The US Invasion of Panama
In December 1989 the US launched Operation Just Cause, its largest military operation since Vietnam, to remove Manuel Noriega from power in Panama. Noriega, a former CIA asset who had provided intelligence and facilitated contra operations throughout the 1980s, had been indicted in Florida courts in 1988 on drug-trafficking charges and had annulled the Panamanian election of May 1989 when opposition candidates won. The operation deployed 27,000 US troops; Panamanian Defence Forces resistance collapsed within 36 hours, and Noriega eventually surrendered from the Vatican nunciature where he had taken refuge, following days of US forces playing loud rock music outside. He was convicted in Miami in 1992 and served 17 years in US prison. The invasion killed between 200 and 3,000 Panamanian civilians (figures are disputed) and was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of international law. It illustrated the post-Cold War redefinition of US intervention rationale: drugs and democracy replaced communism as the justifications for military action in the hemisphere, anticipating the frameworks that would organise US foreign policy in the 1990s.
- Year: 1989 CE
- Category: War
