especially an institutionalist like Bush 41. It's like a Rubik's cube and things are aligning more and more in favor of a military operation to capture Noriega.
Noriega, meanwhile, seems blissfully unaware of the danger. But throughout the final months of his regime, he repeatedly provokes the Americans, almost as if he's daring them to come after him.
Noriega thought he was so indispensable, he could say and do whatever he wanted and was going to be invulnerable. This invulnerability starts to get broken down near the beginning of 1989 when his military, the PDF, start to do things that don't allow Bush to ignore him anymore.
The PDF decides that they're going to inexplicably seize 20 school buses full of children from U.S. military and civilian personnel. And at this point, President Bush declares with some irritation that amateur hour is over.
That starts a very rapid buildup over 1989 of military personnel into the Panama Canal. Whether or not they were trying to intimidate him into leaving, we'll probably never know, but certainly they were getting ready in case they had to move. As SOUTHCOM, short for U.S. Southern Command, oversees the American military buildup, Noriega gets jittery. He heads to the National Assembly where he gives a speech, the wording of which will prove critical.
Professor Michael Conniff. Nordea went to the National Assembly and gave a speech in which he said, the United States has put us in a state of war, meaning that the sanctions and the threats and so forth, and upping the defense forces in the canal zone. And the U.S. press immediately turned that around and said he declared war on the United States, which he hadn't. But he misspoke in a way that helped justify Bush's invasion.
And the very next day, a U.S. Marine named Robert Paz was shot and killed in a private vehicle at a checkpoint near the PDF headquarters. There was four officers that were coming back into the Canal Zone after having dinner in Panama, and they were at a checkpoint.
and the guard wanted them to stop and wanted them to get out of the vehicle, and they did not. They proceeded to continue, and the guard fired and killed Lieutenant Paz. - So it wasn't like a, "All right, we're gonna get a U.S. personnel, we're gonna line 'em up, and we're gonna shoot 'em." It wasn't like that, but it showed just how the situation could spiral out of control. - The shooting was perhaps accidental, perhaps it was in the fit of anger.
But regardless of the motivation, it set off a fuse that would blow up five days later on December 20th. On the ground in Panama City, intelligence operative Martha Duncan quizzes citizens on the latest developments. While the people are fearful of what might be coming, there's precious little love for Noriega.
I had to be careful in who I approached or what I may ask. It had to be done in a way that I was just part of, you know, a concerned citizen. There's the ongoing training operations that the U.S. was conducting. A lot of helicopters every day. There was a lot of discontent. So that's pretty much what the chatter was about. Because I think most of the people in the country just wanted him out.
They just weren't sure how it was going to be done. Noriega biographer Angel Ricardo Martinez-Benoit. Everybody was really ready to move on. That is something that is true. You know, no matter how you feel about Noriega, the truth is everyone was sick of it.
You could argue if having the mightiest military in the world come and bomb, that was the solution, that was the right way to solve it. Maybe another year, another six months, whatever, maybe Panamanians would have been able to solve it. But it happened the way it did. That change had to happen. It happened in a very tragic way, but that's how it is. You know, history doesn't happen the way you want. It's just the way it is.
The land down under has never been easier to reach. United Airlines has more flights between the U.S. and Australia than any other U.S. airline, so you can fly nonstop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Explore dazzling cities, savor the very best of Aussie cuisine, and get up close and personal with the wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold a koala? Go to united.com slash Australia to book your adventure.
Operation Just Cause marks a turning point in US foreign policy. But would the United States really spend more than $150 million on a military operation just to arrest one drug trafficker? And why now? After all, the Panamanians have been living under military dictatorship for over 20 years. Like so much in the Noriega story, there's more to this than meets the eye.
They were looking way beyond Panama. Nothing that happened actually, not even the invasion was about Panama itself. It was always about the chessboard. The Berlin Wall had fallen a month before, the 9th of November. So there's this feeling that the Cold War is over, that we're just entering this unipolar moment.
And it's now America's world. And what better way to showcase it than this totally safe intervention in this minuscule country in Central America that you already control, that has zero risk, and that is very good to announce, hey, it's our world now.
