Panama, 1990 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 16 October 1990, during the Eduardo Herrera Hassan conspiracy period against the government of President Guillermo Endara of Panama, whose administration had begun the day of the December 1989 US invasion that removed Manuel Noriega and dissolved the Panama Defense Forces. Endara's government replaced the disbanded PDF with a police-oriented Public Force and appointed Colonel Herrera Hassan, a former PDF officer with earlier close ties to the United States, as its director. Herrera Hassan was dismissed on 22 August 1990 on charges of conspiracy, linked by investigators to a bombing campaign meant to pressure the government into maintaining a military rather than a purely police force, and was then detained.
His successor was in turn dismissed in October 1990, reflecting continuing turmoil within the new security force. The affair culminated on 5 December 1990, when Herrera Hassan escaped detention by helicopter, seized the national police headquarters in Panama City, and marched toward the presidency before being surrounded and captured by US troops. The 16 October 1990 coding sits in this period of conspiracy and instability within the Public Force between Herrera Hassan's August dismissal and his December uprising.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
09510161990
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Endara's government, backed by US troops, defeated the December uprising and captured Herrera Hassan.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
The Sun
The Ottawa Citizen
The Guardian
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →