Panama, 1990 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 5 December 1990, corresponding to the armed uprising led by Colonel Eduardo Herrera Hassan against the government of President Guillermo Endara of Panama. After the December 1989 US invasion that removed Manuel Noriega and dissolved the Panama Defense Forces, the Endara government created a police-oriented Public Force and named Herrera Hassan, a former PDF officer with earlier close US ties, as its director. Herrera Hassan was dismissed in August 1990 on conspiracy charges, linked by investigators to a bombing campaign meant to pressure for a military rather than a purely police force, and was jailed.
On the night of 4 December 1990 he escaped detention by helicopter with help from former PDF members, seized the national police headquarters near Cerro Ancon, and around midday on 5 December marched with about a hundred men toward the presidency before being quickly surrounded and captured by US troops. The uprising coincided with a 4 to 5 December general strike; the government conflated the two and rapidly pushed through Law 25, dismissing nearly a thousand public employees. The 5 December 1990 coding matches this 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
09512051990
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, put down the uprising and captured Herrera Hassan within a day.
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
New York Times
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 →