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Journalism and the law, in their eyes and mine

by Eric Jackson

Several recent news stories braid themselves in my mind. To wit:

• In Rwanda, several formerly leading members of the national press corps are on trial for incitement to genocide, because of the views they expressed on television and in the newspapers;

• Government and Justice Minister Winston Spadafora said he'll initiate a new press law that revives Noriega's journalist licensing scheme and provides criminal penalties for journalists who accept bribes;

• President Moscoso vetoed a law proposed by legislator Rubén Arosemena that would have, among other things, abolished the statutes of limitations for genocide and major government corruption;

• Law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal was in court on May 16 for allegedly defaming the National Police several years ago, by claiming that police were at fault when four prisoners in their charge were beheaded at the Coiba penal colony; and

• Attorney General José Antonio Sossa complained about an OAS report that details some of the abuses against freedom of the press that he and other Panamanian public figures have committed.

Let me first say that I do not believe that journalists should be above the laws that apply to everybody else.

Let me also take historical notice that the cowardly Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels murdered his family and committed suicide when his arrest on charges like those in the Rwanda press trial became imminent. The exponent of the "big lie" knew the score. His hate-filled screeds were an important part of the process that sent millions of human beings to the gas chambers.

Goebbels would have had an appointment with the hangman, for the world found that the Nazi party was a criminal conspiracy with oceans of blood on its hands. His published opinions, arguably exercises of his fundamental rights (as well as his libels against entire races, which would break the laws of many democracies), were acts in furtherance of a conspiracy to murder. His crime was not the expression of racist views, but inciting genocide.

We should let the Rwanda trial run its course. The concept of innocent until proven guilty ought to apply in genocide cases too. However, if the prosecutors' allegations are true, then this trial is the test case that would have been brought against the club-footed shill for Hitler's master race, and any notion of collegial solidarity with the Rwandan defendants would be twisted.

On the other hand, as a citizen and a journalist I support Professor Bernal. The police DID mess up by letting a mass murder take place among people whom they were supposed to guard. Moreover, one of the four victims had finished serving his sentence months before, and his continued presence on Coiba must inevitably lead to a presumption of corruption on the part of his jailers.

It would seem to me that the main reason for the Moscoso administration's and Attorney General Sossa's offensive against the press is to suppress the publication of facts that would give rise to presumptions of corruption. Granted, suspicious Panamanians often presume too much, and often fail to see that presumptions properly made might also be properly rebutted. However, in most cases the public official who cries "calumnia e injuria" does so instead of rebutting embarrassing published accounts, or as a lazy and malicious way of arguing against an adverse opinion. The OAS report is a tale of abuses by successive governments, by members of both of Panama's major political parties and several of the minor ones, designed to intimidate those who would report the results of the "it's our turn to steal" attitude about public service.

Reporters, editors and pundits are not immune to the same attitude. Bribery is not unknown in our media, and there ought to be criminal penalties for it. However, the Moscoso administration's proposal to throw crooked journalists in jail apparently provides no penalties for the rich and powerful who pay the bribes. What else should we expect from an administration that supports a statute of limitations for the world's worst war criminals and Panama's most kleptocratic public officials?

The government's pervasive sleaze and its offensive against journalism are related. The politicians and their clients want impunity, and they don't want you to know.