Tilila Valdespino is the governor of the Embera-Wounaan Comarca, the first woman to hold such a post in one of Panama’s semi-autonomous indigenous areas. She came to Panama City the other day, and the location of my story about it was a hard choice among the arts, news and business sections. Given that she and a number of the caciques were in the capital to promote a new website through which the artisans in her constituency will sell the fruits of their labor around the world, I decided that this is more than anything else a business story. And let us hope that the ancient Embera and Wounaan nations, peoples with one foot in the stone age and the other in the space age, whose native languages have number systems that only go up through five, will successfully accomplish their modest economic ambitions.
In the last issue I didn’t get the science section completed before I needed to start working on this one, so that means that we have a larger-than-usual science section, including coverage of Dr. Jorge Motta’s presentation to the Panama Historical Society about the American influence on Panamanian medicine, the World Health Organization’s take on interpersonal violence as a medical problem, and reports on Smithsonian lectures about how fig trees keep wasps from cheating, the evolution of termites and a soil specialist’s analysis of how living things affect and have affected Earth’s carbon dioxide levels and climatic conditions.
As is to be expected in Panama’s drawn-out lame duck period, the transition from one administration and legislature to the next ones play prominently in the news. We have heard the definitive announcement of Martín Torrijos’s first three cabinet choices, and plenty of rumors about the others. We have also seen the basics of the PRD’s proposed package of constitutional reforms, which at first glance leave me with very mixed feelings.
There is a larger than usual opinion section again, especially because of Ronald Reagan. His demise was that of one of the few US presidents who devoted much attention to Latin America, and also the passing of the man who more than anyone else set up the present paradigm of American politics.
To be candid, I was not a Ronald Reagan fan. To be honest, I have to give him credit for being one of the most successful US presidents --- maybe THE most successful --- in my lifetime. After the Kennedy assassination, the American people lived through four presidencies in a row that ended in failure, and it was Reagan’s great luck that he came to the White House when there was a strong public sentiment for a successful presidency for a change, and moreover he also had the good fortune to have the economy on an upswing through most of his time in office.
(Were Reagan’s economic policies responsible for this? I think only marginally so. Was he the luckiest American president with regard to the economy? Not nearly so lucky as Bill Clinton was. It’s not that public policies don’t mean anything, but I am a firm believer that the president of General Motors has more to do with the US economy than does the president of the United States. Likewise, though I blame Mireya Moscoso for an awful lot of bad things that Panama has experienced under her presidency, I believe that the economic malaise that characterized her term in office is mostly not her fault.)
Ronald Reagan’s death put US political arguments on hold for about a week, but not long after he was buried the controversies about the war in Iraq and the state of the American economy resumed at full volume. You will find that reflected in our letters and news sections.
Here in Panama, there may have been more attention paid to another series of events that was unfolding in North America. That streak ended on June 16 when the Chicago White Sox were held to three hits by Carl Pavano of the Florida Marlins, and one of those three hits was not by Carlos Lee. That ended the Panamanian outfielder’s hitting streak at 28 games. While it was only half as long as Joe DiMaggio’s legendary hitting streak, it was still a remarkable accomplishment and the longest such run by a Panamanian baseball player. It doesn’t seem likely that Lee will be voted onto the American League’s starting All-Star team, but if he isn’t chosen as one of the reserves it will be a truly unfortunate omission.
This issue’s community section is also about things Panamanian with a US connection. We note the passing in the United States of Frank Jeanmarie, Sr., a popular Panamanian saxophonist and bandleader of yesteryear. We repeat our announcements of the Fourth of July picnic in Pedro Miguel and the Panamanian Friendship Reunion in Chicago. Then there is the tale of how one of this newspaper’s problems with Attorney General Sossa and his minions came to its apparent end.
