Front page: If you're not in Panama, don't you want to be?

The rains have ended, my saril is harvested and the wind is blowing steady out of the north. The waters off of the Atlantic side are choppy and not so good for diving, but this is the surfing season at Isla Grande and in Bocas. The ocean off the other side is calm, sometimes as smooth as glass, but the paucity of big waves for the surfers to ride is offset by the annual influx of the big marlin at Piñas Bay and other favorite Pacific fishing spots.

It’s dry season, traditionally the peak time for Panamanian tourism. Because last year was our nation’s centennial, and because of all the gorgeous scenes from the Perlas Archipelago that viewers of the CBS “Survivor” series were shown. We broke all tourism records in 2003. And yet, as you may gather from the above photo of a popular Pacific beach taken during the recent long Day of the Martyrs holiday weekend, we’re not particularly crowded.

Those of you who have drunk from the Rio Chagres already know. The rest of you should be aware that right now is a very good time to visit Panama.

Get another glimpse of this beach in our Outdoors section, and take time to appreciate the dry season orchids.

Panama recently observed the 40th anniversary of the Day of the Martyrs --- known in US military history as the Flag Riots --- and as you can see in our Arts section, this watershed event in our little republic’s history was observed by the unveiling of a new work of sculpture. In my opinion it’s the best public art commemorating the beginning of the end of the old Canal Zone, a series of disturbances in which 23 Panamanians and four Americans lost their lives.

Relations between Panama and the United States are much friendlier now, especially on a people-to-people basis. It does seem, however, that a bunch of people in the Panamanian government have reason to worry, as US President George W. Bush took advantage of the Monterrey hemispheric summit to restate his policy that corrupt public officials and their families will be denied visas to go to the United States. My expectation is that this time next year the Moscosos, Escalonas, Weedens and all the rest, like the Pérez Balladareses before them, will have to figure out ways to visit Disney’s Tokyo or Paris parks without touching down in the USA. Youngsters of those families who want English-language university educations will have to hope that Florida State University - Panama will let them in. I hope that Canada and the United Kingdom close ranks with the United States on this matter. Whether the English-speaking Caribbean follows suit would be mainly symbolic, because even though a good education can be had at many of the departments of the University of the West Indies, it would offend the perverse racial pride that prevails among the Mireyista crowd to consider any such thing.

(And by the way, those of you who went to US universities and support the athletic programs of your alma maters should be encouraging your favorite college baseball programs to send scouts to Panama now and in the next few weeks. The national junior baseball tournament is underway, a number of professional scouts are here for the occasion, and for many of these players an NCAA sports scholarship is a much better business deal than a minor league contract.)

President Bush’s recent statement on US immigration policy is also newsworthy for Panama, and is published in translation in our Spanish-language Opinion section. In the English Opinion section, we get a take on Bush's policy by an activist in the US West Indian community, of which a number of our readers are members.

I was a delegate to Democratic state and county conventions for many years and if I maintained a voting address in the States would not likely vote for Bush. However, I think that the dismissals of Bush’s new immigration policy as a matter of election-year pandering to the Hispanic vote are unfair. First and foremost, it’s a matter of some economic importance to allow more foreign workers into the United States. Looking at the demographics, it would be hard to meet Social Security commitments to the baby boomers and their progeny without immigration. Moreover the US is under constant threat of attack from the likes of Osama bin Laden and a sensible policy toward the many illegal but harmless working people would allow authorities to devote more attention to the few who really intend to harm America.

We have much a bigger-than-usual Science section in this issue, thanks mostly to the efforts of a US government institution that’s part of the Panamanian landscape, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The lead article is about an appearance at the Tupper Center by a superstar in the field of genetics, Dr. J. Craig Venter, which also must be counted as a major accomplishment for STRI in that it attracted an unusually large crowd of Panamanian university students. The Smithsonian, however, is not only a little island of American academia here: the STRI presentations reported herein, for examples, were in one case by a graduate student from Canada’s McGill University and in another by a professor from Israel’s Hebrew University.

