After his proposal to give English official status as Panama’s second language prompted criticism from several quarters, Arnulfista legislator Arturo Arauz withdrew it. However, the discussion and controversy prompted by Arauz’s proposal did demonstrate a national consensus that the teaching of English in Panama’s public schools needs to extended and improved, and the Education Ministry is looking for funds to do that.

The CEMIS multi-modal transportation and industrial development project, which seeks to turn Colon’s France Field into an international airport; create an interface among seaport, railroad and airport freight container operations; and build a number of ancillary industrial and service facilities, has received a permit from the National Environmental Authority. CEMIS’s original permit application was held up after environmentalists complained that the development would be too damaging to sensitive ecological systems in and around the project area. Plans were altered to address some of those concerns, but the modified version will still involve the clearing of more than 400 hectares of forest, which the developers say will be compensated for by reforestation projects elsewhere. CEMIS is also embroiled in allegations by legislator Carlos Afu that bribes were paid to gain the project’s legislative approval, and while these accusations are being investigated one of the main financiers, the Inter-American Development Bank, has delayed final loan approval. However, the airport is about to be turned over to CEMIS and work is set to get underway. While the project’s critics are not all satisfied, labor and community groups in Colon are demanding that the development proceed because of the jobs that they expect it to create.

On May 28 the Truth Commission announced that DNA tests that it had commissioned on bones that allegedly belonged to Marlene Mendizábal, who disappeared in 1976 along with her boyfriend Jorge Falconett, had been misidentified. The commission asked that the case of the two youngsters’ disappearance be reopened, but Attorney General José Antonio Sossa said that his office is not inclined to do so unless the Supreme Court orders it. Years ago a court exonerated two former soldiers who were accused in relation to the disappearance. The commission says that the DNA tests are new evidence that should be considered, but Sossa rejects such tests that are not done by the US lab with which his office does business. Earlier this year Sossa declared DNA tests that had identified remains unearthed near an old military barracks in Tocumen as those of activist Heliodoro Portugal erroneous. Independent third expert opinions found that the lab that Sossa uses, Virginia-based Fairfax labs, was the one that botched the identification.

Both sides are claiming foul play as internal party elections to choose MOLIRENA’s leadership going into the next election cycle approach. The incumbent party leader Jesús Rosas is seeking re-election at a party convention to be held later this year and leads the Red Slate, while the nation’s First Vice-President Arturo Vallarino is seeking to wrest control of the party, calling its current leader a "dictator." On May 23 nominations for convention delegates were due, and the Rosas faction promptly threw several pro-Vallarino candidates and a large percentage of the independent and minority Blue Slate hopefuls off of the ballot. The Blue Slate then threw its support to Vallarino. At one point the Rosas faction said that it might appeal to the Electoral Tribunal to intervene to keep the Vallarino forces from stealing the election, but now both slates are busy campaigning and predicting victory.

As we uploaded this issue it seems that the contest for the PRD presidency between legislator Balbina Herrera and former National Port Authority director Hugo Torrijos would be resolved by a compromise that would give the party leadership to Hugo Giraud. The PRD has been severely split in the wake of the breakdown of party discipline within its legislative caucus and scandals that have put the public approval rating of the assembly, which the PRD and its allies control, into single digits. The contending factions both say that they’ll support Martin Torrijos for president in 2004.

While the press licensing law proposed by the Sindicato de Periodistas and PRD legislator Denis Arce has been revived in a legislative committee with minor changes, the Government and Justice Ministry has urged the legislature to back away from the proposal and Arnulfista legislator Francisco Ameglio has proposed a press law of his own. Ameglio would ban news reports that glorify crime and prohibit the publication of photos of cadavers unless the surviving family members approve. Most of Panama’s journalists oppose Ameglio’s idea, but many agree that the publication of death photos is unethical and cruel to the families of the deceased. Ameglio has been hard pressed to show an example of how any of Panama’s news media glorifies crime. Ameglio’s proposal would also require publications with stories or photos unsuitable for minors to be covered with a plain wrapper that indicates that fact.

The Supreme Court’s Penal Bench has asked prosecutors to begin a criminal investigation of Colon Free Zone director Jorge Fernández, for alleged abuse of authority. The request was made because it appears that the Free Zone rented property to one business, the Maritime Tower Shipping Company, which had already been leased to another firm, Universal Princess.

The recently passed law prohibiting racial discrimination by night clubs and other places of public accomodation went into effect in Panama City with the promulgation of local regulation by the municipal government, and is now being tested with the case of a black woman who claims she was denied admission to the Runway club. A number of owners of the clubs that exclude blacks are making public arguments in favor of discrimination, for example by saying that they must exclude people who wear their hair in dreadlocks in order to prevent drug addiction, or claiming that their policies are not based on race but upon social class. If the Runway is found guilty, it will be subject to a $250 fine, and if there are several repeated offenses it could be shut down by the city.

On June 2 Costa Rican police seized 33 AK-47 assault rifles, five pistols, four bulletproof vests, a grenade and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a raid near the Paso Canoa border crossing into Panama. Tico authorities believe that the arms were leftovers from Central America’s troubles of the 1980s, headed toward Colombia for use in that country’s civil conflict.

Former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares has filed criminal defamation charges against La Prensa cartoonist Víctor Ramos, for a cartoon lampooning the ex-president’s expensive hobbies and various scandals and mishaps from his days in public office. Ramos is now the third Panamanian cartoonist facing criminal charges for his work. To see the cartoon in question, go to La Prensa’s online archives for April 11, 2002 and then hit the link to the opinion section. The criminal charge has prompted criticism from international human rights groups and Panama’s journalists.

Former El Siglo publisher Jaime Padilla Beliz, former editor Michelle Lescure and reporter Carmen Boyd Marciacq have been convicted of criminal defamation of sports journalist Juan Carlos Tapia. Tapia was accused of abandoning a mentally ill relative in a gossip column in El Siglo. The journalists received 18-month prison sentences, which can be avoided by the payment of $500 fines. Though few human rights groups or journalists are defending the note that gave rise to the case, Michelle Lescure’s conviction is being protested because she was not editor of El Siglo at the time and had nothing to do with the offending article’s publication. The prosecutor and court refused to hear witnesses or subpoena documents who would have exonerated Lescure, who says she’ll appeal.

For the third time, a court has ordered Colon’s elected Arnulfista mayor, Matilde Rosales de Ardines, removed from her post pending further proceedings about an allegedly fraudulent attempt to issue $300 million in municipal bonds. The consensus of legal opinion is that only the national government has the power to issue bonds, but Rosales de Ardines and the city council attempted to challenge this and the problem was compounded when they contracted some disreputable Americans to help them do so. Rosales de Ardines is appealing the order separating her from her post to the Supreme Court.

Education Minister Doris Rosas de Mata has accused the press in connection with President Moscoso’s decision not to attend the recent world food summit in Rome. Second Vice-President Dominador Kaiser Bazán went to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) meeting in her place. President Moscoso has often been criticized in the Panamanian press for her travel expenses and for the large entourages that occasionally accompany her on her foreign trips. The education minister, who is unpopular in her own right, said that the president skipped the meeting because the press would have interpreted it the wrong way.

On June 5 Traffic Court Judge Harmodio Mariscal Ruiz was shot to death in a supermarket parking lot in the Cerro Viento area of San Miguelito, apparently in the course of a street gang’s attempt to steal his car. There were eyewitnesses to the murder and robbery and two suspects were arrested a few days later.

Calling it "inconvenient," President Moscoso has vetoed legislation that would have made Coiba Island a national park. The measure, which environmentalist groups had supported, would have severely restricted development on the island and nearby in Puerto Mutis and Bahia Honda. The area, which is drawing increasing attention because of the island’s unique wildlife and the surrounding waters’ coral reefs and whale populations, is under pressure from commercial and artesanal fishing operations and developers are interested in building hotels there.

Seven inmates have been convicted of murder and sentenced to twenty more years in prison for the 1998 beheadings of four fellow inmates at the Coiba Island penal colony. Five co-defendants were acquitted. The murders, carried out with prison-issue machetes and without interference from the police guards, also gave rise to another criminal case when activist law professor and journalists Miguel Antonio Bernal faulted the police and was charged with criminal defamation for doing so. Bernal was recently acquitted, but Attorney General Sossa is appealing that acquittal.

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