This was one of the things to be seen at the recent Who’s New - Artguilders Christmas Bazaar, and even though peak tourist season won’t begin until dry season sets in toward the end of December, it’s a sign that Panama’s holidays are almost upon us.
Because October of 2004 has five Fridays, there will be a three-week gap between this issue of The Panama News and the next one. (We publish twice per month, which is not exactly the same thing as every two weeks.) By the time that the next issue appears, Portobelo will have welcomed the crowds of pilgrims and tourists for its October 21 Festival of the Black Christ, the nation will have celebrated its November 3 Independence Day and November 4 Flag Day, and Colon will have observed the November 5, 1903 surrender of the Colombian garrison there.
(As a Colon Buay and a journalist, the latter event does my heart proud. In the nearly bloodless coup that turned Panama into a separate country, the officers of the main Colombian force, which was stationed in Colon, were summoned to Panama City on a ruse. They set off in a railroad car, which was then conveniently left uncoupled on a siding in the middle of the jungle, halfway across the isthmus. But how to keep the troops back on the Atlantic side out of mischief, especially as it was a bank holiday? From the safe of Panama’s oldest newspaper La Estrella (now but a shadow of its former self), the cash was produced to buy prodigious amounts of rum to bestow upon the leaderless Colombians. When, a couple of days later, the troops awoke from their drunken stupor, Colon’s boy scouts and bomberos were there to confront them. It might have been a bloody mismatch, had the US forces not been on the scene to support Teddy Roosevelt’s new ally. So the Colombians wisely threw in the towel, got on their ship and went home. And thoughtful Panamanians have been pondering the practical and ethical implications of those events ever since.)
After the next issue appears, the November national holidays will continue with celebrations of Panama’s separation from Spain and the organization of Panama’s firefighters. Then we get to December 8, the Catholic Day of the Immaculate Conception which is also Panama’s Mothers’ Day --- a very big deal here --- and then to the Christmas and New Year festivities. Also in that time frame we will mark the 10th birthday of The Panama News.
By the time the next issue appears, the United States will also have held its elections. Much of this issue is dedicated to that historic confrontation. Go to the community section for advice if you are voting absentee and haven’t yet mailed your ballot. Read the editorial to see this newspaper’s take on what a Bush re-election would mean for Latin America and the Caribbean. In the opinion section, Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and the independent Ralph Nader campaign join the Kerry camp and the White House in one last round of campaign appeals, while economist Mark Weisbrot ponders the Bush economic record and Council on Hemispheric Affairs analysts Jenna Liut and Larry Birns look at the Bush administration through its behavior in Haiti.
(No, the opinion section does not ignore Panama. Raúl Leis treats us to a Kuna legend with lessons for today, Miguel Antonio Bernal gives his diagnosis of an ailing country, and I put forward my alternative legal critique of Mireya’s pardons.)
The pardon list upon which I unexpectedly found myself is being challenged by several people on both narrow and broad grounds. Should I be the least bit surprised that Attorney General Sossa is moving to reinstate the bogus criminal defamation charge brought against me by American fraud artist Tom McMurrain, formerly of Bocas del Toro and a couple of scams before that Atlanta, but now a resident of the PTJ lockup while he fights a US extradition request? Of course not. Anyone who knows anything realizes that Sossa’s extremely pro-corruption and hardcore anti-journalist, that he’s the kind of guy who would be expected to lend the power of his office to assist Tom McMurrain’s extortion attempt aimed at forcing me to give him The Panama News. And that’s exactly what Sossa’s doing, and it’s neither unexpected nor particularly worrisome. The sad thing is that, in his furtherance of an old feud with his sleazy predecessor Mayín Correa, Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro is also making legal arguments that would have me again facing the expense of defending myself against McMurrain.
(And by the way, despite the arrest of McMurrain accomplice Eladio Robinson, the former mayor of Bocas, on separate real estate scam charges, a pathetic remnant of the McMurrain criminal organization is purporting to carry on the scam as if nothing has happened. Read all about it in our business section.)
Most of our letters page this time is the product of something that I published elsewhere, about my misgivings about having been included on a pardon list with a number of anti-Castro terrorists who had intended to commit mass murder in Panama. Find that column by clicking here and scrolling about halfway down the page.
The main legal story in Panama these days, however, is not about me or directly about any of Mireya’s pardons, although it does affect the person who had been assigned to hear the challenges to the pardon lists. President Torrijos has moved to oust the Supreme Court’s presiding magistrate, César Pereira Burgos, pursuant to a controversial mandatory retirement age law. By the time that all of the moves and counter-moves have been made, Pereira may or may not be on the bench but the 5-4 Mireyista majority on the high court will have been deprived of power.
As regular readers of The Panama News will know, much of this publication is derivative of this country’s Spanish-language media, and English-language summary of other journalists’ work. When a news or business brief summarizes something that was reported by only one organization, that source will be named, but normally those are summations of events that most of our national news organizations have reported. The story on which I spent the most time practicing original journalism in this issue, moreover, is in the review section, in the form of my observations while running with a pack of international journalists who descended upon Puerto Caimito to cover the tragedy that struck Yankee pitcher Mariano Rivera’s household there. For some of these guys, they might have been in Pittsburgh or Portugal or Pyongyang for all of the recognition they gave to the local context from whence they were reporting. The New York Daily News and The New York Times turned out to be the most honorable exceptions to the oblivious trend, as you might gather from the results of a Google news search of the key phrase “Puerto Caimito.”
That day in La Chorrera district also gave rise to this issue’s dining column. Yum --- bollos chorreranos.
I also got to put on my sports reporting hat for this issue, as Panama’s national team is fighting for a spot in the next tournament on the road to soccer’s 2006 World Cup in Germany. In the particulars, there is mainly disappointment to note here. However, at the bottom line there is a November 17 game against El Salvador at Rommel Fernandez Stadium in Panama City, and if our team can beat the Salvadorans again they will probably advance to the next round.
So whether it’s cause for sorrow or celebration, anger or pride, this issue touches the bases of how it feels to be Panamanian these days. Enjoy.
