Spadafora nominated, vows fight to the finish
After the November 3-5 long holiday weekend President Moscoso made her nomination of Winston Spadafora as a Supreme Court magistrate official. Previously, the PRD and Partido Popular (former Christian Democrat) caucuses of the Legislative Assembly said they'd vote against confirming the nomination, and they say they have the votes to prevail. The alliance, with the backing of two members of the Solidaridad party, controls the legislature by a two-vote margin. Spadafora, accusing the PRD and Partido Popular of trying to make the country ungovernable, says he'll stay in the running and will prevail in the end.

FARC finances banked in Panama?
Colombia's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, reports that Colombian authorties have captured one Juan Pablo Rubio Camacho, whom it identified as the finance chief for the leftist FARC guerrillas. El Tiempo reports that documents captured with Rubio Camacho and other facts learned by Colombian authorities indicate that FARC had extensive financial dealings in Panama and Mexico, and that at least $50 million in FARC assets were deposited in Panama. It also reported that Rubio Camacho made numerous trips in and out of Panama. Within a few days of the El Tiempo report, however, Panama's National Security Council said it was asking Colombia for more information and this country's Financial Analysis Unit announced that it couldn't find any accounts linked to Rubio Camacho or to FARC.

Arms seized
On November 6 the National Police arrested two men, a Panamanian and a Colombian, and seized a pickup truck loaded with three RPG grenade launchers, five AK-47 assault rifles, 85 sticks of C-4 plastic explosives, nine grenades, 15 boxes of ammunition and sundry supplies of detonating cord, blasting caps and electric detonators. The arms were apparently being smuggled from Central America for use in Colombia's civil conflict.

New Immigration director
Mireya Moscoso has replaced scandal-tainted Eric Singares as the nation's Immigration director. Singares is under investigation --- which the Supreme Court took the unusual action of directing Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa to undertake --- for defying the high court's writ of habeas corpus and putting a man wanted for fraud in China onto offshore finance operator Marc Harris's private jet for delivery to Chinese authorities in Cuba. Singares also made headlines early in his time in office when he had his undocumented Nicaraguan maid, with whom he had a pay dispute, thrown out of the country without legal procedures. The new Immigration director, Ilka de Bares, took office on November 6. The previous day Immigration headquarters was swamped by lawyers seeking to enforce arrangements that had been made during Singares's tenure, and in following days there were raids in which dozens of illegal Chinese migrants (apparently waiting for Panamanian documents for attempts to enter the United States) were arrested. Bares, who is the wife of National Police chief Carlos Bares, worked in the visa section of the US consulate here for 29 years and, unlike Singares, is likely to enjoy the confidence of the American embassy. Bares's first act in office was to order a complete audit of the Immigration Directorate. One of her next acts was to expel journalists from El Universal from the agency's offices, because the Moscoso administration is offended by that daily's investigative reports of its corruption.

Maritime Authority deputy director arrested
The Panama Maritime Authority's number two man, Alberto Aquino Rodriguez, has been arrested for allegedly taking bribes to speed up payments to Estudio Digital, a company that has a contract with the authority. Frank Castillo, the owner of Estudio Digital, was also arrested in connection with the case. Panama's government is in serious financial trouble due to a shortfall in tax revenues caused by the economic crisis, and that has caused payments to government contractors to be late in most cases. The problem has, on the other hand, created new opportunities for corruption. It is alleged that Rodriguez charged ten percent of the bill to speed up payment, but he denies that allegation and has been released on bail pending further legal proceedings. He has not been replaced in his post at the Maritime Authority, which has become the object of international suspicion with regard to the illegal sale of Panamanian ship officers' credentials to unqualified individuals.

Canal area police commander accused of looting
Attorney Bioricha Aizpurua has filed a complaint that nine men broke into her weekend home in the San Carlos district of La Ermita in the middle of a night that she wasn't there, stripped it of many valuables - including plumbing and electrical fixtures - and took everything away in a truck. Then, the lawyer alleges, the thieves returned by day with a pickup, threatened the caretaker, and made off with the fence and the roofing material. House stripping of this sort is a growing problem in communities where people maintain weekend and vacation homes at the beach or in the mountains. What's unusual about Aizpurua's complaint is that she identified the culprits, and what's really unusual is that she named their leader as one Enrique Edward Montenegro. Montenegro is a National Police major, and commander of the canal area division. The Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) and prosecutors are investigating the complaint.

