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There are both Arnulfista and PRD proposals for constitutional reform before the Legislative Assembly, but as this issue was uploaded it appeared that neither would be approved before the end of this legislative session. A continued stalemate would probably mean that voters in the May 2 general election would not be asked if they favor the convening of a constituent assembly to draft a proposed new constitution. Both Guillermo Endara and Martín Torrijos have suggested that they might call for a such a referendum soon after assuming the presidency, but for the most part Torrijos is less supportive of constitutional reform than Endara. There remains a possibility of a last minute compromise getting the constitution on the May ballot.

On December 11 86 displaced Colombians returned to their homes in and around the Colombian town of Jurado, from whence they fled to Jaque to escape fighting between guerrilla and paramilitary forces in the area. The repatriation was officially voluntary, but the Panamanian government had rejected the Colombians’ claim of refugee status. The Colombian government gave assurances of the safety of the returnees, but actually exerts little control over the Jurado area these days. A larger deportation, of some 600 Colombians, is planned to take place in February. Church and human rights groups have condemned Panama’s policy of denying refugee status to Colombians who flee across our border to escape their country’s conflict.

In the early morning of December 10 two Panamanian men were arrested and 70 AK-47 assault rifles were seized after a car chase and shootout in the San Carlos neighborhood of El Higo. The weapons came ashore by boat on the La Marina beach and were loaded into a four-wheel-drive SUV, which waiting police intercepted. The weapons were apparently leftovers from the Central American wars of the 1980s, en route to Colombia.

Former Attorney General Rogelio Cruz, who’s defending anti-Castro activist Luis Posada Carriles, has gotten the judge removed in a case that has received a fair amount of international notice. Posada Carriles and several co-defendants are being held in jail for allegedly plotting to set off an explosion at the University of Panama during a speech by Fidel Castro there during the November 2000 Ibero-American Summit. The case had been heard by Judge Enrique Paniza, but Cruz went before the Superior Tribunal and argued that Paniza was “partial” and “ignorant,” and the panel ordered Paniza off of the case. The oft-delayed trial is scheduled to start on January 21, with Judge José Ho Justiniani presiding.

Supreme Court magistrate César Pereira Burgos has struck down Comptroller General Alvin Weeden’s move (via the Directorate of Patrimonial Responsibility, or DRP) to freeze the assets of former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, and then a court panel rejected the DRP’s appeal of the ruling. It seems that Toro retains his immunity from kickback probes as a member of the Central American Parliament. Meanwhile, another high court panel has accepted Weeden’s allegation that the buoy and lighthouse maintenance contract given by the old National Ports Authority to the Ports Engineering and Consulting Company (PECC) was granted illegally, with the former president and other members of his administration receiving pieces of the action in return. Seized PECC assets have been turned over to the National Maritime Authority. Still before the court are several other PECC-related cases and a move by Pérez Balladares and Attorney General José Antonio Sossa to have Weeden removed from office for exceeding his authority in his handling of the matter.

His suplente told Comptroller General Alvin Weeden to submit his proofs of kickbacks and other illegalities in a lighthouse and buoy maintenance contract from the Pérez Balladares administration so that she could investigate it, and Weeden did bring her the documents, but when Attorney General José Antonio Sossa got back on the job he called the allegations, which implicate former President Pérez Balladares, former National Maritime Authority director and sub-director Hugo Torrijos and Rubén Reyna and RPC talk show host Dorita de Reyna, “political” and is declining to investigate the matter. “The new scandal adds to several other complaints that have still not been investigated, or which remain paralyzed... like the cases of alleged bribes given for the approval of the contract law between the state and Consorcio San Lorenzo (CEMIS), the ratification of the members of the Supreme Court and the case of the tax exoneration for Panama Ports,” according to a full-page ad in the daily newspapers that demanded a full investigation. The ad was taken out by Panama’s Jaycees (Camara Junior), Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, Lions Club, 20-30 Club and Soroptimists. “The current situation of corruption, impunity, loss of reputation and lack of credibility that the different organs of government have is creating an atmosphere propitious to produce a violent situation in this country, which nobody desires” the groups warned.

The annual December 20 march to commemorate the Panamanians who died in the 1989 US invasion drew a crowd of a few hundred people this year. Though a few were survivors of the burning of El Chorrillo during the invasion or relatives of those who were slain, the crowd was mostly a standard gathering of the “street left.” Leaving Parque Porras, the group headed toward the American Embassy but about a block and one-half before the embassy Panamanian police intercepted the protesters and did not permit them to proceed further. After some huffing and puffing and pushing and shoving and a two-hour standoff punctuated by a small cloud of pepper gas spray, the confrontation ended. Security around the US Embassy, particularly the outer perimeter guarded by Panamanian police but also noticeable in American procedures in and around the embassy and in the fortifications that have been installed to fend off car and truck bombs, is visibly tighter than before the events of September 11, 2001. Before that paradigm shift, the norm would be that these protest marches would go to the fence in front of the embassy and burn one or more effigies representing the US military, the current American administration or such, and chant slogans for a few minutes before marching on to the next point in the day’s program. Not anymore.

