General Noriega's pen pal: An American school girl
By Vicky Baker BBC News
1 June 2017
From the section US & Canada
Andrea was around 14 years old, flipping through her school friend's photo album when something strange caught her eye.
She was at a US boarding school in the early 1990s and, in the days before mobile phones, everyone kept their hard copy keepsakes with them. "There were all these pictures of her family in rural Michigan," she recalled. "Baby photos of her and her siblings…"
But then among all the standard-issue images, something a little different caught her eye. There was her friend, Sarah, sitting with someone else's family: the family of General Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian leader who died on Tuesday.
Andrea recognised him instantly. In the 1980s, Noriega was public enemy number one in the US, as the country battled for continuing control of the Panama Canal. Coming across this photo back then was the equivalent of finding decades-old photos of a school pal cosying up with Osama Bin Laden.
Continued: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40104069
Good story, even if the girl was probably used for propaganda purposes.
