PANAMA CITY, Panama -- While many Panamanians literally danced in the streets to celebrate the U.S. military intervention that unseated dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega last year, administrators at the University of Panama quietly drafted and released a statement criticizing the invasion.

The school's response was a matter of principle.

Self-imposed responsibility for maintaining the country's intellectual conscience is typical of Latin American universities. If universities are temples of learning, then campuses are hallowed ground where police and military forces traditionally do not enter.

"The university has to play the role of maintaining the country's integrity," said Manuel Barrios, the university's director of public information.

Although the public saw the issue as a matter of liberation from a tyrant, the academic community could not condone military action, he added.

Not even the Panamanian Defense Forces, Noriega's defunct police and army, openly violated the tacit sanctity of the campus, which has its own security personnel. However, Doberman riot troops breached the fence, killing a student with a point-blank shotgun blast on Aug. 13, Barrios said.

Because of security concerns after the invasion, the University of Panama will remain closed until late March, thus extending semester break, he said.

The university's main campus in Panama City is a broad, hilly rectangle nestled between a comfortable middle-class neighborhood and a muddy, low-lying shantytown. A chain link fence marks off the perimeter, the site of many bloody clashes between students and riot troops.

Covered sidewalks fend off the rain between buildings and politically-oriented posters are pasted up on nearly every pillar or wall. Most of these posters were put up by the university's Revolutionary Student Front, better known as FER 29.

Three law students with leadership positions in FER 29 said the group had taken to the streets demanding Noriega's ouster as early as 1987, but it condemned the U.S. invasion and the new government as tools of imperialism.

"Systematically, we opposed Noriega, but we're also against the actual 'opposition' coalition that sprang up in 1987. The masses of Panamanians should have led a revolution against Noriega," said one of the students, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Endara government.

FER 29 believes the Civic Crusade -- the main opposition coalition composed of political parties and civic clubs such as Rotary and Kiwanis -- was fueled by its members' business interests and thus lacked the unity and mass support needed to stage an overthrow of the dictator.

"This pito, panuelo y paila business -- you could do it in your own house. It didn't promote unity," he said, referring to the Civic Crusade's prescribed methods of civil disobedience: waving flags and making noise with pots, pans and car horns.

Another FER 29 member said the group wants to promote true nationalism among Panamanians, not the demagogic patriotism espoused by Noriega. Panamanians have rejected their roots for U.S. consumerism, he said.

The second student stood in FER 29's meeting room in the law school building, a small cubicle with worn-out furniture and a large table in the middle, and pointed to the posters on the peeling maroon walls. They featured such revolutionary activists as Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela and FER 29's own martyrs: Floyd Britton, Jorge Camacho and Jose Manuel Arauz.

Britton, who figures prominently on FER 29's posters around campus, was an outspoken student leader who was allegedly slain by order of Gen. Omar Torrijos Hererra, Noriega's predecessor, in 1969. Britton once said, ''The duty of every honest man is not to disturb the revolutionaries," according to a law school bulletin board devoted to his quotes.

"When the mass of the population realizes that this (new government) isn't what they wanted, and it takes to the streets, the United States will find another way of of imposing its will upon the people," said the second student.

The Panamanian public had been hoodwinked by the national and foreign media into believing the invasion was necessary and good, he said.

However, other students and alumni said FER 29 cannot be taken seriously.

"FER does not really reach the masses," said Raul Espino, a graduate of the university's technical branch and a systems analyst for the School of Public Administration.

"They had their moment in the spotlight about 10 years ago and then faded away -- but I guarantee that as soon as the school reopens, they will be out demonstrating, even if it's just four people," he said.

Espino said he opposes the military intervention on an ideological basis, but it was the only realistic solution to the Noriega problem. Still, he said, he and others resented the presence of U.S. troops on campus.

"Not even the PDF violated the university's autonomy," he said, pointing out U.S. soldiers garrisoned in the Physical Education and Public Administration buildings. "That bothers many people."

Manuel Octavio Sisnett, dean of the School of Humanities, said he was disgusted by the fawning welcome many Panamanians gave U.S. soldiers.

"The great disgrace for us professors is that many of these people greeting the U.S. soldiers were our own students," Sisnett said. "Many of us felt as though all we had taught them about national history and pride had gone to waste.''

Sisnett, an author and historian, said the important thing for Panama now is to relearn its past, reject militarism and seek fair treatment from the U.S. government. U.S. bases could remain in Panama past the year 2000 if the U.S. could present an equitable base agreement, such as exists with other countries, he said.

"Deep inside, I feel wounded. Unfortunately, (Noriega's regime) could not continue. Panamanians could not finish with this monster by themselves," the dean said.

"Panama took whatever help it could from the United States, but now we must begin from zero, just like 1903," he said.