Opposition criticised

Press, 6 October 1989, Page 8

Opposition criticised

NZPA-Reuter Miami Panama’s Opposition leaders are being criticised for failing to back a coup attempt against Panama’s leader, General Manuel Noriega, in spite of their own open appeals for young officers to make such a move.

Early on Wednesday, as the officers broadcast their attempt to oust General Noriega, hundreds of jubilant opposition backers took to the streets to celebrate what they thought was victory.

The crowd surged towards the building where Guillermo Endara, Opposition candidate for President in May’s failed,elections, was on a two-week-old hunger strike. Instead of finding Opposition leaders rallying civilians to back the coup, the crowd found nothing. Mr Endara and the other Opposition leaders had disappeared into hiding “for security reasons,” a spokesman said. Twenty-four hours later they were still out of sight

except for the Opposition vice-presidential candidate, Guillermo Ford, who, in the United States on a visit, said the civilian anti-Noriega leaders had not known that the coup was in the offing.

A former United States Ambassador to Panama, Ambler Moss, defended the Opposition’s .decision to hide, saying that amid the confusion of a coup, the civilian opposition could not even be sure who was behind the takeover attempt,