Panama suffers for aiding Shah

Press, 26 December 1979, Page 6

Panama suffers for aiding Shah

NZPA-Reuter Panama City Panama is paying a high price for its hospitality to the hunted Shah of Iran. A week after doing President Carter a favour and giving lhe ousted monarch sanctuary. Panama's Presijdent Aristides Royo is facing daily bloodshed on the streets in some of the worst riots for years. Teenage schoolchildren and university students: battled with the police each day last week, on one occasion hurling bottles of acid. Scores were injured or arrested. And with Iranian threats! to despatch a “hit team” to assassinate the Shah, there were signs this week-end that Panama may be thinking of moving him again. He has been living in a fortress-like villa on the Pacific resort island of Contadora since arriving from the United States 10 days ago. Now political observers say the government may be! considering moving him to an even more secure hideout in the jungle near the 1 Costa Rican border. The spot is the town of. Barbitos, about 590 km from Panama City, in dense forests and with good defences ( against any air attack. It also has a hopistal where doctors could treat! any recurrence of the cancer

j which first led to the Shah’s i being admitted to the United I States and sparked the crisis .with Iran. Militants in Teheran backed by Iran’s revolutionary leaders demanded that President Carter hand him over (for trial and promptly seized the United States Embassy and staff to make the demand stick. Leftists in Panama say Mr Royo and National Guard commander General Omar Torrijos, who is in fact the country’s ruler, buckled to United” States pressure in accepting the Shah after Mexico had changed its mind and refused to let him back in from the United States. Opposition leaders led by a former President, Arnulfo Arias, accuse the National Guard of brutality in quelling the student demonstrastions against the Shah’s presence. President Royo in turn has blamed Leftist agitators for the violence and sworn that he will not budge from his promise to shelter the Shah. Government officials said the demonstrations had to be quelled with energy to avoid driving away the hundreds of wealthy tourists from abroad who do their Christmas shopping in Panama and give a needed boost to the economy.