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Attempted thought control
Former Vice-President Ricardo Arias Calderón and Attorney General
José Antonio Sossa are mad at La Prensa. Now Arias Calderón is
openly backing a move to replace the directors and editors of
La Prensa at the next shareholders’ meeting, and Sossa’s strident
attacks on the daily leave little doubt about where he stands.
Both of these Christian Democrat politicians have repeatedly attempted
to have journalists, editors and cartoonists from the newspaper
imprisoned.
This latest maneuver may be legal, but it’s also reprehensible.
Moreover, if the shareholders heed Arias Calderón they’ll be sacrificing
valuable property, because La Prensa under Christian Democratic
domination will decline every bit as precipitously as La Estrella
did when it became Noriega’s propaganda rag.
The problem is not a lack of professionalism at La Prensa, as
Arias Calderón and Sossa argue to the public. Sossa’s real objection
is that his record in dealing with organized crime stinks and
he doesn’t like to see it discussed in the press. Ariás Calderón’s
real objection is that he wants to play politics without anybody
criticizing him.
And what of Panama? A US Senate subcommittee has named the gangster
whose employees Sossa deputized to make arrests, Marc Harris,
as a key figure in the laundering of at least $100 million in
proceeds from a Ponzi scheme. The Bush administration says that
Toro can’t visit Disney World anymore because he was part of a
scheme to smuggle illegal Chinese immigrants into the United States.
The corruption at Immigration in the present administration is
overt, a sure sign that those involved expect impunity. Interpol
has arrested Friedrich Specht, a convicted swindler who moved
his operations from Europe to Panama and became one of the former
president’s principal financial backers. The FBI has an arrest
warrant for Panama’s former consul general in New York, Frank
Iglesias, who is accused of using this country’s consulate to
fence stolen Peruvian antiquities in the United States, which
would be a violation of Panamanian law as well. In a particularly
ugly teenage prostitution case, the judge made the unusual gesture
of calling for an investigation of a former corregidor who had
ignored complaints about the racket, in effect telling Sossa to
do his job. The country’s banking center is facing international
sanctions in large part due to such relationships between organized
crime and the Panamanian government.
Panama’s reputation has been thoroughly trashed, and not by yellow
journalism.
Only fools think that politicians can improve their reputations
by getting their friends who own stock in La Prensa to oust the
current editors. If they succeed they’ll only destroy La Prensa
and give Panama an even more thuggish international reputation.
The truth will come out anyway.
Bear in mind...
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying
to please everybody.
Bill Cosby
I claim no perfection for myself. But I do claim to be a passionate
seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.
Lillian Hellman