Four fired in Seguro Social purchase scam
Social Security director Juan Jovane has announced the firing of four employees at the Bethania polyclinic, including the facility's top administrator, for irregular purchasing procedures that have cost the public health care system more than necessary for medicines and equipment. Jovane said that the matter has been referred to prosecutors. One of the clues that something was wrong - other than the high prices paid, the failure to use prescribed bidding procedures and the delivery of cheaper items than those that were paid for - was that three allegedly distinct suppliers were sending invoices through the same fax number.

Business dislikes proposed police record law
Legislation that for the most part prohibits the use police records for employment applications and makes individuals' criminal histories unavailable to potential employers has passed in the Legislative Assembly, but it has generated a lot of opposition from the business sector and may be vetoed. The police generally don't like the paperwork imposed upon them by employers' insistence upon seeing the police records of job applicants, and in these days of financial difficulties for the government as well as the private sector, it can be a costly annoyance. The law's proponent, Felipe Cano (PRD-San Miguelito), argues that an arrest on unsubstantiated charges or a minor conviction will show up on a police record, and these items can unfairly mean a lifetime of unemployment. However, bankers would like to know if the people they are about to hire have a record of embezzlement, and schools would like to know if their potential teachers are pedophiles. Supporters of the law say that the lack of such information from police sources is likely to be compensated for in blacklists maintained by private organizations.

City, ARI square off in Albrook development dispute
The Panama City municipal government is siding with residents and the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) with a developer in a dispute over a project that's being built at Albrook. Homeowners at Albrook were sold real estate at high prices with promises that they would live in a "garden community" with lots of green space, and then ARI began to sell off the green space to developers. One such developer, FV Constructor SA, got a permit to develop Albrook Park, a medium-density development, and the neighbors complain that they then set out to develop even more than the permit in question allowed them to do. Some of the residents who felt wronged are American citizens, and they complained about it to the US Embassy, and warned other Americans not to trust ARI in real estate deals. The city council has sided with residents, ordering construction to halt because the project exceeds that which was allowed by the permit. ARI director Alfredo Arias backed the developer, saying that the project is proper and leveling a vitriolic blast at the American residents, saying that they bought before ARI had adopted its present development plan and that they had no reason to believe that they would be living on a US military base. To the American residents, there is a legal phrase for ARI's sales tactics: "real estate fraud." Most of the other Albrook residents, who are Panamanian rather than American citizens, concur with this opinion, though they may phrase it in Spanish.

Interfaith peace service
As the Al-Qaeda network attempted to mobilize the Muslim world for a holy war against the United States and its allies and bigots of many faiths demonstrated their hatred of all Muslims, in Panama clerics and notables from the country's Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Bahai, Buddhist and Panamanian indigenous faiths gathered at the City of Knowledge's chapel on November 8 for an interfaith service for peace and tolerance. The principal secular participant in the event was Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Aleman, who spoke to the gathering about democracy, social harmony and international law. A number of other politicians, judges and diplomats also attended.

Spectacular crash on Corredor Norte
Many baseball fans were delayed in their efforts to get to the National Stadium in time for the first pitch of the new PROBEIS league on November 8, because a few hours earlier a Texaco gasoline tanker truck overturned and caught fire on the Cerro Patacon entrance ramp to the Corredor Norte. Some 7,500 gallons of burning gasoline flowed down the rain gutters and set brush fires along the way, creating thick clouds of black smoke and panic among drivers on the Corredor Norte. The tanker truck's driver suffered cuts and bruises from the crash and was taken to the hospital for observation of a possible concussion, but was rescued before he was burned. Though some nearby residents had to be evacuated from their homes due to the smoke, there were no other injuries reported in the mishap.

