The Torrijos administration has seen its first important resignation, that of Anti-Corruption Secretary Cristóbal Arboleda. Upon his exit the former prosecutor wouldn’t talk about differences with the Torrijos administration, but he and the Presidencia did say that as envisioned by the present government the job he left is more of a public advocacy and less of an investigative post and ought to be filled by someone with a different set of skills than Arboleda’s.

Panama’s Roman Catholic Archbishop José Dimas Cedeño, lending his authority to the anti-corruption movement, has called for an “exorcism” of Panama’s justice system and accused the Supreme Court of degenerating into “a judicial and jurisdictional Hell.” Cedeño argued that the resignation en masse of the high court’s magistrates would be necessary but insufficient, because there are deeply rooted institutional problems that must be eliminated.

Six activists of Ricardo Martinelli’s Cambio Democratico party have been convicted and given prison sentences of six to eight months by the Electoral Tribunal for a party dues payroll deduction scheme that was imposed on workers at the IDAAN water and sewer utility when that state-owned institution was a Cambio Democratico fiefdom during the Moscoso administration. However, the man who was head of IDAAN at the time, Ricardo Martinelli’s nephew and fomer Cambio Democratico treasurer Ramón Martinelli, was not in the defendants’ dock because as a member of the Central American Parliament he enjoys immunity from investigation, prosecution or punishment for crimes he commits. Cambio Democratico took out ads in some of the daily newspapers attempting to distance itself from Ramón Martinelli, which strained credulity because well after this scandal was a matter of public knowledge the party nominated the boss’s nephew for another term in PARLACEN.

Last year, pursuant to the petition of then-Comptroller General Alvin Weeden, the Supreme Court’s Administrative Bench annulled the contract between the Panama Maritime Authority and Ocean Pollution Control SA. Now that same bench, but with three suplentes making the decision, has reversed that and reinstated the contract. The company’s job is to respond to oil and chemical spills in the Panama Canal and the nation’s territorial waters and despite last year’s ruling in several instances it was the only service that was available for several fuel spill emergencies.

The Vanguardia Moral de la Patria, a new political party led by disenchanted former Arnulfistas such as former President Guillermo Endara and former San Miguelito Mayor John Hoger, has filed petitions with the Electoral Tribunal and says it has the backing of enough voters to put the party on the ballot for the 2009 elections. About the time that Endara and Hoger made their move new rumors surfaced from the ranks of the Arnulfistas --- now renamed the Panameñista Party --- that ex-President Mireya Moscoso is about to step down as party leader. Endara humiliated the Arnulfista candidate in the 2004 elections and even though Mireya managed to hold onto her party post by dividing her opponents and making a deal with one of them, the scandal-tainted former ruling party has been losing members and public support for some time now. Endara’s 2004 run was on the Solidaridad ticket, but that was an alliance of convenience and soon after the election it became apparent that the former president has a number of differences with Solidaridad founder and leader Samuel Lewis Galindo and an even worse dislike for some of Don Samy’s followers.

The National Police are building three more police posts along the Costa Rican border in Chiriqui province and will send more people to staff them. There appears to be a big increase in many sorts of smuggling, going both ways, in this area. Drug smuggling routes, generally through Panama from Colombia and into Costa Rica and then to points north, tend to shift with law enforcement vigilance. Chinese smugglers of illegal migrants also frequently pass through Panama into Costa Rica while moving their human cargoes into the United States. But coming from the Tico side of the border we see a constant stream of weapons headed from former Central American war zones to armed Colombian factions, Central American nationals looking for better economic prospects in Panama and agricultural products whose traffickers seek to avoid this country’s duties or import restrictions and sell their goods here. And then there’s the two-way traffic in fugitives from the law and cash derived from various illegal activities. The new police posts are designed to assert better control over all of these things.

Lawyers for about 800 Colombian nationals who fled into Panama to escape their country’s civil conflict have sued the Panamanian government before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which by treaty is the court of last resort for many legal cases arising from Panama. The complaint is that the Colombians are denied refugee status and subjected to pressures to return to places where their lives are in danger. Panama’s policies with regard to fleeing Colombians have long been criticized by church and human rights groups.

Changuinola Mayor Virginia Abrego Salinas has fired six of the district’s seven corregidors, whom she accused of various shortcomings. She told La Prensa that she had received a number of complaints about partiality, influence peddling and other faults from people in the community, taken a month to investigate them, and acted on the basis of what she found in her investigation.

It looks like the National Assembly may be bringing back journalist licensing or other anti-press legislation again. In his speech at the opening of the regular legislative session on March 1, the assembly’s presiding deputy, Jerry Wilson, claimed that in the last session progress was made in the field of greater government transparency and blasted the press for criticism of his institution. He said that unspecified media edit out important parts of the truth and end up “at the border of disinformation,” and argued that this practice is a threat to liberty. Wilson opined that it’s every reporter’s duty to tell the whole truth, so that lies won’t prosper.

The US Agency for International Development has signed an agreement with Panama’s National Environmental Authority to help survey and post signs along the limits of San Lorenzo National Park, a 10,000-hectare parcel in Colon province west of the canal that includes Fort San Lorenzo, the old Spanish fortress and prison overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River. The area is also part of the Meso-American Biological Corridor and one of the world’s top birdwatching sites.

ANAM is looking for the importer, seller and former owner of a nearly four-foot-long juvenile monitor lizard that was captured in Panama City. As a full-grown adult, the southeast Asian reptile would likely double its size. The Moscoso administration granted permits to two pet stores to import eight of the creatures and an unknown number of others may have come into the country on the black market. But Panama has laws restricting the importation of exotic animals, precisely because pet owners who become tired of their living trophies often release them into the wild, where they might alter the natural mix of Panamanian fauna, suffer cruel fates or both. ANAM insists that even when an exotic animal is legally imported, the importer and seller has a continuing duty to monitor the animal’s status even after the sale and that fines can be expected if the traffickers of this particular reptile are identifed.

The oft-delayed MOLIRENA national convention is off again. The meeting had been rescheduled for February 27 but one of the factions opposing party boss Jesús “Maco” Rosas objected and the Electoral Tribunal put it off again. Meanwhile Electoral Prosecutor Gerardo Solís called Rosas’s purge of many of his opponents illegal and the question of whether the Rosas family does or does not possess stalinoidal powers to eliminate deviationist elements will be the issue upon which the Rosases’ political and economic future turns.

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