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The courts have already used a satirical photo montage in La Cascara News to establish the legal precedent that all satire about political figures is a crime in Panama. The tabloid cover depicted Mireya Moscoso and then Government and Justice Minister (now Supreme Court magistrate) Winston Spadafora as having an affair --- indeed, at the time he was her usual escort to social events --- handing the man responsible, Ubaldo Davis, a 15-month criminal defamation sentence for the montage. Now Davis has received an addition six-month prison sentence for the same artwork, this time for “attacking the personality of the state” --- treason, that is. The cases are being appealed, but as Mireya controls the high court Davis’s sentences are likely to be upheld unless and until he goes the next step up to the Inter-American Human Rights Court.

In the same week that Attorney General José Antonio Sossa’s subordinates took former University of Panama law school dean Gilberto Boutin to trial on fraud and forgery charges at the behest of jailed “offshore asset protection guru” Marc Harris --- the trial was ultimately postponed again --- other prosecutors obtained an order preventing former La Prensa publisher Roberto Eisenmann from traveling abroad. Eisenmann has been charged with criminal defamation by Sossa for asserting in a newspaper column that Sossa has spent his time in office protecting delinquents and prosecuting journalists. (And by the way, The Panama News backs Eisenmann on that claim.) The former publisher, now head of the Foundation for the Development of Citizens’ Liberty, brushed off the restriction as petty and said that he hadn’t planned to travel abroad anyway.

One of the traditional favorites in Carnival entertainment, musician and satirist Pedrito Altamiranda, has a new hit. “La Doña” pokes fun at Mireya Moscoso, and as a result the committee that ran Panama City’s official Carnival celebration ordered Momo, a professional dance troupe that performed on Via España on Carnival Friday, to change its act because it included a medley of Altamiranda’s hits, including his popular “Carnaval en la Central.” The dancers were given 24 hours notice to change their routine, and danced to Brazilian music instead. Vendors did relatively slow business at Carnival locales this year, but the ban made Altamiranda’s discs a hot-selling item. “La Doña” is about a vain and ridiculous president who has surrounded herself with yes-men. Many political observers are predicting that the extra attention that the ban has given to the song will translate into fewer votes for the Mireyistas on May 2.

Eduardo Bertoni, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for the Organization of American States, told La Prensa that the Moscoso administration has not kept its promise to repeal the anti-press “gag laws.” The criminal defamation and disrespect for authority laws, Bertoni said, have led to individuals being “persecuted, harassed, and/or jailed for expressing their opinions.”

The SINAPROC disaster relief agency reports 14 accidental deaths over the long Carnival holiday weekend, 10 from traffic accidents, two drownings and two from poisoning by home made alcohol. This year’s death toll was down from 17 in 2003.

Two El Chorrillo street gangs took their weapons and their rivalry to the Carnival in Las Tablas this year, and at about noon on Carnival Monday staged a rumble in the culeco (water spray). A 17-year-old youth was shot to death and three other people were wounded, two by gunshots and one by stabbing.

Panama’s best-known jazzman, pianist Danilo Pérez, has won pieces of two Grammies. The Wayne Shorter Quartet, of which Pérez is a member, won awards for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Jazz Album for the disc “Alegría.”

On February 19 seven Colombian families who had fled to Panama to escape from fighting and death squad attacks around their homes in Colombia were sent home from Boca de Cupe in the Darien to Riosucio in Colombia. The families, which included 26 people, most of them children, were repatriated “voluntarily,” but under economic and legal pressure from the Panamanian government, which did not recognize them as legitimate refugees. The area they fled is controlled by the right-wing AUC paramilitary, which despite an alleged cease fire in August of 2002 killed about 400 people, mostly non-combatant civilians, in 2003.

The E-Panama Commission, headed by Second Vice-President Dominador Kaiser Bazán, is meeting with representatives of law enforcement, the courts and the legislature to formulate a proposal to create the Cybernetic Police, a unit to patrol the Internet for defamation, pornography, identity theft, denial of service by spam mail floods, extortion, computer hacking and other crimes. Specifically NOT listed was fraud, even though Panama has become a notorious base for American scam artists aiming fraudulent pitches to the US market over the Internet.

You can’t name your kid ARC8 or Xuxa anymore. The Electoral Tribunal will no longer register bizarre names for children. However, as Panama is an international crossroads with people of many languages and cultures, there will be no attempt to impose an official list of acceptable names as some countries have. The new policy is supposed to protect children from emotional damage that can result from teasing if they are named, for example, after the Brazilian TV star Xuxa or one of Frank Zappa’s kids.

The US government has given Panama four launches and four trucks to bolster police patrols in the Darien region bordering Colombia. The total value of the gift is about $700,000, which comes as part of an anti-drug aid package.

Stephen Keller thought he had a pretty good thing going. He and his associates found terminally ill individuals, took out insurance policies on their lives that were backed by false medical reports and falsified application forms, collected when the insured individuals died and came down to Panama and live the easy life in a tropical paradise. It didn’t seem to be a big problem for Panamanian immigration authorities, who tend to treat any gringo who flashes a lot of money around as respectable. However, US law enforcement found out that Keller was down here and, through the American Embassy, demanded his return to the US. Panamanian cops apprehended Keller in Panama City on February 12 and he was put on a plane back to the states the next day.

The Ukraine says that three of its citizens, via a Panamanian company known as Global Technology International, Inc, have been running guns to Colombian insurgents and laundering the proceeds in Panama, and have asked for Panamanian government help in the case. The Supreme Court’s General Business Bench has rejected the Ukrainian request because it was not made in Spanish. It apparently doesn’t matter that such activities also violate Panamanian laws and should be of concern to authorities here.

At the same time that Mireya Moscoso was blasting the Electoral Tribunal magistrates for asking for an investigation of her use of public funds to promote the candidates she favors and warning that if proceedings were started against her there could be violence in the streets, National Police Chief Carlos Barés had an possibly related announcement. The government has bought $1.26 million in new hardware and nearly half a million dollars worth of tear gas for the riot police.



Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Mireya does battle with the Electoral Tribunal
No constitutional referendum in May
Colon blaze kills boy, disrupts city life
On the campaign trail

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