Born on June 27, 1938, as the seventh of nine siblings in Santiago, the capital city of the Panamanian province of Veraguas, Roberto Díaz-Herrera was raised by his parents, Anastacio Díaz-Jiménez, a teacher, and Gregoria Herrera, who worked as a housewife and sold bread and desserts at a local store.
On September 7, 1977, US President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
In June 1987, Diaz-Herrera was forcibly retired by General Manuel Antonio Noriega-Hererra (his cousin), who was the de-facto ruler of Panama at the time.
Noriega it was rumored felt threatened by Diaz who had grown in influence and respect within the Panamanian Defense Forces (FDP).
Following his forced retirement, in an interview with Panama's leading opposition newspaper, La Prensa, Colonel Díaz made a strong declaration against Noriega.
These allegations led many people in Panama to protest, resulting in a suspension of constitutional protections and austere measures by the Noriega regime including arrest and detainment of protestors and opposition party leaders, government seizure of local television stations, and tear gassing of students and accused brutality of local citizens with batons, rubber hoses filled with sand, and shotguns filled with rock salt.
[1] The raid was accomplished with three helicopters and over 100 heavily armed men in an assault orchestrated by Mike Harari, Noriega's personal friend and former Israeli intelligence officer.
While the Panamanian government claimed no one was killed in the raid, local residents reported several badly wounded bodies being removed in the hours after the attack.
At the beginning of his exile from Panama, Díaz spent about six years in Caracas, Venezuela, during the presidency of Carlos Andres Perez, a personal friend who granted him political asylum.