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A week of strikes, militant picket lines and battles between protesters and riot police brought the Bocas del Toro town of Almirante to a standstill from October 21 through 26. The disturbances started as a protest against electricity rate hikes by the Bocas Fruit Company, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands. The company’s rates were higher than those charged anywhere else in Panama, and on the evening of October 21 protesters, led by militant union members, occupied the port at Almirante, though which the area’s bananas are exported. That action was accompanied by a walkout of banana workers and a blockade of the road between Almirante and Changuinola. When police moved in on October 25 to dislodge the protesters from the port at least 20 people were injured and 28 were jailed. There are allegations, backed by the marks of physical injuries and various witnesses, that those arrested were beaten by police while in detention. These accusations of torture brought more protesters out, but the crisis subsided the next day when a judge freed the detainees and the the Torrijos administration announced that it would not permit the electricity rate hike. In an October 29 visit to Bocas President Torrijos was jeered by the locals but promised to look into the charges of torture and seek a solution to the local electricity problem, possibly by a hookup to nearby Costa Rica. Because of the disturbances some 30,000 boxes of bananas went to waste, costing the company some $150,000 in direct damages and possibly the loss of some contracts with foreign customers.

A package of constitutional changes that was approved by the outgoing legislature in the lame duck months of the Moscoso administration was ratified by the new Legislative Assembly on October 26. The package contains 67 changes, most of which strengthen the grip of the political parties on Panama’s government, but which will also allow for people to run for the legislature as independents and creates the possibility of constitutional reform by way of a constituent assembly.

Has some real estate hustler convinced you that there is never any inclement weather in Bocas del Toro? Think again. (Or maybe, think for the first time for a change.) November is the height of rainy season and our usual heavy seasonal rains have caused a number of rivers to overflow their banks, most notably in Bocas the Sixaola River, which forms part of Panama’s boundary with Costa Rica. Across the Atlantic side province, but especially in the mainland portion, flooding has forced more than 200 people from their homes and washed away roads that connect about 4,000 people with the rest of Panama. Some of those whose homes were flooded have taken refuge in several public schools that have been converted into emergency shelters, but others who are subsistence farmers and who have lost their crops and animals have migrated toward the cities in search of work. It seems that the communities on the Costa Rican side of the Sixaola River have suffered even worse floods. The governments of both Panama and Costa Rica have sent emergency teams and supplies to the area.

One of the crown jewels of Panama City’s park system, Parque Omar, has been encroached upon, according to a complaint by First Lady Vivian de Torrijos. It seems that some five hectares of the park have been built upon by various neighbors and that legal action will be taken shortly. These neighbors, unlike the usual land invaders, tend to be wealthy, so it remains to be seen whether they will be chased away like poor squatters tend to be, by riot police and demolition crews.

After triple heart bypass surgery and a week in Paitilla Hospital, former President Guillermo Endara has been discharged to recuperate at home. In the wake of his second place showing in last May’s elections, Endara has been dedicating his energy toward getting a new party, “Vanguardia Moral de la Patria,” on the ballot for the 2009 elections.

As might have been expected, when he visited Colon on November 5 for the annual celebration of the 1903 surrender of that city’s Colombian garrison, President Torrijos was greeted by protesters. Groups of the unemployed were demanding jobs, former National Port Authority workers were demanding the severance pay they say they were owed when the Port of Cristobal was privatized, university students were demanding a new Panama-Colon highway and a pedestrian overpass in front of the Colon Regional University Center, Colegio Abel Bravo teachers were demanding repairs to their school, Costa Arriba residents were demanding a bridge over the Cuango River and people who have recently been laid off by the government were demanding reinstatement. The protests were peaceful and the president took the time to speak with some of the demonstrators. Torrijos said that a couple of programs that will directly create some 1,400 jobs in the economically depressed province are in the works.

The launch Delta Tide, making a short run from Amador to the Port of Balboa capsized and sank on November 8. Trapped below and drowned was 24-year-old Gaitano Calboza, a shipping agency boarding agent whose body was recovered the next day. Three of the other seven people aboard were injured in the accident. The National Maritime Service (SMN) is investigating the cause of the accident, but reports in several media indicate that cargo that was not securely stowed shifted when the launch was hit by a wave, causing the boat to overturn.

