Panama News Briefs

The Mireyista majority on the high court is now officially history, as his erstwhile colleagues and replacement have voted to reject former Supreme Court presiding magistrate César Pereira Burgos's challenge to his removal last October. President Torrijos invoked a mandatory retirement age law and declared the magistrate's position on the bench vacant. Graciela Dixon dissented from the ruling and Pereira Burgos's replacement, Esmeralda de Troitiño, coupled her vote to uphold the ouster with an explanation that she had intended to recuse herself from this matter because it had to do with her own presence on the bench, but was not allowed to do so by her colleagues. The decision left the matter of the mandatory retirement law and questions about the separation of powers among the branches of government unsettled, as the magistrates based their ruling on the fact that the copy of the challenged resolution attached to the pleadings was not notarized. Pereira Burgos plans to appeal the decision to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which by treaty has the power to review and possibly overturn Panamanian Supreme Court decisions that affect human rights.

There is movement in both the legislative and executive branches to impose a new land tenure order in the islands of Bocas del Toro. Legislation proposed by PRD deputy Benicio Robinson would make it possible for many people who hold land by right of possession to obtain full title to their property, but that move is facing some strong criticism by lawyers who say that it's unconstitutional. Meanwhile the executive branch has created an inter-institutional commission to deal with the problems. As the IPAT tourism bureau, which is represented on the commission, put it in a press release the aim is "to put an end to the illegal speculation in property that belongs to the state." The land problems in Bocas range from the abuses of Isla Solarte, in which promoters who at best hold usufructory rights --- the right to gather fruit and harvest crops on public land --- are purportedly selling real estate interests and delivering neither title nor even possessory rights, but instead shares in a company controlled by the promoter, to the more mundane evils of unbridled development in a place without adequate sewers. While there may be a crackdown on those who have installed docks or built houses over the water without bothering to apply for concessions to do so, it probably won't affect those who have such concessions or who duly applied and have been stalled by the bureaucracy. People who bought land from which its rightful owners were illegally dispossessed by the prior local administration are likely to lose their investments. The big unknown is whether there will be any criminal prosecutions for the rampant real estate frauds that have gone on in Bocas over the past several years.

Both the executive and legislative branches of government are moving to make life harder for foreigners living illegally in Panama. The biggest group of these is Colombian, but there are also many Chinese, Central American, Dominican, North American and European illegals here. On the executive end, the police have been setting up roadblocks and stopping people who appear to be foreigners, asking for ID and preventing those without proper documents from traveling on their way. (If you are a tourist, carry your passport and visa or tourist card at all times. If you are a citizen or legal resident, you ought to know that you need to take your cedula whenever you leave the house.) In the National Assembly, MOLIRENA deputy Wigberto Quintero has introduced a proposal to create a National Migration Council and a single register of all foreigners in Panama. By various estimates, nearly 30 percent of all persons in this country are foreign nationals and some politicians are making an issue of it. Among the general public there is a long-established streak of anti-Chinese racism, plus a concern about Colombian violence becoming part of the Panamanian way of life. However, we have yet to see any substantial anti-foreign protest demonstrations.

Radio La Exitosa, which is owned by Solidaridad legislator Aris De Icaza and is home to Miguel Antonio Bernal's Alternative talk show, has been sequestered by order of Panama's 13th Circuit Court after Mireyista insider and former Caja de Ahorros chief Raúl Piad sued over broadcasts in which De Icaza criticized Piad's performance at the state-owned savings institution. The sequestration order was unanimously denounced in a rare National Assembly resolution, which claimed that it was an attack on freedom of expression. The lending practices of the Caja de Ahorros while Piad was at its helm have been the subject of several criminal and administrative investigations. So far the sequestration has been a matter of court officials taking an inventory of assets, rather than the handing of the station over to Piad as theoretically could happen.

Anti-corruption czarina Alma Montenegro de Fletcher has charged anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro for criminal defamation (calumnia e injuria) after the latter filed a criminal complaint alleging that Montenegro de Fletcher had exerted pressure on the courts to keep her sister, Sandra Montenegro Navarro, who has been convicted of embezzlement, from being incarcerated. Montenegro de Fletcher didn't forthrightly deny the allegation, but called it "irresponsible" for involving members of her family.

Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro has one more annoyance to contend with, now that prosecutor Alcides Pimentel has been persuaded to open a criminal defamation investigation against him. The complainant is anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro, with whom the mayor has had spats before. This time Navarro called Montenegro a "buffoon," which the latter considers a crime against his honor. In most places, one who willingly gets involved in a public controversy may legally be called a buffoon and much worse by his or her detractors.

A gang of five Colombian nationals, three women and two men, has been apprehended for a string of upscale house robberies in San Francisco. One of the victims of the armed house invasions was a member of the Torrijos cabinet. The gang's method was to scout potential victims, then open their doors with skeleton keys, holding anyone found inside at gunpoint while stripping the houses and persons of valuables. Police had been working to apprehend the gang for several weeks.

Attorney Gilberto Boutin, the former dean of the University of Panama law school and once the lawyer for jailed "offshore asset protection guru" Marc Harris, has been sentenced to 34 months in prison for perjury and forgery. Boutin and two other lawyers used falsified documents to freeze more than $1 million in assets managed by Harris in an argument over attorney fees Boutin claimed that Harris owed him. Along with Boutin, attorney Ariel Corbetti got a 34 month sentence, while attorney Federico Espino Zambrano received a 24 month sentence. All three will have their licenses to practice law suspended during and for one year after their incarceration. Two other defendants were acquitted. The big winners in the dispute, which has been raging since 1997, may be former Harris employees who are seeking unpaid wages and look to funds that Boutin froze as a source of payment. Harris is serving a 12 to 17-year prison term in the United States for money laundering and criminal conspiracy offenses.

Such people do not get strung up in Panama. However, the former Cocle provincial director of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI), Jorge Iván Sánchez, has been arrested for stealing a valuable Brahma bull from a farm near Penonome. Also arrested by the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) in the case was the caretaker of the ranch where the theft took place. Sánchez, who maintains his innocence and was granted bail pending trial, was implicated mainly on the strength of allegations that the bull was taken away in his truck.

It seems that the National Police don't consider an assignment to remote indigenous areas an excuse to take liberties with the local girls. A major, three captains and two lieutenants are among nine police officers who have been fired from their jobs and are facing criminal investigations of allegations that they had sexual relations with underage indigenous girls in the Darien and Kuna Yala.

The Ministry of Government and Justice has allocated $100,000 to buy supermarket vouchers which will be exchanged for firearms in a resumption of the guns for food exchanges that took place under prior administrations. The first exchanges will take place in San Miguelito.

The Electoral Tribunal has decided to purge the voting lists of the names of all persons who have held but not exercised the right to vote for three consecutive elections and who have not renewed their cedulas or otherwise filed documents with the tribunal in that time. Those stricken from the list would be able to reregister. The measure would fall hardest on Panamanians who live abroad but might be inclined to return to Panama to vote in a particular election. A lot of the names stricken from the rolls would be of people who have died or emigrated and cut their ties with Panama. Many countries eliminate non-voters from electoral rolls, but the practice is also sometimes abused by governments intent on retaining power through election fraud.

The Alianza para la Conservacion y Desarrollo, an umbrella organization for environmentalist, historical preservationist and Clayton resident groups opposed to the development of a forested area of the former Fort Clayton through which a part of the colonial Las Cruces Trail runs, has challenged the Housing Ministry's (MIVI's) decision declaring the area "developable" in a lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court. The group claims that the tract belongs to a national park and thus can't be legally developed.

Mireya Moscoso chose April Fools Day to step down as leader of the Panameñista (formerly Arnulfista) Party, and has been replaced by vice-president Marco Ameglio. This time six years ago Ameglio, a scion of the family that owns the Bonlac dairy products and beverage company, wasn't even a member of the Arnulfista Party. He takes over a divided party that has been diminished by purges and resignations and is in debt. Ameglio claims that Moscoso left him a party bank account "without one cent," and was immediately taken to task by Mireyista loyalists who accused him of disrespecting the ex-president.

The Electoral Tribunal has cut off subsidy payments to the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA), once a conservative business-oriented political party but in recent years an extension of the Rosas family business. Under the Moscoso administration MOLIRENA was essentially a shakedown racket under which public school teachers had to join the party, pay dues and support the Rosases in their intra-party feuds in order to get good teaching assignments. Party boss Jesús "Maco" Rosas is facing a strong challenge in an upcoming but often postponed leadership convention, and his expulsion of several of his opponents is under challenge before the Electoral Tribunal. All of these things, however, have nothing directly to do with the tribunal's decision on the subsidies. The reason given for the withholding of more than $20,000 is that the party has failed to file proper accounts of how it spent previous subsidies.

On March 31 and April 1 organizations of the unemployed did battle with riot police in Colon. On the second day the confrontations reached their peak when the cops opened fire on a crowd that was pelting them with rocks and bottles, wounding one person in the stomach. More than a dozen people were treated for lesser injuries, mainly the effects of pepper gas. During the first day's confrontations police maced TVN videographer Wilyanis Tapiero, who was recording the arrest of one of the protest leaders.

Panamanian President Martín Torrijos and his Costa Rican counterpart, President Abel Pacheco, met on April 1 in Changuinola to discuss a series of mutual concerns, but none more urgent than the devastation that recent flooding on both sides of the countries' Atlantic Side border has wrought. The bridge over the Sixaola River has been washed out, and it was agreed that a temporary Bailey bridge will be installed while plans for a more substantial span advance. The Costa Ricans also agreed to a reforestation project along the rivers on their side of the border, as abuses in the Tico part of the watershed were a major cause of the floods. Torrijos and Pacheco also talked of mutual law enforcement assistance, connecting Bocas del Toro to the Costa Rican electrical distribution grid and joint tourism promotion efforts.

The road that crosses the Madden Dam is out of service and will be for some four months. The Panama Canal Authority is doing a major overhaul on the dam's gates and has cranes and other heavy equipment deployed there.

The nation's Ombudsman Juan Antonio Tejada has begun an investigation of several complaints about religious discrimination in the public schools. Cited issues include a student compelled to pledge allegiance to the flag although it conflicts with her family's Jehovah's Witness beliefs that their only allegiance is to the kingdom of God and kids from Rastafarian families being excluded from school because of their dreadlocks. Tejada called for more tolerance on the part of public school officials in this predominantly Catholic country. Catholicism is taught in the public schools here, but students whose parents pose religious objections are not required to take the classes.

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