After the loss of the Vietnam War, they were not going to go in half-hearted. They were going to go in with overwhelming force where any meaningful defense would be destroyed literally within a day or two. It was an opportunity for the military to try out some of its brand new technology.
technology that would, of course, only a couple of years later be used in the Persian Gulf War. This provided the perfect opportunity at least to see it in action. On December the 20th, President Bush gives an address from the Oval Office. Fellow citizens, last night I ordered U.S. military forces to Panama. No president takes such action lightly. Many attempts have been made to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and negotiations.
All were rejected by the dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, an indicted drug trafficker.
On December 20th, the United States begins the invasion with 24,000 troops, which at that time was the largest U.S. military operation since the Vietnam War. The United States comes in with not just overwhelming troop forces, but also, for example, they use these new stealth fighters to bomb Vietnam.
areas of Panama City, particularly going after the PDF headquarters. I remember that night, which everyone was really scared, you know, of course, that you could hear the bombs and everything. And I remember that the only TV channel that was working was Channel 8, which was called the Southern Command Network.
It was a TV channel of the Southern Command. It was intended for the Americans that lived in the Canal Zone, but everyone could watch it. It was total chaos. It was like 4th of July. There was nothing but fire up on the skies, you know, lights just everywhere. While the US invasion wasn't exactly the surprise of the century, no one in Panama had anticipated this level of carnage.
In the process of going after the PDF, the United States unfortunately ended up killing a number of Panamanian citizens because the Panamanian military had interwoven itself into the city. You can be against Noriega, but you can also be against the invasion. You know, they came out and destroyed Panama's military apparatus because they
By that time, the Americans had come to the conclusion that there was nobody in the military that they could trust. So the entire experiment, which was actually of their own making, had to be discarded. It was one thing to have a military operation to capture Noriega. It's another thing.
entirely to have as your objective destroy the PDF, destroy the military infrastructure. The entire Chorrillo neighborhood was being bombed. It was indiscriminate bombing of a civilian neighborhood. Here in Panama, it's very common to have like individual gas tanks. So the gas tanks were also exploding in apartments because of the bombs.
This is not just war. This is a violation of the just war doctrine of appropriateness and violating another country's sovereignty to capture one person. So many people have asked, could there not have been a better way? With fires smoldering across Panama City, the true cost of the invasion becomes clear.
3,000 Panamanians is estimated to have lost their lives and some 20,000 Panamanians lost their homes during the invasion. And also public order was briefly lost, looting and vandalism became rampant, and the aftermath was absolutely insanity.
I used to live in an eighth floor and right in front of me there was a branch of Banco General, which is one of the biggest banks in Panama. And I remember watching it being looted from my balcony, you know, I was a five-year-old kid and I was like just watching how they were trying to break into the bank. Amid such scenes of devastation, an obvious question arises: Was it worth it? For Panamanians on the ground, that's a tough one.
The general impression I get is that while they certainly lamented the damage, lamented the loss of life, perhaps we could say it was a necessary evil to get rid of Noriega. It was a band-aid, if you will, that had to be torn off.
I would say 99% of the country at that time thought finally we rid ourselves of this dictator, of somebody that has just ruined our country. We have gotten rid of this cancer in our country. But in fact, there's one thing the invasion hasn't achieved, the capture of Manuel Noriega. As the invasion begins, Noriega is boozing it up in a PDF nightclub, La Siesta.
But when Panama City starts burning around him, he quickly sobers up. He spends the night on the run, flitting between a series of safe houses. By dawn, he's holed up in an apartment in the suburbs, along with a couple of cronies. Despite the best efforts of US intelligence, Noriega has given the gringos the slip. At South Com headquarters in the tunnel, Martha Duncan is doing her best to track down the elusive dictator.
I had established a hotline for people to call in with any sightings of Noriega. "Have you seen him? Tell us where." So far, all the tip-offs have led to nothing. But Martha has a good idea of what makes Noriega tick. A lot of the individuals that were running this case thought that Noriega was in the jungles, that he had gone into the mountains. And I knew something about Noriega, that he just liked perks of life.
He liked to find things in life and he was not likely to be somebody who would be hiding under rocks in the trees or whatever. So I went to my boss and I said, I have an idea that if I go after the mistress, she may have information about his whereabouts. And he says, you know, give it a try.
Noriega's mistress is a young advertising executive called Vicky Armado. Marth has been gathering intelligence on her for some time. Her source? The high-end beauty salon where Armado is a regular. The fact that I was a woman, I was able to get into places that a man just would not. I had my nails done. I made an appointment. And that was with the intent to see if I would get any additional information through the chatter.
