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By Newsweek Editors
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At the Hacienda Country Club outside Panama City, the clubhouse overlooks a sparkling blue pool, a polo field and hundreds of bushy green acres, subdivided into expensive housing lots. The brochure, which features horses grazing and diners toasting, teases: "Come and experience a new style of life in Panama." That is what the owner did. In 1993 Jorge Serrano Elias, who had recently been elected president of Guatemala, tried to dissolve the Congress. When he failed, he fled the country and ended up in Panama. There is a warrant for his arrest on charges of abusing power and corruption in Guatemala, but past Panamanian governments have rejected three attempts to extradite him. There is no shortage of places to stash a small fortune in Panama. The club may offer "the sensation of living in the country," as the brochure advertises, but it is "only 30 minutes from the banking district."
With its banking-secrecy laws and central location in the Western Hemisphere, Panama over the decades has gained a reputation as a haven for disgraced dictators and failed coup plotters. And in September, when Vladimiro Montesinos arrived, it appeared that Panama would play that role again. But his stay became an important political test for the country, which has been trying to clean up its image and assert its sovereignty since Washington turned over the Panama Canal last year. Montesinos's mysterious departure last week appears to have been driven by events in Peru. But his icy reception in Panama must have made the choice easier. "Everyone here was against the presence of Montesinos," said Julio Yoa, a professor of foreign affairs at the University of Panama. "Panamanians are tired of their country being a dump for personaenon gratae."
While Panama has a long tradition of taking in all sorts of refugees on its own, the United States has also had a major role in persuading the country to accept some guests you might not want to invite to dinner. In 1979, when Jimmy Carter negotiated the resettlement of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the deposed shah of Iran, it took five helicopter flights to transport his luggage to the Panamanian island of Contadora. And in 1994, the United States prevailed on Panama's leaders to unroll the welcome mat for Raoul Cedras, the deposed Haitian dictator. His Army chief of staff, Philippe Biamby, came along. The two are so rarely seen in public that in a front-page story last week--on efforts in Haiti to bring them to justice--a Panamanian paper had to use a stock photo of their arrival six years ago.
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Other leaders chose Panama on their own. Serrano, who declined to be interviewed, has denied accusations that he robbed the national coffers. Also facing an arrest warrant in his own country is Abdala Bucaram, the Ecuadoran president impeached in 1997 for "mental incapacity" and accused of stealing $88 million. The one attempt to extradite him failed.
Montesinos was also drawn to Panama. In early 1999, Panamanian government records show, he applied for--and was granted--residency status for one year. Last month Panama first refused to let him in. Calls from several presidents--and the U.S. State Department--convinced officials that giving him safe haven was the only way to prevent a coup in Lima. And when Panama issued a renewable 30-day tourist visa, it was far from clear that Montesinos would eventually be given asylum. Earlier this year the government rejected the claim of a coup plotter in Paraguay who had sought refuge in Panama's embassy there. Analysts say that government officials saw the Montesinos decision as a bargaining chip that could be used to get Panama off an international blacklist of money-laundering countries.
Over the years, the arrival of shady characters has sparked little outcry. But Montesinos prompted angry editorials and small street protests. He rejected the Panamanian government's offer of bodyguards and hired his own. The closest he came to appearing in public was allowing a paper to take a photo of him reclining in a chair reading.
His departure last Sunday night was filled with intrigue. In a radio broadcast, he said that guerrillas and narcos were trying to kill him. Taking off from a municipal airport, he apparently left without notifying the government. The plane belongs to Marc Harris, a U.S.-born millionaire and owner of a controversial investment company that the Panamanian government is trying to close on charges that he doesn't have an investment license. (Harris said he is being unfairly targeted and Montesinos is not a client.) Also on board were a Peruvian-born lawyer who works for Harris and Amadis Jimenez, a former Panamanian major who worked with the Americans after the toppling of Manuel Noriega in 1989. Through his lawyer, Montesinos sent the Panamanian president, Mireya Moscoso, a letter saying that he still wanted asylum. But the government has officially closed the case. The message to all out-of-work tyrants should be clear: not accepting applications.
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