The directors’ council of the Bombero Corps has provisionally dismissed Felipe Fung as Colon’s fire chief and appointed a committee to oversee Colon Corps while things are reorganized. Fung faced an internal revolt from the firefighters and criticism from the community for the department’s failure to send out its ambulance in some notorious cases. The council said that the Colon situation reflected on all of the country’s firefighters in its resolution to intervene.

It’s an awful job in many respects. The chief of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) is chosen by the Supreme Court, but the force is part of the Public Ministry and the Attorney General can fire the chief for cause or otherwise make the chief’s life miserable. So chiefs don’t usually last long and the current one, Rodolfo Aguilera Franceschi, is going back to the private practice of law after 19 months on the job. The resignation is effective December 31.

Twelve detectives or inspectors for the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) have been fired for corruption, and four of them have been jailed. The offenses ranged from altering police reports to putting gas from the PTJ pumps into their personal cars.

President Moscoso ran across protesters when she attended the inauguration of the new Miraflores Visitors Center on December 18. Some were there to oppose the “Camino Ecologico,” which would go past properties owned through companies by Mireya Moscoso and her relatives, and then through the Volcan Baru National Park to connect Boquete with Cerro Punta. Others were there to oppose the flooding of the “Western Watershed” in western Colon and northern Cocle provinces to make a new lake for the Panama Canal. She was not amused, and she said that the Cocle farmers who don’t want to be displaced have been “brainwashed” by a small group of people who oppose the canal’s modernization.

Panama, along with all other Latin American nations except Honduras, has signed a United Nations treaty for international mutual legal assistance in the prosecution of public corruption cases and the recovery of assets looted by crooks in government offices. A lot of the provisions parallel the Inter-American Anti-Corruption Convention, to which Panama is a party but whose money laundering provisions President Moscoso sought to avoid early in her administration, provoking this country’s inclusion on a number of international financial blacklists. Mireya eventually backed down on her effort to limit Panama’s effort against money laundering to drug cases.

A complaint by leaders of the Embera community of Arimae that legislator Haydée Milanés de Lay and local corregidor Eric González are inciting and condoning invasions of their land has been rejected by the Supreme Court. The court held that the allegations that the Arnulfista legislator incited the invasions --- which she notoriously has --- and that González has refused to carry out orders to dislodge the land grabbers were not supported by adequate proofs for them to hear the case.

The traditional list of prisoners who are paroled, pardoned or have their sentences commuted by the president around Christmas time stands at 149 this year. Mireya’s annual resolution lets 36 inmates out of La Joya, 50 from La Joyita, 15 from El Renacer, 13 from Tinajitas, one at the women’s prison near Tocumen, 16 from Nueva Esperanza in Colon, one from the Coiba penal colony and 16 others from various local and provincial jails.

On December 17 Ocu Mayor Maria Magdalena López ordered the representante of that district’s corregimiento of Peña Chata, Leonardo Pimentel, jailed for disrespect of authority. She says the city council member used vulgar language with her. The argument grew out of a discussion about the sale of some municipal land without the matter having come before the city council.

Panama City employees and bomberos swept through the city’s wholesale and retail establishments over the first part of December, looking for illegal fireworks sales. The biggest bust was at the Casa Mayorista Micelenios on Avenida B, where some 100,000 rockets, firecrackers, smoke bombs and other pyrotechnics were offered for sale without the proprietors having a fireworks sales license. All of the fireworks were confiscated and the owners are facing the prospect of a fine.

Legislator José Muñoz has left the Arnulfista Party and signed up with Solidaridad. The defection is the latest in a series in which most of the Arnulfista rank-and-file supporters and now a increasing number of the party’s elected officials are going over to the Endara camp. Public opinion polls indicate that most Panamanians are inclined to vote all incumbent legislators out of office an the bloodbath may the worst of all for those who try to get back into office on the Arnulfista ticket.

Dissident PRD legislator Arcelio Batista will run for re-election on the MOLIRENA slate. On paper MOLIRENA has undergone tremendous growth in recent years, as public school teachers had to join the party and support the Rosas family in internal faction fights to get desirable school assignments. However, polls show that the MOLIRENA is currently the least popular party that has ballot status, many of its leading activists have broken with the Mireyista alliance and are now in the Endara camp, and the Rosas clique is now looking outside its circle to find candidates who might help the party stave off elimination in May’s elections.




Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Fatal Corredor Norte collapse causes political consequences
On the Campaign Trail

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