MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Nicaraguan troops backed by tanks surrounded the U.S. Embassy in Managua Thursday in retaliation for the placement of U.S. tanks and troops around the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama.
Some 100 Nicaraguan soldiers carrying Soviet-made AK-47 automatic rifles encircled the U.S. Embassy compound at noon. At least six T-55 tanks were also positioned in front of the embassy.
Nicaraguan officials said the mobilization of troops at the U.S. Embassy was in retaliation for the placement of U.S. tanks outside the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City.
U.S. troops, tanks and other military vehicles moved into position around the Nicaraguan and Cuban embassies in Panama City Thursday. U.S. authorities in Washington said the troops were engaging in surveillance to ensure that Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel Noriega did not attempt to slip into either of the embassies.
'Nicaraguan troops will do exactly the same thing that North American troops do at the embassy in Panama,' Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto said after speaking with John Leonard, a U.S. Embassy representative who was called to the Foreign Ministry in Managua.
D'Escoto also said that President Daniel Ortega had spoken by telephone with Nicaraguan ambassador to Panama, Antenor Ferrey, and asked him to defend the 'inviolability of the (embassy) as if it were Nicaraguan soil.'
Lt. Col. Julio Ramos, who was in charge of the Nicaraguan operation, said the Sandinista forces were following government orders and that they were responding to U.S. actions near the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama City.
D'Escoto said he would study the possibility of granting asylum to Noriega if he asked for it, but added he did not think he would ask for asylum.
'We would study a request from Noriega for asylum as we would if George Bush requested it,' D'Escoto said.
On Wednesday, Nicaragua placed its troops on maximum alert because of the U.S. attacks in Panama.
'I have also ordered the mobilization of troops and a maximum-grade alert nationwide,' Ortega said in a statement addressed to other heads of state and the secretaries-general of the United Nations and the Organization of American States.
A newscaster for Radio Sandino, the official radio of the ruling Sandinista Front, said Wednesday, 'The entire people of Nicaragua are on the alert, ready to combat United States aggression.'
