November 22, 1993

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https://youtu.be/_JPwMaQqdOA?feature=shared

Interview with Oliver Stone & Manuel Noriega

for The Nation

November 22, 1993

Metropolitan Correctional Center, Miami.

Morning, November 22, 1993.

I am in a conference room with General Manuel Noriega, now P.O.W. #38699-079; his daughter Sandra; and a paralegal, who is interpreting. The deputy warden waits at the other end of the table. The interview lasts three hours. What follows is a condensation of our conversation. The general declined to be quoted regarding his legal appeal and any new evidence he may present.

As we begin the formal interview, the general is showing me a book of personal photographs and map of his country, dotted with more than a dozen U.S. military bases.

Noriega: It’s always important to know the strategy of the United States, when there are points to view contrary to your politics. It’s as Kissinger said, “You first have to create the problem in order to solve the problem,” and that’s what’s been done with my position. From 1970 until 1988, plus six more years before that when I was a student, I was a friend of the United States. In everything related to intelligence [and] to military assistance. I fought as a Panamanian patriot, and when I opposed their point of view regarding the Panama Canal, when I began to say, “No, no” to the violation of the Canal Treaty, after twenty-four years of friendship suddenly I become a devil. They needed to create a devil in order to get rid of the devil. That’s what happened.