Editorial: A pathetic wannabe Iron Lady

So Mireya Moscoso says she’s applying a “hard hand” against crime.

To prove it, she sent the police into this country’s poorest urban neighborhoods to round up a few people wanted for serious crimes and hundreds of others on minor offenses. But nobody was arrested for economic crimes on a grand scale, at which the Mireyista gang in government has specialized.

To prove it, she ordered a roundup of illegal immigrants, mostly humble working people from Latin America or China. But she has allowed a small group of conspicuously extravagant Americans who have given Bocas del Toro a reputation as an international real estate swindling center not only to remain in this country, but in one case to openly operate a vigilante group here.

To prove it, she and her cabinet have approved severe new juvenile laws, not only against violent crimes, to be submitted to the legislature in one final lame duck session. Now the 15-year-old who supplies a small amount of marijuana to a classmate may face 20 years in prison.

Coming from the political tradition that she does, it must pain Mireya to know that, even though these are substantial starts, fascism is made of sterner stuff.

However, even though she can’t have real stormtroopers like the death squads that gave rise to the political parties of several of her best friends in Central America, she’s done the next worst thing by “borrowing” the Colombian AUC. With hardly a peep of official protest the Mireyistas have allowed this notorious paramilitary group to invade us and assassinate sahilas in Panamanian Kuna communities, steal Panamanian aircraft and use this country as a support base for their far more extensive crime wave within Colombia.

It is often said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. However, Samuel Johnson first said that in the context of 18th century imperial Britain, at a time when sleazy politicians would regularly distract attention from their failures at home by rallying the country around the flag for overseas adventures.

Scoundrels in many places and of many political hues have long played the “tough on crime” card too. In little countries like Panama, which aren’t in any position to invade anyone else, the scoundrel politician’s last refuge is almost invariably a rigid pro-law and order posture.

The basic argument --- that the best thing for public safety is to put more people behind bars for longer times under more brutal conditions --- is hardly unique to Panama. This strategy, or its major parts, has been tried in many places. It has not been shown to be particularly effective at diminishing crime. However, questions of justice --- philosophical rather than quantifiable considerations that in the end have very real consequences --- usually overshadow arguments about deterrence.

In the broad scope of history we see a type of politician who embarks on these sorts of crackdowns. People like that come in ideological stripes and national traditions as different as Chairman Mao’s and General Pinochet’s. Their pronouncements about law and order are rarely really about public safety.

Yeah, yeah --- Mireya Moscoso wants us to know that she’s not a crook, and in fact takes a hard line against crime. Spiro Agnew used to say things like that. Nicaragua’s Arnoldo Alemán and Peru’s Vladimiro Montesinos say similar things today.

We’ve heard it all so many times before --- both about the kinds of people who tend to play the “tough on crime” card and about the merits of the basic propositions for which that political agenda stands.

Even in the second century before the Common Era, Roman playwright Terence wrote that “Extreme law is often extreme injustice.” On the other side of the vast Eurasian land mass by then, the legalistic extremism of the brief Ch’in dynasty had long since been popularly considered barbaric by the Chinese.

A few generations after Terence’s time, the Roman policy was death by torture on the cross for dissidents and delinquents alike. Generations after that, we saw a number of the followers of a man whom the Romans crucified some years before fed to lions at the Colosseum. They applied a “hard hand” against Jesus, the Christians and other antisocial elements, and every time you go by a church you ought to understand just how effective the terrible punishments imposed by the ancient Romans really were.

Yes, this country needs to take well considered action to neutralize youths who commit violent crimes. We do need better protection against youngsters who have killed and are likely to kill again than the old procedures have given us.

What we’re getting in the twilight of the Moscoso era does not suffice. Panama is not well served when cops and prosecutors concentrate on putting teenage street gangs behind bars and ignore the most parasitic gangsters of them all, those in high places.

That double standard, along with a court system that’s thoroughly discredited, reduces public support for and willingness to cooperate with authorities, which in turn hampers police efforts. When cops work in isolation from the sullenly hostile people among whom they patrol, they seldom accomplish much that's worthwhile. Very clearly, we need more justice if we want more order. Just as clearly, the outgoing administration's concept of justice has much in common with a tornado --- it's cloudy, twisted and destructive.

Like countless politicians before her, Mireya’s playing the law and order card not to advance public safety, morals or welfare, but to divert attention when so many people are hoping that there will be accountability for a change.

After she’s gone the nation will have to take well considered measures and make substantial financial investments to address the chronic serious deficiencies in policing, prosecuting, judging and punishing. We might also want to make some adjustments in the criminal laws.

More pressing now, however, is a question of justice: Will the Moscoso administration and its leading figures be held accountable for their actions over the past five years?

editorial

A pathetic wannabe Iron Lady

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