Our lead letter alleges an “anti-American slant” to The Panama News, and some may point to Raúl Leis’s opinion piece on US-Panamanian free trade talks or our inclusion and analysis of the Bush administration's torture memo as cases in point. In some ways, such criticisms are the mirror images of the allegations that our reporting of unfortunate truths about Mireya Moscoso’s performance and our publication of editorials and opinion columns taking her to task make us “anti-Panamanian.” I reject both of these arguments, but I doubt that this will convince anyone to change his or her mind about them.
The truth is that the Iraq War has so far been a bloody fiasco. In large part this is because at the top levels of the US government wiser military minds were overruled and such planning as was done had as its basis a set of wildly unrealistic and totally dogmatic “shock and awe” postulates. Most notably, there was the bizarre notion that in this day and age foreign invaders can take over a former colony that has gained its independence without inciting an organized effort by people in that country to shoot at the invaders. Chronicling or commenting on this may in effect cast aspersions on the president of the United States. It may not be the best thing for the morale of the US and allied forces over there, who include some family members of mine. But it’s the truth, something that the American people had better bear in mind when trying to figure out how to resolve the current mess.
Let me not be misinterpreted to say that Saddam Hussein was a misunderstood nice guy. He was a bloodthirsty tyrant, and Donald Rumsfeld’s assistance to him at the very time when he was using chemical weapons --- both on Iranians and on Iraqi Kurds --- is but one more reason to reject the “you’re for us or against us” slurs against its critics.
Let me also not be misinterpreted to say that there are no American heroes in this sorry affair.
Two of the finest American soldiers to rise to prominence out of the Iraq War, a major general and a cook, happen to be immigrants.
Antonio M. Taguba came to the United States from the Philippines, where his father had been a prisoner of war under the brutal Japanese militarists. His investigation of and report on the systematic violations of international law at the Abu Ghraib prison will go down in history as a classic counterpoint to those who would qualify the concept of “liberty and justice for all” with an “except when following contrary orders” loophole. To the extent that his findings are suppressed and ignored, torture will remain the norm for both sides and Americans who fall into enemy hands will be abused as a matter of course.
Shoshana Johnson came to the United States from Panama, and like many members of this country’s Afro-Antillean community have done, enlisted in the US Armed Forces. Wounded and captured early in the Iraq War, she was displayed on video by Saddam Hussein’s doomed regime in gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, something that The Panama News denounced at the time. Appearing on CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss the Abu Ghraib scandal, she was most eloquent in disputing the excuse that a lowly MP prison guard would not have known that it was wrong to torture and humiliate prisoners of war in her custody.
I see two things in common that surely must have played major parts in clarifying Taguba’s and Johnson’s vision while many around them found myopia more convenient.
First, because of Taguba’s father’s experiences and because of Johnson’s own ordeal, both of these soldiers had very good reasons to understand what an awful setback it is to humanity when the protections mandated by the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights laws are scrapped.
Second, because just like the convert to a religious faith tends to believe more zealously than one who is raised in it, those who are Americans by choice --- the immigrants --- are more likely to value liberty and justice as very real things rather than abstractions learned in elementary school and to be the staunchest defenders of these principles.
So while most of the world reviles those who offer the Nuremberg defendants’ “I was only following orders” excuse and their superiors’ “I was out of the loop” dodge, Taguba and Johnson have done a great deal to rescue the honor and good reputation of America’s military profession.
Do you disagree? Well, that’s why we have a letters to the editor page and why I try to include a mix of opinion columns in The Panama News.
You should also know that your contributions need not be limited to letters, opinion columns or donations during our two annual fundraising months. The Panama News will provide a much more complete service for this country’s English-speaking community --- both on the isthmus and in its diaspora --- to the extent that more people contribute to all sections of the paper. I can only be in one place at one time, my knowledge and interests are lacking in many areas that this publication ought to cover, and my energy and talent are both limited. This issue is better because Frank Jeanmarie, Jr. sent us the story of his late father’s contributions to the Panamanian music scene of yesteryear, just like the last issue was better because of Skip Berger’s take on the day the buses didn’t run in Colon. So send in your news, reviews and opinions, and help make The Panama News a better community newspaper.
And enjoy this issue.
