In 1998 all of Panama's political parties and many of its business, labor, religious, civic, academic and ethnic leaders came together under United Nations auspices to draft Panama 2020, a set of common goals for Panama to reach within a generation after the canal's turnover by the Americans. The general goals were "economic development," "democratic institutionality," "ethics and equity," "self-determination" and "environmental sustainability."

Now the optimistic glow of the canal's reversion has been replaced by the gloom of a prolonged economic crisis, the strongest political institutions are bribery and nepotism, politicians with no honor to defend have charged one-third of the nation's journalists with "crimes against honor," Panama's foreign policy is a footnote in Plan Colombia and the president and her cronies are intent on bulldozing a burger strip through Volcan Baru National Park. Although in 1998 all of the political parties signed onto the Panama 2020 document, which calls for a new constitution for post-dictatorship Panama, now the political class is united against any meaningful constitutional reform. Civil society --- in its broader context, rather than in the perverse common usage of an exclusive club for rich men in suits who don't hold public office at the moment --- has been slapped in the face.

Now come the United Nations Development Program, the Catholic Church and a host of notables, in an effort to jump-start stalled progress toward the Panama 2020 goals. While the pols were out preening and posturing for a 2004 campaign season come early, on January 30 some 3,000 people gathered in the USMA gym to talk about how to get the country back on track toward some worthy goals.

There were plenty of suits and ties in the crowd, especially toward the front, to the speakers' left, where the magistrates of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal were seated, with the Public Defender and his minions seated behind them and a few government ministers putting in their appearances. Those assembled, however, looked much more like a cross section of Panama, especially if one looked at the bleachers and the banners. On display were the provincial flags of Colon and Chiriqui, plus the banners of the Kiwanis Club, the Society of Friends of the Afro-Antillean Museum of Panama, the Panamanian Society of Engineers and Architects and the Estrella Azul dairy. Sitting below me and to my left in the bleachers were four generations of a family of modest means from the Interior, and down to my right was a contingent of a few dozen Kunas. Activists Miguel Antonio Bernal and Rubén Carles were socializing on the main floor, investigative journalist Rafael Pérez Jaramillo was sitting to my right and a group of labor militants were in the bleachers to the speakers' right.

The proceedings got underway with an invocation from José Dimas Cedeño, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Panama, who called for "a social, economic and political system that better serves humanity."

The keynote speaker was sociologist, playwright and activist Raúl Leis, who warned that the magnitude of Panama's crisis is growing. "People feel paralyzed," he said, in the face of an economic development model that leaves half of all Panamanians living in poverty and in which nobody believes, and scandals that not only involve politicians and high-profile business figures, but also reach down into our civic groups and to the everyday conduct of ordinary individuals.

The Panama 2020 program is "a holistic vision," Leis said, the product of "a decade when people could talk things over." Now, with open, sneering corruption reigning supreme, it may seem naive, but Leis argued that "everything we proposed is viable." Above all, the keynote speaker emphasized, Panama must have the rule of law. "It's about our identity, our possibilities as a nation."

Next came businessman Felipe Rodríguez, who outlined Panama 2020's 22 goals and 144 objectives. "There is a high perception that the country has no long-term direction," he noted, maintaining that this is so largely because of a "crisis in values" that afflicts Panamanian society from top to bottom.

Outlining the plan's constitutional goals, Rodríguez got ovations for the calls to depoliticize the Supreme Court, eliminate legislators' privileges, require primaries for all party nominations for public offices and replace nepotism and political patronage with a civil service system. The businessman took on the private sector, too, calling for a code of ethics for business and an end to "pornography in the communications media."

The next speaker was former Mexican legislator Carlos Núñez Hurtado, who noted that "formal democracy is necessary but not sufficient" for a just society and advocated citizen participation as a way to give meaning to democratic structures.

Father Nestor Jaén agreed. "The key word is participation," the priest said. Urging a "social audit" for Panama, he announced that there would be a series of provincial forums to discuss ways to get the country back on track toward the Panama 2020 goals.

Singer Luis Arteaga brought the proceedings to a close with his rendition of the Rubén Blades anthem "Patria," but before he sang he recited a litany of challenges. "Panamanians are tired of all the corruption and injustice," Arteaga said, noting that we need a better basis to confront the Colombian death squads invading our country, to make wise decisions about the Panama Canal's possible expansion, to reduce poverty and unemployment and to give disenchanted youth something to believe in. To honor the memory of the martyrs of 1964 and for the sake of his children, Arteaga urged, Panama must "substitute participatory democracy for bureaucracy."

The next day in La Prensa, PRD legislator Balbina Herrerra and Arnulfista legislator José Isabel Blandón dismissed the previous night's forum, complaining that the Legislative Assembly was being picked upon.