And what I learned there basically was that Vicky was not a very well-liked person. She was not a good tipper, which was interesting because she was given lots of money being with him. And she was not an actual blonde. - Having got to know Noriega's mistress through talking to her stylists, Martha decides it's time for a more direct approach. Since the night of the invasion, Vicky has been staying with her mother, Norma.
I got the yellow pages, I looked for the Amado telephone number and made a phone call. Based solely on the sound, the tone of the conversation, I was going to determine if they knew or not where he was. From now on, Martha will be Maria, a friend and confidante of Noriega.
So when I made the phone call, the mother answered the phone. And in Spanish, I introduced myself as Maria, and I told her that I had a message from Manuel for Vicky. So Norma screams, "Vicky, Vicky, come to the phone. Information on Manuel." Already, Martha has learned one crucial piece of information. They had no idea where he was. So that takes that element off the table, and now they're concerned about their own safety.
Now Martha needs to pivot, and fast. Vicky got on the phone, she was out of breath, she was clearly, clearly very nervous. I said, "Manuel is very, very concerned about you and your safety. He wants you to know that he is safe, but he's more concerned about you. If you need assistance, if you want to feel safe, contact me, Maria, call me back and I will get you to safety." So I gave her a phone number and the conversation ended.
Now it's just a question of waiting. As the search for Noriega intensifies, Martha can only hope that Vicky will get desperate enough to return her call. The U.S. military is going house to house. They're looking for anybody associated with Noriega, and of course, she's a high-level target. Finally, the phone on Martha's desk rings. Vicky wants to meet.
Martha has hit pay dirt. She's earned the trust of a Noriega insider. Even if Vicky doesn't know where her boyfriend is, she might just hold the key to finding him.
So I then provided her a location, gave her time and said, carry a beach bag in your right arm. Describe the vehicle that I would be driving and that I would drive up quickly to her, roll the window down and give her my name. And she just was to get into the vehicle. She got in the vehicle. I took a drive in a circuitous route, making sure that someone is not
pursuing the vehicle. There was silence, by the way. She was just frightened. Martha brings Vicky to a safe house in the American-controlled Canal Zone. And then when I drove into the Canal Zone is when I can sense her turn and looks at me.
And then she asked me, "Where are we going?" And I said, "To a safe place." And she says, "Are you working for the gringos?" And I said, "Vicky, I was asked to bring you here to make sure you were safe. So let's proceed with that." Took her upstairs, showed her to the bedroom.
And she goes in and I just heard her crying, let her alone for a couple hours. Then I knocked on the door, you know, I had some dinner ready and slowly but surely kind of try to reintroduce what the next phase would be. Meanwhile, despite a million dollar bounty on his head, Noriega's whereabouts still remain unknown. The Americans have their eyes on the Cuban and Nicaraguan embassies,
With US troops overrunning the country, it seems plausible he might seek asylum with a friendly regime. As it turns out, they're not far off the mark. Only the country Noriega has decided to approach is a little more left field. By the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the fugitive is waiting in a Dairy Queen car park. He's dressed in a t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, with a baseball cap hiding his pockmarked face. A Toyota with tinted windows pulls up. Noriega gets in.
At the wheel is a Catholic priest, Father Xavier Villanueva. Villanueva is no fan of Noriega. In fact, every time he leads Mass, he offers prayers for Hugo Spadafora, the popular dissident who was brutally murdered on Noriega's orders four years earlier. But as a good Catholic, Villanueva also believes in forgiveness, and a friend of his called Sebastian Laboa has offered Noriega sanctuary. Sebastian Laboa,
is none other than the personal representative in Panama of the Pope. He ended up taking refuge in the Vatican Nunciatura, was sort of the Vatican embassy, which was kind of ironic given that Noriega was anything but a religious man and had not lived a very religious life. Well, his location was quickly found out and the US military encircled this nunciatura, this papal embassy.
But there's a problem: the property is off-limits to American forces, unless they fancy beachy diplomatic protocol. It's an embassy. It's the Vatican embassy. Unless the individual that resides in that embassy is willing to come out, they're not going to throw you out. You could write a book about the dilemmas that that brought.
