Why did George Bush Senior take the trouble to invade Panamá at the end of 1999? If the arrest of Panamanian President Manuel Antonio Noriega is accepted as the president's stated objective for the military action, then why so many casualties? The official bodycount is 500 Panamanians dead and over 3,000 wounded, with 23 Americans dead and 324 wounded, though the actual numbers are doubtless much higher. The biopic Noriega: God's Favorite seeks to provide an answer to both questions. Roger Spottsiwoode, the film's director, won a Political Film Society award for his feature film Air America (1990), but his portrayal of the circumstances surrounding Noriega's rise and fall was exhibited only on television, presumably because Regency Enterprises and Showtime Networks envisaged no box office success. Nevertheless, a wider distribution of the film might have served to raise questions about George Bush Junior's monomaniacal pursuit of Saddam Hussein in 2002/2003. In any case, General Noriega (played by Bob Hoskins) appears as a tragic figure in the film, with a biography relayed in the form of a confession to a priest interspersed with events immediately leading up to his surrender to the American military. Born illegitimately in 1934 and forced to live on the streets of Panamá at a young age, Noriega quickly learned that the easiest way to survive in his country was to cozy up to the Americans, whose control of the Panamá Canal brought money to those who would do Uncle Sam's bidding. During the 1980s, when the Reagan administration supported the Contras who were trying to topple the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, Congress voted to cut off all aid to the Contras. Accordingly, longtime American puppet Noriega agrees to funnel arms to the Contras purchased from the proceeds of drug smuggling, using Panamá as a base to process Colombian coca; his rewards are a percentage of the profits from the drug trade and a guaranteed position as the top military officer in the country. However, early in 1989 Noriega arranges to execute someone who exposes his role in the illicit trade with the Americans. When Noriega assigns responsibility for the deed to the president of Panamá, whom he forces to resign, he infuriates newly elected President Bush and many other observers of the Central American role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Bush then calls for a new presidential election in Panamá to unseat Noriega's choice, even sending Jimmy Carter to supervise the elections. But Pineapple Face arranged to have ballot boxes stuffed and ultimately issues a rhetorical defiance of the United States that Bush mistranslates as a declaration of war so that he can take military action to remove Noriega from power. After the invasion is launched, Bush informs the American people that Noriega is a notorious criminal who has been indicted for racketeering and money laundering by a federal prosecutor in Miami. Meanwhile, there are glimpses into the everyday if often comedic life of Noriega, including his women, his subordinates, and his quixotic style of governance. Time after time, Noriega seems in a hopeless situation, only to rebound each time, so in his confession he opines that he must be a favorite of God. However, his luck runs out when American troops enter Panamá. After surrendering in the belief that he will again escape oblivion, he is convicted and sentenced to forty years imprisonment. Astute observers, of course, realize that he was removed so that a puppet ruler could be installed, thus guaranteeing American control of the Panamá Canal after its reversion to Panamanian sovereignty on January 1, 2000. But Noriega's solitary confinement also serves Bush's objective of silencing him regarding facts about the Iran-Contra affair, the American involvement in the Colombian drug trade, and countless other CIA escapades. Noriega: God's Favorite breaks that silence. MH
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