Leader of Failed Panama Coup Is Buried

PANAMA CITY —  The army major who led the unsuccessful coup against Gen. Manuel A. Noriega was buried Monday, and opposition leader Guillermo Endara ended a 19-day hunger strike.

Several reports have said that an enraged Noriega personally shot Maj. Moises Giroldi Vega to death minutes after the coup attempt against the Panamanian leader ended a week ago.

Relatives of Giroldi, 38, said that he was shot once in the neck and twice in the chest. His mother, Eloisa, cried “They murdered him!” and flung herself on the coffin.

The major led an uprising Oct. 3 and captured Noriega, who commands the Panama Defense Forces and controls the government, but gave up when loyalists counterattacked while U.S. troops looked on from a few hundred yards away.

Defense Forces officials said that eight officers and two sergeants were killed. They have not explained the circumstances or responded to reports that some were slain after surrendering.

Medical Bulletin

Endara ended his fast and entered a clinic to “normalize my body’s system.”

A medical bulletin said that his “conscious process was excellent and his conversation coherent,” but he was suffering “from progressive debilitation.”

The opposition leader has urged Panamanians to delay paying taxes and utility bills and to shun the government-operated lottery and casinos, on which the regime has depended for much of its revenue during the past 18 months.

The United States has applied economic sanctions and other pressure against Panama to try to topple Noriega since federal grand juries in Florida indicted him early last year on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

Noriega asserts that all efforts to oust him, including those undertaken by his local opponents here, are part of a U.S. plot to renege on the 1977 treaties that turned the Panama Canal over to this country in 1979. The continuing U.S. roles in the operation and defense of the canal are scheduled to end for good Dec. 31, 1999.

At a news conference, Endara said he felt his hunger strike was a success. He said the opposition did not look with approval on Giroldi’s attempted coup because it represented “Noriega-ism without Noriega,” not a movement toward democracy.

Capt. Leon Tejada, another rebel, was buried at the same small red stone church over the weekend. “He had one bullet wound in the right temple,” said Tejada’s mother, Esther, who was at the church again for Giroldi’s burial.

About 100 people attended the funeral Mass for Giroldi.

“They were good friends,” Esther Tejada said. “My son had just come back from (U.N. duty in) Namibia last Saturday. On Tuesday he told his wife he had to go to headquarters and would return later to go see his baby girl.

“We did not hear anything until Wednesday when they said on television that he was dead. We picked up the body.”

Giroldi’s widow and three children did not attend. They have been under U.S. Army protection at Ft. Clayton here since the coup attempt.

Defense Forces officials say that the rebels surrendered after nearly five hours of negotiations with Noriega, who was their hostage at Defense Forces headquarters.

Helms Blames Noriega

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and several U.S. publications have said Noriega personally shot Giroldi in the final moments of the doomed uprising.

Endara, the opposition’s presidential candidate in May, took refuge in the Vatican’s embassy after soldiers beat him and threw him out of his office Thursday. Shortly before the assault, Noriega claimed he had evidence that the United States planned to install Endara as president.

Foreign observers and the Roman Catholic Church here said that Endara’s ticket won the May 7 election by a 3-1 margin, but Noriega had the results annulled May 10. U.S. officials have said they consider Endara the legitimate president of Panama.