Colombian police have captured José Nicolás Hurtado Buriticá, whom they allege to be the head of the FARC urban guerrilla column that in October 2003 kidnapped 14-year-old Daniela del Carmen Vanegas McLaughlin and, after ransom demands were not met, killed her this past September. Vanegas was a dual Panamanian-Colombian citizen by virtue of her Panamanian mother and Colombian father. Hurtado, who was captured in the mountainous Boyoca region, was wanted for a number of other offenses as well, including last year’s wave of attacks on Bogota bars that members of the AUC paramilitary patronized and the 2002 detonation of a booby trapped bicycle at a police station that left four cops and one civilian dead.

On November 9 the New York V, a fuel tender that serves ships transiting the Panama Canal, crashed into the Port of Balboa’s Pier 7, ruptured its hull and fuel tanks and spilled 57,000 liters of fuel oil into the waters of the canal’s Pacific entrance. The vessel was under tow by a tugboat at the time of the accident. Emergency teams from Ocean Pollution Control and the Panama Canal Authority quickly moved in to contain and clean up the spill.

Forest rangers from the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) have uncovered an illegal logging operation in the Soberania and Camino Las Cruces national parks near Gamboa, and seized 127 mahogany boards worth an estimated $12,000. No suspects had been arrested at the time this issue of The Panama News was uploaded. The parks are home to some valuable mature hardwood trees, and have been the scene of a lot of crimes, including frequent armed robberies of park visitors. The criminal element that preys on the resources and users of the parks is believed to live for the most part in Chilibre. The infrequency of arrests is the subject of much speculation about whether the criminals have access to law enforcement information or use lookouts and advanced communications to elude capture.

On November 5 police raided a house in Chilibre where they seized 29 AK-47 assault rifles, three other firearms and a small quantity of ammunition in a truck parked there, taking a Panamanian woman into custody. Over the next several days officers arrested a Colombian man and two Panamanian men in connection with the case. The arms were apparently bound for use by irregular forces in Colombia’s civil conflict.

Mario Alberto Molina, a Catholic priest and native of Panama City, has been named bishop for the Guatemalan diocese of Quiche. After graduating from Colegio San Augustin here, he received his higher education in Spain and Rome and has been serving in Guatemala as a parish priest and teaching in seminaries and universities since 1985. Molina also represented the church in many of the peace and reconciliation efforts undertaken at the end of Guatemala’s long and bloody civil war.

Investigaciones Marinas de Istmo (IMDI), the company that arguably had a concession to explore and raise the remains of a ship that may be Christopher Columbus’s caravel the Vizcaina, claims to have found three more marine archaeological sites off of the coasts of Colon province. The work on the submerged early 16th century ship off of Playa Damas near Nombre de Dios, which some certain circumstances indicate is the Vizcaina, has been blocked for several years by legal disputes which are now pending before the Supreme Court. Now the government complains that the exploration work on the other three sites has been done without any of the needed permits, so the high court has ordered a stop to that, too. At this point IMDI is taking the position that the ship off Playa Damas is not the Vizcaina, based on the opinion of Cuban archaeologist Abraham López. Whether he’s right about that or not, the vessel is certainly one of the oldest found in the waters off of the Americas and an important archaeological find.

The Cabinet Council has rescinded the infamous Executive Decree 107 of November 13, 2003, which purported to repeal prohibitions against destructive activities in the Volcan Baru National Park, in order to allow construction of the controversial proposed Boquete - Cerro Punta “Ecological Road.” Despite the mobilization of a Mireyista vigilante group which confronted environmentalist protesters and went on a tree-cutting rampage in the park (for which Mireya pardoned them), the road was never built and will not be anytime soon.

Belgian customs authorities have seized a shipment of some 600 endangered Panamanian frogs, which were being smuggled into the country through the Brussels airport. Three Belgian citizens were arrested and the frogs were taken to Antwerp’s zoo pending a decision about what to do with the amphibians. Meanwhile the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) is conducting an investigation into this type of poaching, which had apparently caught Panamanian authorities unaware.

