letters

First off I am deeply gratified to see news of the Coiba turmoil in your articles. I was very happy to see an article on Coiba and the troubles that this treasure is going through. It saddens me to see the Mireya administration ignoring the statements made by some of Panama's and the world's more respected organizations such as ANCON, Conservation International, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Harvard University to name a few. It even saddens me more when the administration ignores the pleas of the Panamanian people demanding the conservation of Coiba National Park and the complete negligence from the non-grato administration of ANAM, which primary duty is supposed to protect our environment. I am part of a small organization which helps primarily in the conservation of Coiba National Park.

We have developed a web page which has already have seen many visitors. In fact, we just today uploaded our new address at http://www.coibapanama.com but can still be seen at our old at http://coiba.cjb.net We have information on Coiba and up to date news on the issue also. Our main spokesperson and director of Coiba Panama, Ricardo Brown Salazar, is a main speaker in Coiba issues and other environmental news within Panama. He is also the director of the biggest newsletter community in Panama --- Coiba Panama Yahoo Groups --- which has already over 6,000 subscribers. He can be seen on many national television shows within Panama and radio stations on daily basis. Our site offers an English section, which I am in charge of.

It's important to inform the English speaking community as well as the international community the crisis that the world's largest marine park is going through. I invite all people to visit our site and send us any information related to Coiba or any environmental issues local to Panama or the Latin American community. I also look forward to seeing more articles on Coiba and the environment on The Panama News. Thanks for your support and your time.

Angie Whittemore
Sub-Director, Grupo Coiba Panama

I watched the pageant specifically because it was in Panama, and while the country clips were nice they didn't begin to impart the beauty and vibrancy of the region. I only spent a year there, but intend to come back to visit in the near future.

Here in the states Panama gets no push by the travel agenicies. Look in our Sunday paper and you see almost every other part of the Carribean/Central America region advertised (another excluded country is Nicaragua), and I think a great deal of it is sore feelings about returning the Canal's control to the rightful owners. In the current mindset of America, we only like you if you do what we say.

Keep up the good work with your paper, it's the only source I have for news of Panama.

Stanley White
Rex, GA

PANAMA YOU ALL HAVE GOT TO WAKE UP!

I wrote that in caps for a reason.

Do you, the people of Panama, know that you are about to lose your country? Your freedom? And most important of all, your identity? You are allowing a very small minority of people rule you. People who don't give a damn about you. People who are stealing the food right out of your kids' mouths. And yes I said allowing because you voted them into office.

I'm not an accountant or a business person, but I do know that a lot of money goes into your government. Where is this money? It's not in your schools. Not in your hospitals.

I've heard some of your elected officials say that it takes a lot of money to run Panama. Wrong. It doesn't take a dime. It takes people to run a country, and that's YOU.

It's YOUR country and you're losing more and more of it every day! I read somewhere that another one of your elected "elite" said that a lot of the money that comes into Panama is invested for the future. Now stop what you're doing right now and think about that. If you have kids, look at them. Now look at their schools and education system. Do you see any investments there? Whether we like it or not the only true investment is in the young. You know it and I know it.

Folks, if you're tired of all the crap you have to put up with in your life then it's time to step up and say "No More." Retake your government and your country. Now your saying to yourself that it's easier said than done. Sorry folks, wrong again. You get a bunch of people together who think like you do and you start at the bottom with your elected official. If he doesn't do what you ask of him then you UN-elect him. Fire his ass. And yes it can be done in Panama but they don't want you all to know that. Now when other people see what you've done they'll do the same and pretty soon you'll have a bunch of people in government that might just really want to represent you. They're their to serve YOU, not for YOU to serve them.

One thing to remember is that you must never be intimidated by anyone. Never think that because some person has been to some college that they know everything, especially how to run a country. If they knew how to run a country correctly then they wouldn't be in the current government.

Just like everyone else outside of Panama I can wear out two keyboards telling you what's wrong in your country. But you all already know this. What I'm telling you is that you have to wake up and take your country back.

Get together and figure out what you want and go get it.

I have a couple of ideas for YOUR government. Number one is that all elected officials be paid minumim wage. This way they have to WANT to serve. Number two is that ALL money that goes into the government from the National Lottery be used solely for education. Period. All-stop. No exceptions.

Now if you like one of these then make it work! Don't let anybody tell you that it won't. When someone in your current government says something won't work then it's a sure sign that it will and I'm not joking.

You all have the most beautiful country in the world and the friendliest people living there. Don't lose that. Stop what's happening and retake control of your lives.

I bet there's a lot more people there who think like you do. Find them. Get together. And take back what's rightfully yours.

I would really like to sign my name but then they probably wouldn't let me back into the country after reading this so I'll simply sign it Me.

name withheld

I was on vacation with a close friend of Panamanian origin. This was my first visit to Panama.

We had a fairly nice visit to the Interior with a marked exception, (though it might be called high adventure).

On our way to and from Chitre we were stopped three times within approximately five miles by armed bandits, (excuse me, I meant to say Police Officers!), shaking us down for money.

