Noriega Reportedly Purges Armed Forces

PANAMA CITY, Panama--An opposition leader said yesterday that Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega was purging his army of suspected opponents, and doctors joined businesses in a general strike aimed at ousting the military strongman.

Guillermo Cochez, a national legislator and vice president of the opposition Christian Democratic Party, told reporters that Noriega apparently had fired two senior colonels and two majors suspected of being disloyal.

Cochez said those ousted included Col. Marcos Justines, who as chief of staff was No. 2 in the Panamanian Defense Forces and next in line to succeed Noriega.

For a second day, the strike was marked by violence in a middle-class neighborhood near the banking district. On Tuesday, security agents destroyed an opposition radio station in the neighborhood, apparently because it broadcast an appeal for anti-Noriega demonstrations.

Demonstrators gathered yesterday along the four-lane street in front of the station, set up barricades of burning trash, and set fire to a minivan and a car.

Anti-riot police chased the protesters into side streets and apartment buildings. Chunks of concrete were hurled down at police from at least two of the apartment houses.

Police fired tear-gas grenades and pumped tear gas into the buildings from portable tanks, filling the entire neighborhood with the acrid, stinging fumes.

The officer in charge stood in the middle of the street and shouted to residents, "You'll come out like cockroaches!"

None did, and reporters on the scene saw no one injured.

A spokesman for the Panama Canal Commission said anonymous telephone callers warned for the past two days that a bomb was planted in commission headquarters.

Spokesman Franklin Castrellon told The Associated Press the building was evacuated and searched both days but no bombs were found.

In Washington, meanwhile, William D. Rogers, a lawyer for a Panamanian opposition group, said the State Department was taking legal action to keep Noriega's regime from withdrawing Panamanian government funds from U.S. banks. About $50 million was said to be involved.

Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams raised the possibility that the United States will withhold the next payment due to Panama for tolls, fees and services for Panama Canal operations.

Abrams also told the Cable News Network that "if the government of President [Eric Arturo] Delvalle says to American banks, don't pay money to Noriega, then all those banks are going to come to the State Department and say, 'Who's got the authority here? Noriega or Delvalle?"

"We're going to answer that question...Noriega has been fired and he does not have legitimate authority there," Abrams said.

Cochez said he could not "absolutely confirm" the firings, but several diplomatic sources said they also had heard the reports and tended to believe them.

Justines was chosen by President Devalle on Feb. 25 to replace Noriega, but Devalle's attempt to fire Noriega backfired. Noriega supporters in the National Assembly instead voted to oust Delvalle.

Justines then joined other ranking officers in pledging their loyalty to Noriega, who is under indictment in the U.S.

Cochez said Col. Elias Castillo, the army chief and the No. 4 man in the military hierarchy, also was fired, along with two majors, Moises del Rio and Fernando Quesada.

The armed forces press office said it could not confirm the reported removals of officers.