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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
   
   
Panama News Briefs
Christmas quakes cause property damage, deaths
An earthquake in the early morning hours of December 25 destroyed 81 houses and damaged more than 1,000 others in the Puerto Armuelles area, and killed an infant who was crushed under a collapsing wall. The tremor, which had its epicenter near Puerto Armuelles and registered 6.3 on the Richter scale, was felt throughout much of Panama and Costa Rica. On the other side of the border, it destroyed two bridges on the Pan-American Highway. There were aftershocks, which apparently prompted two more deaths in Panama, one an elderly man who had a heart attack and the other an elderly woman who had a stroke.
Asylum for Ecuadoran ex-minister
Ecuador’s former Minister of Economy Carlos Julio Emanuel Morán, disgraced and under investigation back home for allegedly demanding bribes to disburse funds that the national government had authorized to be transferred to municipalities, has been given asylum in Panama by President Moscoso. The decision to grant political asylum has been criticized by opposition parties and anti-corruption activists.
Jaime Jácome takes over at PTJ
Jaime Jácome has been moved from his old job as vice-minister of the presidency to the head of the Technical Judicial Police (PTJ). The appointment, by the Supreme Court over which President Moscoso maintains control, serves two main purposes. First, the PTJ investigates acts of public corruption and Jácome’s term is set to run through 2009, which gives officials of the Moscoso administration an extra added measure of impunity for their criminal activities. Second, it puts another leading Mireyista activist in a job that won’t end with the Moscoso administration. Although appointed by the Supreme Court, a PTJ chief can be fired by the Attorney General. Attorney General Sossa’s term in office expires early in the next administration, which will almost certainly be headed by Martín Torrijos or Guillermo Endara, neither of whom are likely to appoint a successor who has much use for Jácome.
Court lifts bank secrecy for Portillo and associates
According to La Prensa, the Supreme Court has authorized Panamanian prosecutors to pierce the veil of bank secrecy protecting 14 bank accounts belonging to the outgoing Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo, his Vice-President Francisco Reyes, plus several other friends and relatives of the head of state, who is being investigated by Guatemalan prosecutors on suspicion of massive embezzlement. The Guatemalan authorities had made the request for assistance to their Panamanian counterparts in 2002. Guatemala’s presidential plane made frequent flights to Panama in 2001 and 2002, and prosecutors believe these trips were for the purpose of transferring cash to this country. As a signatory to the Inter-American Anti-Corruption Convention, Panama is obliged to ignore bank secrecy in public corruption cases.
High-ranking FARC leader caught in Ecuador
The Colombian government is celebrating the capture of FARC leadership council member “Simón Trinidad,” whose real name is Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera, in Ecuador on January 2. Trinidad, who is believed to have been FARC’s chief financial officer, is the highest ranking member of Colombia’s main rebel army that has ever been captured. Although the Uribe administration used the occasion to predict that FARC is collapsing and to call for the rebels to lay down their arms, that’s probably an exaggeration. Uribe has during his years in office overseen a government and paramilitary offensive that has reduced the territory under effective guerrilla control from about half of Colombia to about about 30 percent, but in recent months he has suffered a string of political defeats, including the failure of his attempt to amend the constitution to allow himself to be re-elected and Bogota’s recent election of a leftist mayor. The Trinidad capture is significant for Panama not only for the general reason that Colombia’s civil conflict occasionally crosses the frontier into this country and other nations adjacent to Colombia, but also because there have been persistent rumors that in the face of government and paramilitary offensives a number of FARC leaders have gone into hiding abroad, and even older suspicions that FARC keeps a good part of its money in Panama. Thus some of the fallout from this event in our neighbors’ long-running war may land here in the form of financial investigations or manhunts.
RP ups airline security at US request
The United States has issued a worldwide “yellow alert” on suspicions that Osama bin Laden’s followers are set to stage a new wave of attacks, and has asked Panama to beef up airline security. Inspections of passengers and luggage at Tocumen Airport have been increased, and Panamanian airliners will be guarded by armed, US-trained air marshals. In 1994 a Colon to Panama commuter plane was blown out of the sky by a suicide bomber of apparent Lebanese origin, and though the case remains unsolved most suspicions point to Islamic extremists.
Panamanian pharmacologist honored
University of Panama pharmacology professor Mahabir Gupta, who has played a leading role in organizing international efforts throughout Latin America to research and catalog the medicinal properties of plant substances, has won the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s prize for international cooperation. Gupta heads Interciencia, a coalition of 17 organizations promoting the advancement of science in the region, and has worked to improve drug quality standards in Panama and several other Latin American countries.
Anti-malaria offensive
Malaria is not a significant problem in most of Panama, but it is endemic in certain remote rural areas and in 2003 reported cases nearly doubled from 2,062 the year before to 4,108. Thus the Ministry of Health is planning a full-scale assault on the disease’s vectors, the anopheles mosquitoes. The problem is that these insects are mostly immune to the toxic chemicals that have previously been used to kill them. Thus the ministry is looking at different insecticides, and plans other measures like draining or oiling swamps, installing metal screens on houses and encouraging the use of insect repellents.
Chiriqui provincial council rejects road
As its last item of business for 2003, the Chiriqui Provincial Council --- composed of representantes from municipalities across the province --- passed resolution condemning the proposed road past the properties of Mireya Moscoso and her relatives and through the Volcan Baru National Park. The vote was 43 in favor of the resolution, 10 against it and five abstentions. Opponents of the road have stepped up their protests and opinion polls indicate overwhelming public opposition, but Mireya says the road is going through in any case.
Sossa blasts civic groups
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