Panama-Echoes From A Revolution

In the early part of March 1980, reports out of Panama’s westernmost province of Chiriqui began to circulate at first by word of mouth and then later by the government-controlled newspapers concerning a guerilla group that was supposedly operating in the vast mountain-range that formed throughout the province.

            This mountain range, the Cordillera Central, had once been the scene of numerous guerilla clashes that took place shortly after Omar Torrijos took over as “hombre de fuerte” of the Republic of Panama.

            The rugged mountains provided excellent cover and concealment for any guerrilla groups.

            The 37-year-old Jose Fidel Guerra looked as far as his eyes could see from his mountainous lair, just outside the town of Boquete, the place where he and his column of fighters would engage Torrijos’ Panamanian National Guard, and once again, he thought to himself, he would lead others to continue the war, which, in the minds of Noriega’s G-2, had ended just five months before.

            Guerra (meaning “war” in Spanish), had under his command a column of men, some of whom were no more than teenagers.

            Certainly he had, up to this point, never been in combat, let alone in the military, which he was preparing to do battle with.

            He’d gone to Costa Rica upon hearing the news of Bermudez and Bleming’s capture, in the days following October 11, 1979, and met with Abraham Crocamo, Bill Carpenter, and Ernesto Crussett, telling them that he had men who were willing to carry on the armed struggle, but what they lacked were arms and ammunition and the training to carry on the fight.

             Of course his offer was almost immediately accepted by Crocamo. The remaining Americans still possessed a sizeable array of firepower, as well as ammunition and dynamite to further the cause. If it could not be under the banner of the Front, it mattered not, for the plans could be altered to allow for the inclusion of others, if they also would fight to bring down Torrijos.

            Bill Carpenter once described Jose Fidel Guerra as having the courage of a lion, the tenacity and ferociousness of a tiger, and the cunningness of a fox.

            With Abraham Crocamo out of the picture for the moment, it would be Guerra’s turn to light the fire of rebellion from the smoking ashes of defeat, and light it he did with a vengeance.

            Jose Fidel Guerra’s Panamanian Nationalist Front was an unknown entity both to Tom Bleming and to the Central Intelligence Agency before, during, and after it made its “debut” in “La Lucha,” which had been launched in Chiriquí Province the prior year by Crocamo’s Front for the National Liberation of Panama and which came to a crashing end for most of those connected with this organization once Bleming Bermudez, Barletta, Portocarrero, and hundreds of others were arrested and subsequently imprisoned.

            So when it started its campaign in western Panama, it was viewed by Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Noriega as a force to be dealt with by using every means at his disposal, which meant the use of his “sapo’s,” intimidation, and a host of other methods that had in the past and always seemed to work to his advantage.

            After all, Noriega prided his organization, the G-2, on being “siempre alerta,” as well as “all knowing,” when it came to the internal security of the Republic of Panama.

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