You know, like, how do we deal with this? What do we tell the Vatican? And how do you handle that? And obviously, once he shows up somewhere safe, you can't kill him. So you need to handle him legally. For Laboa, too, it's a delicate situation. Laboa, he was in between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he had this very vile creature who he was morally obligated to help. And on the other hand, he had the power
Noriega spends Christmas Day at the nunciature, but it's not exactly a festive occasion. Outside the front gate, La Boa engages in an awkward discussion with American General Max Thurman. The two men share a goal.
to get the dictator out of there as soon as possible. But as Laboa explains, Noriega will have to go willingly. By now the violence on the streets has ceased, but the country is still in a state of chaos. For many Panamanians, Christmas is cancelled. I remember that it was the saddest Christmas ever. As a kid, obviously the only thing you could think of was Christmas and the presents and all that. So there were no presents, obviously.
Martha Duncan spends Christmas Day at the safe house with her new friend, Vicky Armado. Noriega's mistress has finally emerged from her room and is in a more talkative mood. But Martha knows she has to take things slowly. She did a lot of talking about her daughter.
and how she just wanted her to have a better life. We went back to talking about her childhood days and her own family, and we did have a better meal on that one occasion. I wanted to make sure that she did get her rest, wasn't just an interrogation continuously. - With Noriega refusing to budge, Martha is beginning to think that Vicky may be even more valuable than first assumed, because if anyone could persuade the general to surrender,
It'll be the woman he loves. But first, Martha has to win back her trust. Her own feelings about Vicky and her boyfriend don't come into it. I actually had a lot of disdain. I thought to myself, how could you even fathom being with somebody that has ruined our country? So it was an act. It was absolutely an act. But I had to ensure that I showed empathy, that I really cared for her as a human being.
And at one point I asked, "Do you really think that Noriega helped this country, helped your country?" And she couldn't answer that. She didn't answer it because the answer was obvious. She knew in her heart that he really was the cause for the country's demise. As the two women continue talking, Martha is formulating a plan. Her expression about Noriega, that he was a very proud man,
But he was very arrogant and he wanted things a certain way. I then started forming some ideas about Noriega and perhaps a way to get him out of there. Meanwhile, at the nunciature, U.S. General Thurman is putting his own unconventional plan into action. With no sign of Noriega surrendering, the military have decided to smoke him out with rock music. Huge speakers are positioned on the street.
The tunes are to be pumped out 24/7, and the track choices are not exactly subtle. Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy", Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive", even the boppy classic "Give It Up". But as much as the message is targeted at Noriega, the wall of sound around the nunciator is intended to rattle the dictator's hosts as well.
"Loboa is pretty much telling him something to the effect of, 'My son, you need to face the music,' no pun intended. And of course, I think he was looking to save his own sanity as well." After two days and nights of constant noise from their neighbors, the Vatican hits back. A spokesman declares the United States to be an occupying power in Panama.
and insists that the priests will not be intimidated. Reluctantly, the Americans bring the party to an end. Noriega still hasn't been dislodged. The time has come for Martha Duncan to put her own plan into action. A phone line has been established between the safe house and the nuncitu. Vicky is going to speak to her boyfriend.
I said to her, if there's any kind of love here, I think it's important for you to be able to have that dialogue with him. Because if he has any compassion and love towards you, he may want to factor that in in his decision. Up until now, Martha's been in good cop mode. Now it's time to tighten the screws a little.
And I also mentioned that providing us assistance was very, very, very important. And if the assistance was not there, that it would impact her detrimentally in the future. So it really was in her best interest to cooperate fully. It's a high-stakes phone call for everyone involved. At the safe house, Martha talks Vicki through what she will say.
It was important not to have him feel that she was being a puppet, that she was being run by somebody. I did not want any break in the conversation for him to even feel that there was somebody else prodding her. So I spent a lot of time rehearsing these lines, but it was going to have to be from her heart. It was going to have to be something that could come across as being real. The call is placed. In his room, Noriega answers the phone.
Nervously, Vicky begins to make her case. You know, I do love you. I think that there is still the possibility that there is a future if you do come out of there and not go to some other country where I may not see you. And this has to have a better ending than where you're at right now. It's clear to Martha that the young woman is doing her best. Vicky has been successfully turned.
The question now is whether Vicky can turn Noriega. There's one final part of the plan, and it hinges on Noriega's sense of pride.