They would have us believe that we were driving too slowly, but we noticed that somehow they never managed to stop the cars in front of us or those in back of us, nor did their roadblock seem to care about any other vehicle once we had been pulled over!

One of the armed tax collectors even seemed to be just on the right side of sober but trying desparately to get across the line.

I think that there must be a strange and wonderful attraction for nice, new, probably marked, rental cars; especially when it is likely that pageant attendees and ourists might want to pay a little extra 'Safety' or 'Road' tax.

Yeah, I think that with the help of the trickle effect, the Panamanian economy was doing much better by the end of the first week in June.

name withheld

The Western world is increasingly succumbing to the prejudice of "political correctness." More and more we live in a time and situation where pluralism and tolerance are, irreconcilable with absolute truth, the highest values. Laws are constantly being changed or newly introduced in order to satisfy the will of citizens in lieu of and without respect for the "natural moral law." This can only lead to anarchy.

It is not possible here to present philosophical proofs for the existence of God. Nonetheless, by way of simple logic, when we speak of something like the world in terms of its richness or plurality we also affirm the existence of the world; the "many" presupposes the "one." By similar arguments one can deduce that there must also be universal concepts of "being," "truth" and "good."

The universal good cannot be something ambiguous without also being relative. If it is relative one might justifiably speak, as did Heinrich Himmler, of the altruistic morals of the Nazi regime which is nonsense. The very fact that we discuss the common good proves that a criterion for the "good" ought to exist. We see that virtually all families accept as "good" the concepts of fidelity, gratitude, honesty while viewing acts of betrayal, ingratitude, falsehood as bad. It is clear then that a universal approach toward good and evil is necessary.

For the relativist, however, there is only tolerance. But why should tolerance count for anything unless it has as its foundation some other value. Such a tolerance that is "blind" ends up becoming a form of intolerance for that which actually gives tolerance its true value: convictions. Similarly, one's convictions would have no value unless they were oriented toward a higher good. Upon this reference to truth is based the dignity of the human person.

The relativist admits to no supreme criterion that would allow him to distinguish between a good and bad conscience. For him, individual and societal actions are subject only to free will. The result is anarchy --- the law of the jungle --- which is no law at all. Domination and manipulation become the rule. In the 20th century we have seen two World Wars and the proliferation of terrorism. We are also witnessing the growing acceptance of evils such as contraception, in-vitro fertilization, euthanasia, homosexuality and abortion. Human cloning and perhaps even World War III are lurking on the horizon. Such tyranny --- man's inhumanity to man --- is the inevitable result when there is no lawful consensus regarding the true nature of the human being.

Plato has already said that God alone has supreme authority over man. Christ also confirmed to Pilate: "you would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above" (Jn 19,11). Both the limits and legitimacy of man's power come from God and are expressed in the natural moral law which is engraved in every human heart.

When a government or any democratic majority approves a law that contradicts this order, and in doing so marginalizes some resisting minority as being "fundamentalists," it is the duty of every human being to oppose it. While claiming to be respecting of one's freedom of choice, such lawmakers are really only leading people away from the true freedom which the natural law provides.

If the dignity of the will is to replace the dignity of the human person it will even be possible to imagine, in the words of Dr. Robert Spaemann, "breeding slaves, by genetic manipulation, who are fully in agreement with their condition as slaves." Far-fetched? Spaemann mentions that only recently it became known that a cannibal found an accomplice via the internet who was willing to have himself killed and eaten. This took place according to mutual agreement and without any outside interference. He makes the important distinction that for the relativist this is not a crime.

Is this not a time for us all, especially lawyers and politicians, to reflect on the concept of the natural moral law?

Paul Kokoski
Hamilton, Ontario

Editor's note: Everyone has a right to an opinion and, so long as nobody else's rights are infringed, a right to present it in his or her own way. In MY opinion it's facile to live in northerly climes and pretend that the "law of the jungle" is all anarchy and the rule of brute force. That way of thinking tends to make the tropical forests and the people and things who live in them seem expendable. But ask any biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and she or he is likely to tell you that the jungle has its rules and that these have little to do with the Nietzschean individualism generally suggested by the term "law of the jungle."

After reading your story, I would like to tell you this: In Panama we say "If you don't get wet, you don't cross the river." I think you're doing a good job.

Norma
Maryland

I sincerely hope you can assist me in locating an uncle in Panama City, Panama, whose parents or father came from Westmoreland, Jamaica, WI, to work on the Panama Canal.

The only information I have on my uncle is that he went to Jamaica several years ago trying to locate his brother, who is my deceased father. He left his name with someone who then gave it to us some years afterwards. He is Mr. Archer Jones, from Panama City, and worked as a sugar factory manager at the time.

I would very much appreciate any assistance you can extend to me in locating my uncle.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon, with some good news.

Sincerely,

Lloyd D. Jones
75 Emmett Ave., Suite 716
Toronto, Ont.,
M6M 5A7
Canada
Lloydandingrid@aol.com
Telephone: 416-248-8520

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