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On January 21 Charles Morris Brooks, a retired US Army colonel and the former head of the old PCC’s Canal Protection Division, made a presentation at Excedra. The occasion was the publication of Morris’s book, “Guarding the Crossroads: security and defense of the Panama Canal,” and it brought out his successor and many of his former colleagues along with the expected mix of family, friends and history buffs.

The core of Charlie Morris’s presentation was a slide show about the history of canal defense, but in remarks beforehand, toward the end of the main presentation and in the discussion afterwards the latest problems in canal security took center stage.

“This is something new for Panamanians, when an enemy doesn’t care if he dies,” Morris remarked about contemporary terrorism. Indeed, we have only had one suicide bombing, the one that brought down a Colon-Panama commuter plane in 1994. But anyone who follows the news knows what’s going on out there, and it doesn’t take too many glances at the hole in the USS Cole for someone to figure out various vulnerabilities that the Panama Canal might present.

But very quietly, the canal administration has been trying to get a handle on such things. For example, the boat launch on the west wing of the Gatun Dam, the old Ski Docks, has been closed. So has part of the national park system along the canal, in parts of which a committed fanatic might lay in wait with a rocket launcher waiting for a shot at the right ship. There is a new tone of urgency in the canal administration’s drive to run the Pedro Miguel Boat Club out of their present premises.

The canal’s defense strategists have periodically had to think about new potential enemies, but the lists of things that are critical --- the locks, the dams and the generators --- and those systems that can go out without shutting the canal, tend to be more constant. The new threats would be against the same canal, with the same key components that circa World War I might have been vulnerable to an amphibious landing backed by battleship bombardment, or in World War II might have faced an aerial attack.

The threat of international terrorism has been brewing for a long time, Morris opined, citing the Palestinian attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the exploits of “Carlos the Jackal” Illych Ramírez as examples.

“The real Achilles heel,” now as when during World War II they had soldiers on every bridge and in every engine room of every transiting ship, is according to Charlie Morris “the Trojan Horse Ship.” The rise of containerized shipping and governments’ inability to inspect anything but a small fraction of the containers enhances the threat now. And what if someone sent a weapon of mass destruction concealed in container, with a GPS detonator to set it off in the target city? “How do you protect against that?” Morris asked.

The challenge can be met, he thinks, but “it’s difficult, it’s costly and it’s inconvenient.” “Now, there are no holds barred --- they’re against everyone who is a non-Muslim.” Whereas the canal’s neutrality and usefulness has avoided the conventional threats, that equation may not apply now. “The canal is useful to everyone,” according to the conventional wisdom Morris noted, “but what if they don’t care who they hunt?” So canal security people are getting crew lists and checking them off against lists maintained by US intelligence services.

There are also International Maritime Organization's new International Ship and Port Security standards, and American regulations about which ships may enter US waters with which cargoes are being tightened. Like the rest of the world maritime industry, the canal is adapting to the changes and bringing new technologies to bear.

Neither Morris nor his successor expect that the restrictions on boating and fishing in Gatun Lake or the blocked access to some of the parks along the canal will be eased anytime soon. “What can you do?” Morris asked. “There’s a threat out there.”



















Also in this section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Panama Canal security limits recreational uses
Caribbean tourism

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