The military side of him was his life and the uniform was something that he distinguished himself by. And the discussion then became, well, if he were provided his full regalia, that he comes out of the nuncio with that pride that he is still the man in charge.
Coming out with your full pride in your uniform really establishes you as the person that you are. And I just want so bad for this to end. So he said, well, vamos a ver. We'll see. Permitting Noriega to exit the nunciature in his full ceremonial getup would allow him to retain his status as Panama's military leader. But will that be enough for the dictator to take the bait?
The army's top PSYOP specialists have already failed to manipulate him with rock music. Now, everything may hinge on Martha's psychological profiling of the man. "He didn't say, 'I'm gonna do it.' But in the meantime, the military guys were sent out to get his uniform pressed and, you know, get all that stuff done and ready." For now, the lines of communication between Safehouse and Embassy are closed, like the rest of the country.
Martha watches what happens next as it unfolds live on TV. Our last conversation with him was around 5 o'clock on the 3rd of January and he came out the following night, I think about quarter to 9, in his full uniform and walked into the arms of the DEA. Outside the embassy, Noriega is placed in handcuffs and formally arrested. He will shortly be put on a flight to Miami.
where he will await trial for at least some of his crimes. For Martha, born and raised in Panama, it's an emotional moment. But for Noriega, the battle had just begun.
This trial would be a landmark trial because this would be the first time that a former head of state of a foreign government had ever faced criminal charges in an American court of law. For the prosecutors, securing a conviction is critical. The death toll from Operation Just Cause already runs into the thousands. Sending Noriega to jail will go some way to vindicating the invasion.
With the political stakes so high, it's not surprising that many see the outcome as a foregone conclusion. During the whole thing, there was this kind of atmosphere that he was going to get convicted no matter what. I mean, this was not an actual trial. You know, this was a show. One thing that is a bit of a puzzle is why did not Noriega have a better lawyer? There's some speculation that his own lawyer was actually a U.S. government asset.
So there are a lot of puzzles. As with all of these kinds of cases, evidence is a problem. And it's not that you don't have evidence of drug trafficking. It's making the connection to Noriega personally permitted this. Secret information or classified information was not allowed to be used in his trial to defend himself because obviously a trial is public. I mean, I'm not saying it was a fraud or anything, but most of it is based on
testimonies of convicted drug traffickers, like actual drug traffickers, and all the material that he would have wanted to use to defend himself, which is obviously the details of his relationship with the CIA, couldn't be used. And it's still classified. Imagine, 30 years later. With such stringent restrictions placed on Noriega's defense team, an obvious question presents itself. Is this really a fair trial?
Noriega said no, it wasn't. But of course, the accused, especially in this situation, probably wouldn't say that it was. I doubt the people in Nuremberg agreed that it was fair either. And it's been reported that the trial itself was full of irregularities, some cash payments to witnesses in return for their testimony against Noriega.
But nonetheless, this trial did proceed according to civil procedure. Ultimately, it seems like the charges were trumped up a bit, but it really didn't matter whether they were trumped up or not. He was convicted on eight counts of drug trafficking with a few more of money laundering, and even they threw in racketeering for good measure. In July 1992, two and a half years after the invasion of Panama,
Noriega receives a 40-year prison sentence. Now approaching his 60th birthday, it seems likely he'll never know freedom again. But it's not all bad news.
Once he was convicted, he was given some level of a treatment that was in accordance with his status as a former head of state. And he was incarcerated in a minimal security facility called the Metropolitan Correctional Center, which is on the southern outskirts of Miami. So essentially, he was in a hotel with walls. Noriega spends his prison years attempting to clear his name, in the court of public opinion at least.
In 1997 he publishes his memoir, America's Prisoner, working with US journalist Peter Eisner. The book is a bullish defense of his years in power and a damning indictment of his nemesis, George H.W. Bush. The way Noriega sees it, the former CIA director betrayed him for political reasons. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. By now Bush too has been ousted, in his case at the ballot box by Bill Clinton.
But for the former president, Noriega's allegations are still embarrassing. Almost a decade after his downfall, he continues to be a thorn in Bush's side. In 2007, 15 years after his initial conviction, Noriega is released for good behavior. He's recently had himself baptized as a born-again Christian. But Noriega isn't free yet. No sooner have the Americans let him go, he's extradited to France.
