From 1903 until 1968, Panama was a constitutional democracy dominated by a commercially oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military [known as the National Guard following conversion during that decade from the long-standing National Police] began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony. In October 1968, Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid, twice elected president [1940 and1949] and twice ousted [1941 and 1951] by the National Police, was ousted October 11, 1968, for the third time as president by the National Guard after only 10 days in office. A military junta government was established, and the commander of the National Guard, Brigadier General Omar Torrijos [at that time a lieutenant colonel], soon emerged as the principal power in Panamanian political life. Torrijos' regime was harsh and corrupt, but his charisma, populist domestic programs, and nationalist (anti-U.S.) foreign policy appealed to the rural and urban constituencies largely ignored by the oligarchy.

Torrijos' death in 1981 [in an airplane crash in Panama] altered the tone but not the direction of Panama's political evolution. Despite the 1983 constitutional amendments, which appeared to proscribe a political role for the military, the Panama Defense Forces (PDF), as they were then known [since the 1983 reorganization of the National Guard], continued to dominate Panamanian political life behind a facade of civilian government. By this time, General Manuel Noriega was firmly in control of both the PDF and the civilian government.

The United States froze economic and military assistance to Panama in the summer of 1987 in response to the domestic political crisis and an attack on the U.S. Embassy. General Noriega's February 1988 indictment in U.S. courts on drug-trafficking charges sharpened tensions. In April 1988, President Reagan invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, freezing Panamanian Government assets in all U.S. institutions [and prohibiting payments by American agencies, firms, and individuals to the Noriega regime]. When national elections were held in May 1989, Panamanians voted for the anti-Noriega candidates [Guillermo Endara heading the opposition ticket] by a margin of over three-to-one. The Noriega regime promptly annulled the election and embarked on a new round of repression. By the fall of 1989, the regime was barely clinging to power, and the regime's paranoia made daily existence unsafe for American citizens [including U.S. forces and their dependents].

On December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. military into Panama to protect U.S. lives and property, to fulfill U.S. treaty responsibilities to operate and defend the Canal, to assist the Panamanian people in restoring democracy, and to bring Noriega to justice. The U.S. troops involved in Operation Just Cause achieved their primary objectives quickly, and troop withdrawal began on December 27, 1989.  Noriega eventually surrendered voluntarily to U.S. authorities. He completed his sentence for drug trafficking charges in September 2007.  [His sentence to a 30-year prison term in Miami  for protecting Colombian cocaine shipments through Panama in the 1980s was reduced for good behavior.]  In August 2007, a U.S. federal court in Miami found Noriega extraditable to France to serve a sentence imposed there after an in absentia conviction for money laundering.  Noriega remains in custody pending the outcome of his legal challenges to the certificate of extraditability issued August 2007.

REBUILDING DEMOCRACY

Panama 's Electoral Tribunal moved quickly to rebuild the civilian constitutional government, reinstated the results of the May 1989 election on December 27, 1989 , and confirmed the victory of President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents Guillermo Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderon.