 News Business Editorial Opinion Letters Arts Reviews Community Fun Travel Galleries Calendar Outdoors Dining Science Sports Español Front Page Archive |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Moscoso administration has suggested requiring visas for Colombians seeking to enter Panama. Prejudices against Colombians run high here, and not all concerns about this subject are based on mere stereotypes or simple xenophobia, so there is widespread public support for the notion.
Meanwhile, the civil conflict across the border is heating up, a hawkish new administration has just assumed office in Bogota, and we’re seeing an increase in refugees running for their lives to Panama.
Panama’s policy toward Colombia has in this and past administrations been largely covert, and based in part upon the simple fact that we cannot defend our borders against any determined intrusion by any of Colombia’s combatant factions. The stated position has long been that Panama is neutral, but under the Moscoso administration there has been a marked tilt toward the government and paramilitary side despite all denials. The most alarming aspect of all of this is the apparent involvement of top officials of the Moscoso administration and the National Police in an illegal international effort to arm the ultra-brutal, drug-funded AUC death squads.
Now is an opportune time to review and debate the full range of Panama’s relations with Colombia. The goals should be to maintain Panama’s political and economic independence, to protect Panamanians from the violence that comes spilling across the border from time to time, and to address the refugee problem in a more systematic way.
The visa question ought to be addressed in the larger context of Panamanian-Colombian relations. Other matters that ought to be considered include:
• more effective action against the use of Panama as a gun running route for factions in our neighbors’ conflict;
• a new policy of internment under prisoner of war conditions of Colombian belligerents of whatever side who are found in Panama --- rather than the present policy of turning them over to the Colombian government;
• economic development in border areas as part of a peace process;
• an investigation of just why it is that when AUC leader Carlos Castaño boasted of ordering the theft of helicopters from and a murder in Panama, there were neither criminal investigations nor diplomatic protests launched by Panamanian authorities; and
• an end to the use of Tocumen Airport by US-hired mercenaries to support combat operations in Colombia.
Bear in mind…
Judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Simon Bolivar
There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.
Liu Shao-ch'i
Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
