American
Ambassador Linda Ellen Watt recently received an invitation to
talk to Panama’s Chamber of Commerce on the subject of
“Toward a Culture of Democracy,” and she accepted.
This time, it was not an exercise in diplomatic platitudes.
Watt
didn’t name names, but she blasted the pervasive culture
of corruption in Panamanian politics and warned that it’s
hurting our international reputation and driving foreign
investors away. On the other hand, she echoed with approval an
American professor’s opinion that “if Panama could
lower its level of corruption and improve the rule of law, it
could make a great leap forward in its competitiveness. This
would translate into millions of dollars, which would be
reflected in increased investment and the creation of
jobs.”
Good
governance, Watt said, “is not an academic or theoretical
principle, but a requisite for a democracy and a primordial
condition to attract investment.” Calling for permanent
dialogue between the government and civil society, judicial
security and transparent, equitable and professional management
of public business, the ambassador said that voters must demand
good conduct from candidates and public officials. “If
these leaders violate ethical norms,” she said, “they
shouldn’t be elected, let alone reelected.” She
criticized the institution of legislative immunity, “which
inevitably becomes impunity.” She said she approved the
Legislative Assembly president's idea of docking the pay of
legislators who don’t bother to attend the assembly’s
sessions. “The only compensations that a public official
must receive is his or her salary and the satisfaction of a
duty well accomplished,” she said.
Watt denied the
adage that a little bit of bribery smooths the functioning of
government, and asserted that companies that play this game
waste time and money compared to competitors that don’t.
“Corruption and embezzlement of funds carry costs that can
be measured,” she argued, citing various losses to society
that such practices entail.
She also
criticized the lack of transparency in government and the use
of “gag laws” to intimidate journalists who would
report on unseemly government conduct. Watt, herself a career
diplomat, also called for a professional civil service instead
of a political patronage system.
(The full text
of Ambassador Watt’s speech, in its original Spanish, is
published in the Spanish-language opinion section of this issue
of The Panama News.)
The things that
Linda Ellen Watt had to say were not things that Panamanian
critics of our political class hadn’t said many times
before. However, they represented the United States government
taking notice of the prevailing climate of corruption in
Panama. On RPC-TV’s Debate Abierto morning talk show, PRD
legislator Balbina Herrera, who said she was appalled by a
speech that she considered US intervention in Panama’s
internal affairs, characterized Watt’s remarks as more
than a personal opinion. “It’s a US government
policy,” Herrera alleged, and a few days later in
Washington the State Department confirmed that the
ambassador’s speech had been reviewed and approved in
advance at Foggy Bottom. Herrera compared Watt’s
pronouncements with US diplomatic statements and policies
toward Nicaragua, whose former president is in facing criminal
charges for misappropriation of public funds in his own country
and a US indictment for laundering his ill-gotten fortune in
the United States.
Balbina is
mentioned as a possible running mate for PRD presidential
candidate Martín Torrijos, and another person whose name
has been suggested for that role, former La Prensa publisher
and Foreign Minister Ricardo Alberto Arias, concurred in her
criticism of Watt’s statement. He compared the
ambassador’s remarks to a Panamanian diplomat in
Washington commenting on the validity of American elections or
the proofs that George W. Bush offered to support a war with
Iraq. Torrijos himself, however, said that Watt’s
statements were the truth, and leaders of the PRD’s junior
coalition partner, the Partido Popular, likewise approved of
what the American diplomat said.
Torrijos’s
most serious rivals in the 2004 presidential race, the
Solidaridad ticket headed by Guillermo Endara and Guillermo
Ford, also refrained from disputing Watt’s remarks.
“I sincerely believe that it’s up to the president to
consider Watt’s words and respond,” Ford said at his
initial press conference as a vice-presidential candidate.
“It’s painful that a high official of a friendly
government had to say this.”
The Legislative
Assembly, which had been set to approve a treaty by which
Panama would promise not to turn Americans accused of human
rights violations over to the International Criminal Court in
The Hague, put off the third and final vote on that measure,
and allegedly because of the ambassador’s remarks a
majority of the members boycotted the assembly’s sessions.
(Local wags had a lot of fun with that one, especially as the
deputies did not give up their pay while staying off the job.)
President
Moscoso ultimately did respond, but at first allowed her
followers to do so. Arnulfista legislator Francisco Reyes ---
the guy who recently pulled a gun on electric company workers
who came to his home to disconnect the illegal hookup through
which he was stealing electricity --- called the US government
one of the world’s “most corrupt and immoral”
and moved to have Watt declared persona non grata. The
president’s sister-in-law Ivonne Young --- the Minister of
the Presidency whose secretary was found to store far more than
she honestly earned from her government salary in cash in her
freezer --- called Watt’s speech “regrettable.”
Eventually Moscoso herself called the speech
“inappropriate” and her foreign ministry announced
that a formal letter of protest would be issued.
Also in this
section:
Panama News
Briefs
Scenes from the Social
Security protests
Billy Ford bolsters the
Endara ticket
Ambassador Watt's
bombshell
On the campaign
trail
