Page 28 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

General Staff attended by newswoman Migdalia Fuentes of La Prensa, described the
man who would eventually receive the military nod. “The next president”, Noriega
stated with the silent approval of the top brass, “must be a great administrator, a man
trained in economics, with international connections, who knows what doors to knock
at the world’s development centers. He must be a sober young man, free of traumas
1
from the past”. He did not mention –perhaps he thought they were obvious– other
requirements the official candidate had to meet, namely: a proven willingness to adapt
more to the dictates of force that to the voice of reason, above average histrionic
abilities to effectively lie and deceive, and an unlimited capacity to look the other way.

But describing the official candidate was not enough. He had to be directly
appointed. For this purpose, a meeting was held on December 5, 1983, of leaders of the
Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the official party, Torrijista to the core, and
the National Guard General Staff. The meeting took place in the Commander’s Office
conference room. There was nothing unusual about the PRD meeting with the military
in their barracks. There were numerous precedents that spoke eloquently to the true
nature of the regime. There was, for instance, the meeting held on September 18, 1982,
at the Rio Hato military base. Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera unabashedly stated at this
meeting that “because of a simple spiritual and political equation, the PRD and the
National Guard shall always be allies”.

With his characteristic mixture of political acumen and sardonic wit, Guillermo
Sánchez Borbón of La Prensa reported on the December 5 meeting in his column “En
Pocas Palabras” of December 7: “The meeting between the PRD [the Spanish initials
could also stand for To Be Slighted] and the General Staff, was held the day before
yesterday at the former’s request. Gerardo González Vernaza took the floor to state
that theirs was the party of the Guard. In 1972, the representatives had elected Angueto
Riera, he reminded his listeners. Yet, on an order from Torrijos the guns came off their
holsters, which was all it took for them to think things over and vote instead for Lakas.
So, give the word, he said. Tell us whom you want as a candidate, and we will nominate
him right away. This very minute. Ahumada said: You have betrayed the process; the
process is a progressive one; therefore, the candidate has to be of the left”.

But the candidate would not be of the left. Quite the opposite: The candidate
would be a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, considered by many
to be the Mecca of the financial right. The candidate would not even be a member of
the PRD. The candidate would be Dr. Nicolás Ardito Barletta who, according to
Noriega, fully met the requirements set forth in the celebrated meeting of October 31.
Moreover, his six-year stint as Torrijos’s Minister of Planning left no doubt that he also
met those other requirements that Noriega had failed to mention, possibly because he
thought them obvious.

Nevertheless, several weeks elapsed before Barletta was officially announced
as the PRD candidate. Why this delay? Simply because Barletta was not a good

1 La Prensa, October 31, 1983, page 14A.