news

On October 19 the Legislative Assembly rejected Electoral Prosecutor Gerardo Solís’s request to lift the immunity of 14 legislators suspected of electoral crimes during the course of this year’s campaign. The legislature’s Credential Committee, which has a 4-3 PRD majority, voted unanimously to reject the request, arguing that on the notoriously pro-corruption Attorney General José Antonio Sossa --- who has no jurisdiction over electoral crimes --- has the right to petition the legislature to lift the immunity of its members. As is typical when the legislature votes to support corruption, several of the legislators sent their suplentes to cast the votes that broke President Torrijos’s “zero corruption” promise. Supporting legislators’ impunity for criminal activities were committee chairman Benicio Robinson (PRD), Freidi Torres through his second suplente Jácome Pinzón (PRD), Juan Peralta through his suplente Angel Stanziola (PRD), Agustín Escudé (PRD), Argentina Arias (Arnulfista), Héctor Aparicio (MOLIRENA) and Javier Tejeira (Liberal Nacional).

In an October 18 speech before Panama’s chapter of Transparency International, President Torrijos named veteran prosecutor Cristóbal Arboleda as his “anti-corruption czar” --- that is secretary of the new National Transparency Council Against Corruption. The Moscoso administration had an anti-corruption commission, whose recommendations she pointedly rejected, and a permanent anti-corruption organization that was part of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The new council, however, will be part of the Ministry of the Presidency, and the president described it as a presidential consulting and assistance organization. Arboleda served for two years as a public defender, then after a stint in private practice became an assistant prosecutor in 1994 and quickly worked his way up the ranks of the Public Ministry to become a special prosecutor. Though his service in the Public Ministry has been under the disreputable Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, Arboleda is considered to be an honest and competent public servant by most anti-corruption activists. The new anti-corruption czar told La Prensa that he considers it his job to “create conditions so that the corrupt know that they’ll have difficulties.”

Because parking and ingress and egress at the city’s Casco Viejo are a problem during the country’s patriotic parades, it appears that one of the two traditional parade routes for the November 3 Independence Day and November 4 Flag Day processions, the one that goes from Plaza Catedral to Plaza Cinco de Mayo, will be shifted to Calle 50. The other parade route, on Via España, would not be affected. As these briefs were uploaded the Ministry of Education, which coordinates the parades, had not made a final decision but advised that it was considering the change. Also up in the air is whether the Torrijos administration will continue the Mireyistas’ bizarre ban on such majorette maneuvers as the pirouette and the baton toss.

INTERPOL has issued an international arrest warrant for former Nicaraguan Treasury Minister Esteban Duque Estrada, who is accused of being a participant in the economic crimes of former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán. After Alemán left office Duque Estrada established residence in Panama, where maybe or maybe not coincidentally Alemán and his presidential aide Byron Jerez laundered millions of dollars worth of their illicit income. The former minister seems to be making himself scarce, and at the time these briefs were uploaded he had not been located and arrested.

In Panama there is no requirement for public disclosure of campaign contributions or expenditures, but these must be registered with the Electoral Tribunal and gross figures are disclosed. (The political parties may at their discretion release such information and some of them have and others are promising to do so.) Word from the Electoral Tribunal is that a little more than $18.5 million was raised by the political parties for the campaign leading up to last May’s election, $9.9 million by the winning PRD-Partido Popular alliance. That coalition spent all but about $400,000 of the money it raised. In second place for fundraising --- though far behind in third place in the popular vote --- were the Mireyistas (the Arnulfista Party, MOLIRENA and the Partido Liberal Nacional), who took in $5.6 million but only spent $1.7 million of it. Then there was Solidaridad, which took in $2.1 million and spent $1.6 million. The fourth-place Cambio Democratico raised and spent about $944,000. The figures don’t reflect what the candidates spent from their own pockets, nor the massive illegal use of public funds for partisan promotions by the Mireyistas.

The legal squabbles over the raising and restoration of an early 16th century caravel found in the Caribbean Sea near Nombre de Dios has moved into the Supreme Court, which on September 22 suspended the contract between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Investigaciones Marinas del Istmo, SA (IMDI) that allowed that latter company to conduct salvage operations. There has been a multi-sided rumble for control of the project for more than three years now. Although the vessel has not been conclusively identified, it appears to be the Vizcaina, which Christopher Columbus abandoned on his fourth and last voyage of discovery. People who dispute that claim cite Columbus’s log, which says that the Vizcaina was abandoned in Portobelo (which is several miles to the west). However the facts that the Genoese navigator was a notoriously sloppy record keeper, was deranged for part of that voyage and may have had a motive to mislead about the caravel’s location so that he could return and recover the weapons left behind on it combine with various circumstances indicating the vessel’s age and the object left aboard to suggest that it was in fact the Vizcaina. A number of international television networks want the contract to cover the recovery and restoration work, and even though the hull itself --- about 40 percent intact --- has not been raised, there are already disputes about where it ought to be housed and displayed.

The Casco Viejo’s famous Flat Arch, a ruin of the 17th century Santo Domingo Convent, collapsed earlier this year and in the research process leading up to its anticipated reconstruction archaeologists are working the site. There they recently found the skeletal remains of five individuals. It seems that the old practice of burying people beneath the floors of churches was also employed at the convent.

On October 15 Antonio Anderson, the 49-year-old father of two children, was killed while attempting to install an illegal connection to a power line about five blocks from The Panama News office in the corregimiento of Calidonia. A street vendor on Avenida Central, Anderson also used to install “telaraña” power connections for a fee, but on this occasion he cut a high-voltage line and it fell across his chest, killing him instantly.

On October 9 a father and son were electrocuted in the pool at baseball player Mariano Rivera’s house in Puerto Caimito. 35-year-old Víctor Darío Avila and his 14-year-old son Víctor Leandro Avila fell victim to a caretaker’s attempt to keep dogs from urinating in the pool by installing a makeshift electrical device rather than just covering the pool. The elder Avila, who was the cousin of the athlete’s wife and the baseball player’s lifelong friend, was a sardine boat cook who would clean the pool on the weekends. His son would often come along and swim in the pool. On this occasion, not knowing that the pool was electrified, the boy jumped into the pool and was killed. His father then went into the pool to rescue him and was also killed. The caretaker was also injured and hospitalized after trying to rescue the dead father and son.

During the Moscoso administration, it was government policy to encourage smoking. The worst of it was a propaganda campaign by which Philip Morris was brought into the public schools to deliver the message that smoking’s a grown-up thing to do. (For this the cigarette company feted Mireya at a gala New York reception.) But also, where previous city policies banned smoking in indoor restaurants, those were superseded by a national policy to have smoking and non-smoking sections. (In either case the rules were never very strictly enforced.) Now the Legislative Assembly’s Public Health Committee has approved a proposal that would ban smoking in indoor restaurants, bars, discotheques, casinos and public offices. The proposal would have to be passed on second and third readings by the entire legislature, then signed by the president, to become law. Then there would remain the matter of enforcement.



Also in this section:
Torrijos moves to oust Pereira from the Supreme Court
Mireyista political corruption under multi-pronged attack
September's floods spark unusual responses
Panama News Briefs

Back to top