Earthquake shakes Bocas and Chiriqui
At 7:47 in the evening of November 8 residents of Bocas del Toro and Chiriqui provinces were jolted by an earthquake that registered 6.1 on the Richter scale. The temblor's epicenter was under the Caribbean Sea, about 20 miles north of Changuinola. Very little property damage and no injuries were reported.

Arnulfista dissident fired, won't be burned at the stake
Dr. John Hoger, the former Arnulfista mayor of San Miguelito and one of the more prominent party members calling for more internal democracy, has been fired from his job as director of the Centro de Rehabilitacion de Impedidos. Health Minister Fernando Gracia told El Panama America that Hoger's firing had nothing to do with politics, but was done in order to put an orthopedist in charge of the facility. Earlier this year, Hoger was accused of practicing witchcraft against President Moscoso and obliged to submit to interrogation by Supreme Court nominee Winston Spadafora about it.

Comptroller suspends Legislative Assembly contracts
Comptroller General Alvin Weeden has suspended the contracts of about 30 percent of the Legislative Assembly's employees - about 80 people in all - and that cut comes atop the executive's elimination of legislators' circuit funds, from which other legislative employees are paid. To some in the PRD-dominated alliance that controls the legislature, it's just another cynical power play by the Arnulfista administration. However, Weeden says it's because the government doesn't have the money,

Assassination attempt?
Not long after he made a controversial statement that the deadlock between the President Moscoso and the opposition-led Legislative Assembly puts Panamanian democracy in danger, the assembly's president, Ruben Arosemena (Partido Popular-Panama City), said that he was the target of an assassination attempt. He alleges that his car was being driven by his chauffer on Calle 50 at about 11 p.m. on November 8 when somebody riding in another car fired a .38 pistol through the back window and fled. Arosemena says he wasn't in the car at the time. The next morning the legislator showed the car off to television reporters and then went to file his complaint with police. It is alleged that, despite the fact that there would be other people awake in the vicinity on Calle 50 at 11 in the evening, the legislator's chauffer was the only witness - and of course, the delay in reporting the crime would make it harder for police to find such witnesses.

Eagle visits, shall return
Eagle, the doberman who sniffs out long-buried human remains, has left Panama after a second visit on behalf of the Truth Commission. The dog located possible human remains at the former Fort Gulick, part of which was turned over to the defunct Panama Defense Forces after the Carter-Torrijos Treaties went into effect in 1979 and which became a battlefield during the 1989 US invasion. He also indicated that more bodies were buried in at the former Puma infantry barracks in Tocumen as well as on the grounds of the nearby Natioal Air Service, at a former military outpost in Panama Viejo, at a residence in Betania that was used by the military, on Coiba Island, and at the La Joya Penitentiary. The dog and his handlers, forensic anthropologists John and Judy Saul, will be back for more investigations next year.

New tests show remains belonged to Portugal
As part of his continuing effort to obstruct discredit the Truth Commission's investigation into the disappearances of activists during the time of the dictatorship, Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa announced several weeks back that DNA tests commissioned by the Catholic Church were wrong, and that remains dug up from around the old Puma infantry company's barracks in Tocumen were not those of Heliodoro Portugal. Now the Truth Commission has had more DNA tests performed, and those have confirmed that the remains were in fact those of Portugal. What happened is that Sossa's Public Ministry, which has demonstrated its mishandling of the evidence to the public by televised displays of some of the skeletal remains recovered, switched samples and sent misidentified bones to its preferred laboratory in the United States, the Fairfax Identification Laboratory.

DNA test law passes, after delay and grumbling
After a prolonged delay between its second and third readings, a new law to provide for DNA paternity testing has been approved by the Legislative Assembly. The law requires all birth certificates to name the father, imposes criminal penalties upon fathers who wrongly refuse to acknowledge their children, and provides that in disputed cases DNA tests shall be done at the Instituto de Medicina Legal or a DNA lab designated by the director of said institute. It would seem like a straightforward, non-controversial law, but the fears that few would specifically state have something to do with the above note. The director of the Instituto de Medicina Legal, Dr. Humberto Mas, is Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa's brother-in-law, and there are folks who object to the possibility of Sossa gaining opportunities for patronage or corruption by way of the new law.

©2001 The Panama News