Will Maduro Suffer the Same Fate as General Manuel Antonio Noriega and Face Trial in Miami

VENEZUELA

U.S. deployment of warships to Caribbean rekindles memory of Panama invasion

By Jay Weaver and Antonio María Delgado

As three Navy destroyers and three amphibious warships move toward the coast of Venezuela this weekend in an ostensible U.S. counternarcotics operation, the Trump administration’s show of force is rekindling memories of another presidency, era and country.

In mid-December 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered a military invasion of Panama, saying its strongman leader, Manuel Noriega, a one-time American ally and CIA informant, was a threat to U.S. interests in the Canal Zone and a corrupt general wanted on drug-trafficking charges for turning his country into a narco-state for Colombian cartels.

During Operation Just Cause, the U.S. troops not only used force but blasted rock music, including songs by the band Guns ‘n’ Roses, as Noriega took sanctuary in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City. He surrendered on Jan. 3, 1990, and was whisked away to Miami, where he would later stand trial, be convicted and spend about 20 years in prison.

Two South Florida lawyers — one who charged Noriega and another who defended him — say that it may look like President Donald Trump has ripped a page out of the Panama playbook as U.S. Naval forces veer toward Venezuela. But attorneys Richard “Dick” Gregorie and Jon May point out there are similarities and differences between then and now. They also say it’s unlikely that Trump, who has an avowed aversion for committing U.S. troops in warfare around the globe, would risk invading a country the size of Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, like Noriega at the height of the U.S. war on drugs, was indicted by a New York grand jury on drug-trafficking charges in 2020. But Maduro is the leader of an oil- and mineral-rich country that, despite its economic troubles, is far larger and more powerful than Panama. Moreover, Maduro doesn’t exert the same degree of control over his military as the Panamanian dictator did over his forces in the 1980s.

“There’s a big difference between the situation that was going on in Panama at the time than what is going in Venezuela,” Gregorie said in an interview on Friday. “There’s something else going on [other] than drug trafficking,” added Gregorie, who worked as a high-level federal prosecutor in Miami and other parts of the country for more than 40 years before his retirement in 2018. “That’s not the reason why

Trump is sending those ships down there. “There’s more going on and intelligence that I don’t have access to,” he said, noting Venezuela’s ties to Iran and the South American country’s substantial mineral resources.

May, who along with attorney Frank Rubino defended Noriega at his 1992 trial in Miami, agreed with the former prosecutor, saying that while Maduro and Noriega seem like similar targets as accused drug traffickers in the United States, invading Venezuela would be foolish.

“I can’t imagine the United States invading Venezuela – other than the crazy factor,” May said, noting that Trump’s sending the fleet of destroyers and warships to Venezuela is a “modest” mission, but perhaps “just enough saber rattling” to help him and the Republicans in the midterm elections next year.

“It was really easy for the U.S. military to crush Panama,” he said, “but it would not be the same thing in Venezuela. You have a highly motivated army in Venezuela that would provide stiff resistance. It would be suicidal.”

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