This time, the charge is money laundering. Apparently some $3 million of his narcotics profits went into buying luxury Parisian apartments. Another seven-year sentence is added to Noriega's docket. But once more, he'll serve only half of it before he's extradited yet again to Panama. Twenty years after his ousting, Noriega's people are finally ready to bring him to justice.
Panama wanted him as well for the Gallego murders, Espada Fuera murders. So he was back in Panama in 2011, and he was placed in jail at a place with a lovely name, Renacer, which means rebirth. He would spend his time in prison.
continuing to advocate for his position, but there's no doubt that not only did he have health issues, but he deteriorated. What does the ex-dictator do? How do they spend their time? Who am I going to manipulate? And so I think it was kind of like withdrawal from having power. In Panama, Noriega's health takes a turn for the worse. He develops a brain tumor. He has surgery.
but succumbs to a haemorrhage. He dies on May 29th, 2017. Up to the end, Noriega has been protesting his innocence, but there are few who mourn his passing. Noriega has been in prison for almost three decades. In the meantime, his homeland has moved on from the shadow of dictatorship. On December 31st, 1999, the United States formally relinquishes control of the Canal Zone, and Panama doesn't look back.
It was an extraordinary instance of decolonization. The Panamanians got the canal, the economic growth has been phenomenal. It's become a hub of the Americas, economic hub of the Americas. E-commerce, banking, aviation, all of that is now centered in Panama. What a thriving metropolis. You know, the canal itself improved and, you know, ready for the whole century.
The country itself has thrived. It really, it's a beautiful country. Beautiful beaches, beautiful people. Panama has become a country that has now regained its force, its life, its heartbeat.
Noriega's legacy in Panama, at least among Panamanians, is that this was the last and worst brush with dictatorship that they ever wanted to have. And not only from that point forward did Panama become a stable democracy, and has been ever since, but the Panamanians lost their taste for actually having a military.
They have police, yes, but they abolish their military in Panama by constitutional amendment.
And with that, Panama became one of the most stable democratic countries in not just Latin America, but also the world. In fact, currently, Panama ranks among democracies 37th out of 137 countries, which in the grand scheme of things is not too shabby. This is a dramatically transformed country. Today, while Panama's future remains bright,
Difficult questions linger, both about the Noriega years and the intervention that removed him. The Americans took so many documents during the invasion, thousands of boxes full of documents. No one in Panama has been like, OK, let's bring them back and let's just, you know, start a project to see what happened. Everyone is, let's just better not talk about it.
Occupation by foreign powers is never palatable. The Panamanian people didn't deserve that, and they were being punished for Noriega's misdeeds. We're still not sure how many died in the invasion. The loss of buildings through bombing, all of that left a real emotional scar, trauma in Panamanian psyche. I went to the human rights organization, and they were in the process of finding mass graves.
and victims of the invasion in particular. And the process of identifying remains. One of the unfortunate things about just the heat of the building burnings was that bodies were carbonized. I mean, they're just really, really hard to identify. Coming up with a death count, a victim count, having a complete accounting is hard.
It's very convenient to make Noriega the scapegoat of everything. So everything gets centralized in his image. And then he was taken away. It was kind of like, okay, let's just pretend that he was the problem and let's just not deal with it.
When the next time comes along, we might do it a little bit better. But to assume that the United States or any other major power would ever avoid dictators in the future would be a mistaken assumption.
The United States continues, and to this day all major powers do, deal with those types that ultimately are going to benefit them. One way to think about this is the famous saying of the French general and later president Charles de Gaulle, who said that states do not have friends, they only have interest.
And therefore, if a country is your friend today or a dictator is your friend today, they may not be in the future. And if you have to turn on them, that's just the way the ball bounces. In the next episode, we're in southeastern Europe in the 400s AD on the frontier of the Roman Empire. The once mighty dominion is riven in two and on the great Hungarian plain, a fearsome enemy is rising.
The incursions of the Huns will see them level cities and enslave thousands. Across parts of the continent, Roman civilization will be reduced to rubble. In life, and most certainly in death, the Huns' king will become a terrifying, iconic figure. The archetypal warlord, providing a model for would-be strongmen throughout the centuries since. The question is, who is the real man behind the nightmares?
Attila the Hun, coming soon on Real Dictators.
