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Above in indigenous garb we see US Ambassador Linda E. Watt, at a ceremony in Ngobe country wherein US National Guard and Reserve engineering units here on dry season maneuvers celebrated the completion of two new classrooms and many other projects in the poverty-stricken Chiriqui part of the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca. Watt spoke a few words of Ngobe on that occasion --- apparently the first time that an American envoy has used one of Panama's indigenous languages on the job --- and it was an early indication that this career diplomat wouldn't be the run-of-the- mill ambassador. Though not a political appointee, she toured the country and worked the crowds like a seasoned wardheeler. Watt's most prominent acts of the year, however, were two speeches, one to the Chamber of Commerce and the other to PTJ detectives at the end of a seminar on investigating public corruption, in which she denounced the corruption that has become such a salient feature of our public life.

2003 was the last full year that Panama will have to deal with Mireya Moscoso as a public figure, unless you want to count her prospects as the boss of a discredited minor party or as a potential defendant in one or more corruption cases. Here, she and legislator Haydée Milanés de Lay appeared at Boca de Cupe in the Darien, where villagers from Paya and Pucuro fled after a death squad attack by Colombia's AUC paramilitary. Four men, including three sahilas --- Kuna local public officials, more or less equivalent to representantes or municipal council members --- were assassinated in that raid. So was this a show of sympathy? Consider that Mireya didn't order flags flown at half staff for the murders of the public officials, that no arrest warrants were issued for the AUC members responsivle, that the government sent no representatives to the funerals, and that shortly afterwards, at a summit with the Central American presidents and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe (who by most independent accounts must qualify as the AUC terrorists' principal state sponsor), she broke with Panama's traditional neutrality in Colombia's civil conflict by denouncing the leftist FARC guerrillas but not the rightist AUC paramilitary. Worst of all, however, was that Mireya had a man who ran ahead from Paya to Pucuro to warn of the impending attack, thus preventing further assassinations, jailed on bogus charges that were eventually thrown out of court.

As for the legislator (center, in the baseball hat), she switched from Solidaridad to the Arnulfista Party during the year and launched a campaign advocating "Indigenous people to the comarcas," that is, the ethic cleansing of communities such as Paya and Pucuro. The CAtholic Church took Milanés de Lay to task for this, especially after she supported land invasions at the Embera community of Arimae, whereupon she and the Moscoso administration blasted the Catholic Vicarate of the Darien in particular and all non-governmental organizations in general.

The argument with the Catholic Church, to which more than 80 percent of Panamanians adhere, was one of the milestones in the collapse of public support for Mireya Moscoso and her dwindling band of followers. Yes, she had control over the courts and the legislature, and she rigged the Arnulfista presidential nominating process so that her hand-picked candidate, José Miguel Alemán, will be the standard-bearer for this May's elections. But Alemán is garnering about eight percent voter support in the polls and dropping, while Guillermo Endara has accepted the Solidaridad nomination and taken most of the rank-and-file Arnulfista supporters out of the party that Mireya owns.

Shall we talk about political manipulations at Carnival? They were a factor, because the nation's musicians are virtually unanimous in their disdain for the president, so at the Centennial Commission's Carnival stage in Panama City they brought in Dominicans as headliners --- much safer to have Magic Juan prancing onstage in his underwear that some degenerate Martín Torrijos supporter like Rúben Blades undermining the event's political correctness. But anyway, people don't think about politics very much during Carnival. These folks were much more interested in getting wet and cool while waiting for the Penonome Water Parade to start.

There's no such thing as Mireyista congo dancing --- it's a black thing, you see --- but the government's National Institute of Culture (INAC) did in fact sponsor this diablitos and congos festival at Portobelo. INAC had a bad year, with an inside job robbery of priceless golden artifacts at the anthropology museum and the collapse of the Casco Viejo's Flat Arch, but because it was our centennial year the institute also sponsored a number of impressive special events.

This photo was taken along with the one at the top of this page at the school where Ambassador Watt spoke at the end of the Nuevos Horizontes military engineering maneuvers. From this reporter's perspective, a good indication of the prevailing economic conditions is had by looking at the kids' feet and calculating what percentage are going to school barefoot.

Another indication of the conditions in which those kids live is a look at the houses across the road from the school, with the understanding that those who live on the road tend to be substantially more prosperous than those whose homes can only be reached by walking or riding a horse.

Our business pages are not just about banks and other big-time players. We also consider people like this herbal medicine vendor in Panama City's Mercadito an important part of the national economic scene.

In August Panama suffered along with most of the rest of the world from the attacks on the Internet with the Blaster virus, which messed up hard drives, and the SoBig.F worm, which clogged email boxes. These crimes, which cost the world economy billions of dollars and were quite a nuisance for The Panama News, remain unsolved.

It's a tough job, but SOMEONE had to visit one of the nicest urban parks anywhere, Colon's Area Recreativa Lago Gatun, for our travel section.

In September Mireya fired Seguro Social director Juan Jované and proceeded to raid the Social Security Fund's cash reserves for an election season spnding binge (they called it a government bond sale, but nobody was fooled). The move provoked weeks of protests and clashes between student and labor militants. The corporate mainstream media --- although not necessarily the journalists who work for them --- were unanimously for Mireya and agains Jované in this dispute, and so during these protests "embedded" their reporters with the police. The Panama News took a different position, which in this case entailed a stinging whiff of tear gas.

The labor movement called two general strikes over the Social Security issue, but only a minority of Panamanian workers heeded the call and walked off the job.

Mireya Moscoso put her face on lottery tickets, centennial issue silver dollars and many public buildings this past year. It did not boost her popularity.

On November 3, Panama celebrated its 100th birthday with parades, concerts and fireworks. The two main news stories related to that event were Mireya Moscoso's unsuccessful attempt to prevent Rubén Blades (who won another Grammy this year) from giving a free concert on the occasion --- the argument turned ugly with a physical assault on Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro by Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona on the steps of the Palacio Municipal --- and a huge influx of black tourists from the United States, mainly the descendants of the West Indian workers who comprised the majority of the Panama Canal construction workforce.

Due to the centennial, Middle East warfare that sent many European tourists who would ordinarily cruise the Mediterranean to the Panama Canal instead and sundry other factors, Panama shattered all records for tourism in 2003. Those who actually came here and the things they did quite often had very little relationship to IPAT's strategy of attracting wealthy visitors to upscale hotels. These folks were en route to a rustic vacation at the Darien's Playa de Muerto.



Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Legislature leaves much undone
Looking back on 2003
Arrests in Costa Rican radio pundit's murder
On the campaign trail
Venezuelan soldiers killed in Colombian incursion

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