Venezuelan leader

President Trump announced the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday morning, 36 years to the day U.S. forces arrested another accused Latin American leader.

A former US ally and CIA informant, Manuel Noriega He led Panama for much of the 1980s.

He grew up in the slums of Panama City and rose to prominence under General Omar Torrijos, who seized power in a coup in 1968. After Torrijos died in a plane crash in 1983, Noriega took control of the Panamanian government. He was supported by US officials, who paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight drug trafficking.

Noriega spent years on the CIA payroll, helping American interests throughout Latin America and acting as a liaison to Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Former US officials testified that Noriega’s assistance was crucial in promoting foreign policy interests in South America during that time.

Noriega fell out of favor with Washington due to his demands for independence and accusations that he was accepting bribes to allow drugs into the United States in the late 1980s. Former President George H. W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Panama in late 1989, sending 24,000 troops to overthrow Noriega’s government. The operation left 23 American soldiers dead and hundreds more wounded.

Noriega hid in the Vatican embassy before surrendering to US authorities on January 3, 1990. He was brought to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. His fall caused the end of the military dictatorship of Panama.

Noriega was convicted of drug trafficking and spent 20 years in a US prison. he was extradited to France in 2010 to serve a seven-year sentence for money laundering. In 2011, it was sent to panama to complete a 60-year sentence for murder, corruption and embezzlement during three-decade military rule.

In 2015, Noriega gave his first interview in almost 20 years of his Panamanian prison. He called himself “the last general of the military era” and apologized to those who were “offended, affected, injured or humiliated” by his own actions or those of his superiors and subordinates during the military regime.

Noriega died after complications from surgery to remove a benign brain tumor in 2017. He was 83 years old. Juan Carlos Varela, then president of Panama, said that his death “closes a chapter in our history.”

House Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford commented on the connection between Noriega’s capture and the operation in Venezuela in a statement shared on social media.

“This is a historic day in the Western Hemisphere, 36 years after the capture of Manuel Noriega, when the United States demonstrated that we will not allow cartels to take over countries in our shared neighborhood. The arrest of Cartel de Los Soles leader Nicolás Maduro clearly demonstrates this,” said Crawford, a Republican from Arkansas. “Venezuela could never begin the path back to the great nation it once was until Maduro was out of the way. I call on the Venezuelan people to reclaim their freedom.”