Gunmen shoot at crowd

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 10

Gunmen shoot at crowd

NZPA-Reuter Panama City One person had been killed and 41 others injured, the police said, when violence flared after Panama’s first free elections in 16 years. They said that heavily armed men wearing colours of the governing Revolutionary Democratic Party had opened fire yesterday on Opposition supporters outside the legislative palace, where they were waiting for election results. Inside the palace officials continued tallying votes but no results were known more than 24 hours after pollingstations closed. Both candidates claim on the basis of unofficial results to have won. Members of the country’s powerful National Guard on duty at the palace did not intervene when shooting broke out, and Guard reinforcements sent to the palace had mingled outside with the armed civilians, witnesses said. A spokesman for the Opposition said yesterday that delays in vote counting had raised suspicions of electoral manipulation by the Guard, traditionally a dominant force in Panamanian politics. The Guard’s chief, Briga-dier-General Manuel Antonio Noriega, has said that the force was neutral in the elections and would respect the out&me.