In this issue’s Opinion section attorney and activist Alberto Barrow pays tribute to Monsignior Oscar Brown, Willy Gutman gets into a Kafkaesque situation unfolding in Guatemala, Human Rights Watch weighs in on the Guantanamo prison camp, economist Mark Weisbrot tries his hand at warmongering --- by advocating a US invasion of Mars --- and I resort to the Bible when considering contemporary Panamanian construction and disaster relief policies. E. Arthur Fisher also gets into an odd intersection of religion and Panamanian politics --- but I think that one who wants to get out of last place by a demonstration of faith needs to do more than roll around on the floor. (It seems, however, that ANAM is not in the habit of issuing permits for Sunday bushmaster services.) In addition to Bush’s speech, the Spanish-language Opiniones section includes the Reporters Without Borders worldwide summary on press freedom in 2003 and an open letter from an Ecuadoran group protesting Panama’s grant of political asylum to an allegedly corrupt former government minister. The Editorial lobbies for small public subsidies that would go a small group of Panamanians but promote the nation as a whole.

In the News, we have the final pieces of the May 2 electoral contests falling into shape, most notably with Martín Torrijos picking his running mates. (His speech on the occasion is included in our Spanish Opinion section.) We also highlight a couple of Colombian-related developments that directly or indirectly affect Panama, the capture in Torti of an alleged Colombian kingpin and his quick summary extradition to the United States, and the capture of a top Colombian leftist guerrilla leader in Ecuador and the implications that it may have for our neighbors’ civil war and the security of Panama and all other countries that border Colombia. The Business section takes a look at the recent special legislative session, which mainly addressed economic matters.

There is a big and expansive Community section in this issue, local enough to note the passing of Panama’s first nurse-anesthetist and to promote the upcoming American Fair at Ambassador Watt’s residence, and global enough to report a worldwide initiative against the violence that plagues too many homes and streets.

Also in the Community section, there is a readers’ poll, to help guide us during an upcoming makeover of this website. Please help us, and yourself, by responding.

Finally, I’d like to note that the other day I sat down with Tom McMurrain, the promoter of San Cristobal Land Development in Bocas del Toro. No threats were made, no weapons were brandished and there was no kung fu fighting. The man is, however, quite unhappy about some stories we ran about him and his business last year, and he complains that we have been unfair to him.

After the appearance of the first and before the second of those stories, I let his attorney know that if there is anything inaccurate I’ll run a correction, and if they want to respond our Letters and Opinion sections are available for that. Those things never happened, but on their website they published an English-language version of a purported criminal complaint against me. That was many months ago and I have never been served with any such papers. Not that the law means very much in Panama these days, but one thing that immediately struck me was that the document published on McMurrain’s website failed to mention what was alleged to be untrue about those stories.

However, those stories called the man a fugitive, and McMurrain showed me what appeared to be a stamped and notarized copy of a US Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) printout of his police record. He had a conviction for a minor traffic violation, but there was no warrant for his arrest listed.

McMurrain explained that he had a couple of business failures, and in particular took a beating when the dot-com bubble burst. He said he had a civil judgment against him, but no criminal conviction, arising from that business setback.

In Georgia, unlike most of the rest of the United States but like Panama, an individual who believes that he or she has been the victim of a crime may file and pursue a criminal charge against the person believed to be responsible. That was done in McMurrain’s case, but courts, prosecutors and police have not taken these civilian complaints seriously enough to put an order for his arrest on the LEIN, which is what ordinarily happens to fugitives from American justice.

So on that point, The Panama News stands corrected.

McMurrain also said that reported difficulties issuing titles for the properties he sold were the result of unexpected hassles from the Panamanian bureaucracy, but that since the stories were published the problems have been worked out and buyers have been getting their land titles.

Far less convincing to me was his defense of the sales tactic pushing his Palmyra development on Colon’s Costa Arriba by representing that the road to Kuna Yala --- which does not exist --- will soon be paved. But maybe he has a gift of prophecy that I lack.

Another gift that this editor lacks is infallibility. Which is why The Panama News will run a correction when we are shown to have published something that’s inaccurate, as we occasionally do.

So always bear in mind that you’re reading a newspaper that’s written, edited and published by imperfect people who are working with ridiculously few material resources.

And enjoy.

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Tourist season, but not so crowded...