Lugar Calls for New Moves to Force Noriega’s Ouster

A high-ranking Republican senator Sunday urged continued and strengthened moves to replace Gen. Manuel A. Noriega’s regime in Panama, including possible military action conducted by Central Americans “as a last resort to change the government.”

But Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) emphasized that armed force “won’t work, in terms of our over-all diplomacy, unless there is broad-based support for that option with the Panamanian opposition and with Central American friends.”

Lugar, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that there may be a “military option” during an interview on ABC television’s “This Week with David Brinkley,” but his view was challenged by Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, the No. 2 Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

It would be “a very severe mistake to try to use military force out there,” Hamilton said, both because “we would lose a lot of Americans” and because “we would certainly harm ourselves with regard to our friends in Central and Latin America.”

Hamilton urged instead that further attention be given to a regional approach outlined by Lugar, which would work through internal opposition to Noriega among Panamanians and through “Central American friends. . . .”

Both Lugar and Hamilton agreed that the Administration had miscalculated the effectiveness of the push to displace Noriega that got under way in earnest in February when Noriega was indicted on drug trafficking charges by two Florida grand juries.

Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III maintained Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “progress is being made” in closed-door negotiations toward an agreement that would “get Gen. Noriega out of power.” But he declined to spell out details or to comment on reports that U.S. negotiators offered a deal that would permit Noriega to remain in Panama if he steps down. U.S. and Panamanian officials have all said that no accord has yet been reached.

However, Baker denied that there is any plan, while Noriega remains in power, to lift the stiff economic sanctions that Washington and U.S. courts have imposed on Panama.

The impact of the sanctions was portrayed as substantial by Mario Rognoni, Panama’s commerce minister, who was interviewed on the Brinkley show. Panama’s banking system has been damaged “severely,” he said.

Rognoni depicted the sanctions, which were initiated to force Noriega out, as evidence that the United States is “acting as kind of a terrorist group . . . trying to hold hostage Gen. Noriega by discrediting him, by making a political indictment” basically designed to achieve “some changes to your benefit.”

These U.S. goals, according to Rognoni, would relate to the treaty that gives Panama full operating control over the Panama canal in 1999, to the Panamanian banking system and to the U.S. military presence in Panama, which has been augmented since the showdown with Noriega began.