All week long, while his rebellious country simmered, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the besieged ruler of Panama, calmly went about preparing for the wedding of one of his three daughters, Sandra. In a Latin equivalent of the royal wedding, she was to marry the son of a general of the Dominican Republic at a lavish Sunday ceremony. The wedding, however, did not come off as planned. Instead, Sandra was married without fanfare at midweek, evidently to avoid the demonstrations that have become an almost daily feature of life in Panama City, the country's steamy capital.
The hastily rearranged nuptials seemed to sum up the frustrations and fears that have dominated Panama for weeks. The current unrest began last month, when charges of corruption were publicly leveled against Noriega by his former second in command. First, in response to a wave of antigovernment protesters, authorities imposed a 19-day state of emergency, which was lifted two weeks ago. Next, riot police were sent into the streets to stop opposition forces from mounting regular protest rallies. Last week the government unleashed its latest weapon in the fight to keep Panama from boiling over: a presidential decree that prohibits all public protests and rallies.
Only three days after the ban, thousands of Panamanians defiantly took to the streets of the capital. Their demand: dump General Noriega, who is not only the country's military commander but its de facto dictator. The government responded with determination. As helicopters monitored events from ! above, hundreds of riot police fanned out through the streets, controlling the crowds with nightsticks, tear gas and volleys of bird shot. Several people were hurt, none of them seriously. As the government digested the latest threat to its authority, concern was growing in Washington that one of the closest U.S. allies in the hemisphere was headed for a long period of instability.
Though the anti-Noriega crowds have at times seemed impressive in a country of only 2.2 million people, neither the opposition nor the government is unified. One government rift became apparent last week, when Vice President Roderick Esquivel called upon President Eric Arturo Delvalle to form a commission to look into allegations that have implicated Noriega in murder, drug trafficking and election fraud. Esquivel's maneuver was a rebuke to the civilian President, who a few days earlier had publicly told his Attorney General to investigate the charges. Opposition forces objected that the Attorney General was under Noriega's influence. By siding with the opposition, Esquivel publicized a split within the governing ranks wide enough to drive several truckloads of protesters through.