Dr. Ella Ferguson of the anti-smoking Asociacion Antitabaquica de Panama is concerned that Panama is losing the long-term battle against tobacco addiction. While more than 70 percent of the people in this country don’t smoke, she told El Panama America that there has been a substantial increase in smoking by young Panamanians. During the Moscoso administration the Ministry of Education brought propagandists from Philip Morris into the public schools for an “anti-drug” program, the principle message of which was that smoking’s a grown-up thing to do.

One of the reasons why the organized crime syndicate in the United States prospered for as many decades as it did was a decision by founding members Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky et al prohibiting attacks against law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges. Prosecutors in the case of five individuals accused of the murder of Colon province’s customs chief Aquiles García are saying that these alleged gangsters obeyed no such rule. Their theory of the case is that García was hit because of some of the drug seizures he made.

Radio journalists Blas Julio and Alonso Pinzón have been handed prison sentences, commutable by payment of fines, for criminal defamation of businessman Abdul Waked. Originally charged with extortion, the trophy videotapes provided by prosecutors to television stations manifestly did not show any attempt to blackmail Waked into paying money to stop broadcasting unfavorable stories about him. However, the extortion charge and Julio’s reputation for yellow journalism kept the international journalist protection and human rights groups from coming to the defense of the two men, who spent more than two years in jail awaiting trial.

In a bizarre series of allegations, several Taiwanese opposition legislators accused President Chen Shui-bian of giving former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso a $1 million check as a gift. One of the legislators went further and alleged that it was hush money after a sexual harassment incident. Chen says he’s going to sue for defamation, and if there ever was a check, no bank records have been produced to document it. For her part, Mireya also denied the payoff.

An argument over which group of directors legitimately represents the Calle Arriba of Las Tablas, and thus which of their rival queens is legitimate, may or may not have been resolved by Administrative Prosecutor Alma Montenegro de Fletcher’s declaration in favor of one group, and thus Abigail Cedeño. The dispute over control of one of the two Carnival organizations in the nation’s principal partying hot spot was referred to Montenegro de Fletcher by Las Tablas Mayor Melquiades González. There is a lot of money involved in the Las Tablas festivities, and the prosecutor’s decision was 22 pages long. If the rival faction, which has chosen Karol Amores as its queen, does not accept the opinion then the matter may be taken to the courts.

Five days before she left office office Mireya Moscoso, on behalf of the Panamanian government before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, admitted liability in the disappearances and deaths of more than 100 persons over the nearly 22 years of the former military dictatorship. That, of course, cast President Torrijos’s father, the late General Omar Torrijos, in a guilty light and put the incoming government in the position of having to pay large judgments to the victims’ families. But the Torrijos administration has repudiated the admission, arguing that most of these cases have not made their way through the Panamanian courts and thus the commission has yet to acquire jurisdiction over them. The new administration’s position was asserted by former President and current ambassador to the OAS Aristides Royo at an October 20 commission hearing. The commission is pressing for an out-of-court negotiated settlement, but at the moment it seems that the Torrijos administration is unwilling to begin talks aimed at such a result.

Being in its origins an unplanned community of squatters, San Miguelito has never had a cemetery of its own. But now it’s a city of more than 300,000, whose decedents tend to be laid to rest in Panama City’s municipal graveyards. The problem is, Panama City is running out of burial plots as well. Thus it has been announced that San Miguelito will soon have a city cemetery and Panama City is adding two new ones to its collection.

Over the Halloween weekend and through the November 2 Day of the Dead the National Police in Chiriqui mobilized their forces against a terrible threat --- satanic rites in the David Municipal Cemetery. It seems that the state of alert worked, as there were no reported sacrifices of beloved family pets or unblemished young virgins in Chiriqui’s provincial capital.

Also in this section:
Panama City's parades
Arosemena de Troitiño takes high court seat
Audits catch up to Mireyistas
Panama makes it the Group of Four
Panama News Briefs

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