Lots of letters to the editor this time

I am deeply displeased by the personal attack that the vice-president of the National Assembly launched against me the other day, for having recommended that my colleagues, the present deputies, eliminate all the privileges that the law confers upon us. I told PRD vice-president Raúl Rodríguez that I didn't ask for the vote of Circuit 8-8, going door to door in the last campaign, to come and be part of a privileged caste when there so much misery, so much hunger, so many people out of work, so much of an increase in the cost of living and so much penury growing around us in Panama.

I don't see what authority there can be to demand greater sacrifices from a people who have already been sacrificed, when the Assembly enjoys these abhorred automobile exonerations, telephone privileges and free passports. We deputies make enough, as also do the magistrates and other functionaries who are looking for additional privileges.

Vice-president Rodríguez can say what he wants and accuse me of seeking notoriety if he wishes, but I don't agree with any of the likely pantomime about putting a limit on these privileges. We have to do away with them. I will be presenting a proposed law to toss out all the privileges and I hope that President Martín Torrijos, in his character as secretary general of the PRD and in keeping with his position in the last political campaign, will support this initiative with the 43 votes of his caucus.

Editor's note: Since this letter was written Ms. Lasso has submitted her legislation, which most observers give little chance of passage. I hope that the conventional wisdom about this is wrong.

I then read the following: "If you look at the editorial that goes with the picture above, it probably isn't all that far from what Pope John Paul II believed. "

There you lost me because Pope John Pope II believed in God. Nowhere in your article do you make reference to God. The evil that happens in this world is because many people around the world have turned their backs on God. They no longer invite God into their hearts, homes and into their communities.

So I strongly feel that priority one is God awareness. Life is too short so we must pray hard and often. Much good can be realized by prayer and by making God our partner in our interactions with those in the world around us.

Let's look at the following statement: "Searching For God." Why? Because we are all searching for something in this life... What can be more satisfying then searching for God? Yes, my friend God is the answer.

Pope John Paul II through his travels, teachings and writings stress God and our personal relationship with God. Now lets ponder the following thoughts:

In the first place your heart must always be reserved for God. Always have God on your mind. How happy you will be! What will be lacking in your life? You will have everything, because he who has created all will satisfy you. Without him everything that exists is nothing. Oh God what can I offer to possess you? Your answer is: Give me yourself and I will give myself to you, give me your life and you will have me.

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.

Pope John Paul II's motto was "Be Not Afraid." His life was that of a very humble, religious, wise and fearless man. He was always saying that each day we begin our spiritual journey anew. Each day offers a new beginning, a new opportunity to advance in God-awareness. a real opportunity to contemplate our life. His life was totally devoted to God. Each day priority one was God and Pope John Paul offered his life and performed his duties solely to please God.

We too can turn to God through prayer and example. This is the legacy of Pope John Paul II. That in our own spiritual journey can be further enhanced knowing that Pope John Paul II has traveled by our side as he sought to make each day a new opportunity to advance spiritually, we too can also realize that we can emulate his sublime effort as we seek to advance our own spiritual goal toward the closeness of God.

Yes, Pope John Paul II is no longer with us but he left us a lasting legacy one that will live forever. This is what we remember of this saintly, humble and fearless man... Yes "Be Not Afraid...I go before you always... Come follow me... And I will give you rest." (Excerpt from the Catholic Church Hymn "Be Not Afraid," written by Rev. Robert Dufford, SJ.)

Again I must say that Pope John Paul II's cornerstone principle of living a good life was prayer for this is our pathway to God. Like my grandmother use to say, "If you are with God who can be against you." He preached the gospel of life rather then the culture of death. There is a big difference!

As a rabiblanco, let me just say that I am as disgusted as can be at that Plaza Paitilla orgy, and hope to God that all those involved get thrown in jail, be it for pimping, drug consumption and/or the possible murder of Ms. Márquez.

I would also like to tell you that I have heard this sentiment expressed quite often by other rabiblancos who do not share the outlook on life as some of the participants to the aforementioned orgy.

Editor's note: This is a point well taken, and it's wrong to stereotype those Panamanians with wealth and connections as a bunch of degenerates who invariably expect to get away with abominable behavior because of who they are or what they own. Many members of Panama's wealthiest and most powerful families maintain high standards of decency, and some of them use their privileged positions to do good things for the country. As noted in the editorial in question, most of the young men involved in the Plaza Paitilla Inn incident are aspirants to the most privileged circles in Panamanian society rather than actual members of them. But the culture that created such people didn't arise from a vacuum --- it seems rather to be a continuation of a sordid tradition that can be traced all the way back to Pedrarias the Cruel.

I was deeply touched by the events occurring to one Vanessa Márquez March 5th 2005.

I am an American citizen who was fortunate enough to visit your great country in the middle to late 1990s. I came along with an Army reserve engineering task force to help fix some roads and schools. Everything about my visit left me with a favorable impression about the hard working, and gracious people of Panama. I recently began a Internet media and web design service, and was looking for some non biased news

sources when I came across the panamanews.com web page. The story concerning the young lady with the now orphaned young child haunted me to no end. I realized how hard many of your citizens work, for little pay, and not much in the way of retirement benefits. This led me to imagine an elderly grandmother working into her retirement after a life of hard work, and the loss of a daughter. The child, with an absent father and dead mother, would be faced with an uphill battle just to have what we Americans would consider a decent existence. I'm sure the proud people of Panama take good care of their own, and I thank God the child has some family to look after him. Nevertheless, I would like to try to help in some way. Among other things, I am going to appeal to my audience, however small to donate what they feel the can to give this child and grandmother a hand.

I wish to address a number of the issues that you raised in your article concerning San Cristobal Land Development in the most recent edition of your newspaper and to provide information as to some of the steps that I and my associates have taken since the arrest of Tom McMurrain.

That article states that we have formed a new company and "converted" the assets of San Cristobal to its use. The statement about the new company is true, but the so-called "conversion," in the sense of that word in US legal usage, is not.

After McMurrain's arrest and extradition, we decided that we wished to, and needed to, conduct a business separate from that of San Cristobal. There were practical, business and philosophical reasons for this decision:

First, we wished to operate a company in accordance with our own more traditional business model, rather than that of San Cristobal. That meant offering land qua land --- that is, land without plantations and plantation management or tree houses, with the payment of most of the purchase price at closing. We are not, to adopt your phraseology, selling "money trees." We will tell customers up-front whether they are purchasing registered or "derechos posesorios" property.

Second, we could not practically conduct new business under the San Cristobal name or within the San Cristobal corporate shell --- adverse publicity, San Cristobal's inability to maintain its existing checking account (closed upon McMurrain's arrest) or open a new account, and the inadvisability of subjecting assets destined to new customers to the claims of San Cristobal's creditors made this course impossible.

Third, and most important, we wished to conduct a business free of McMurrain. I will not pass judgment as to the charges that he faces, which is a task for the jury that will hear the facts presented against him and his defense. I can state that we all trusted him for reasons that then seemed good: we observed that he bought land in amounts that would satisfy the claims of customers and we saw that clearing and planting was taking place under a competent manager. He also had a clean criminal record --- as the editor of this journal admitted on its pages in 2004 --- and no public official would say to the contrary, privately or publicly. There were also some worrisome signs: The articles published in this journal were troubling in respect of their statements as to McMurrain's prior life in Atlanta. However, their author could not be regarded seriously because he was not only wrong but dead wrong as to matters with which we were well acquainted, such as his allegations in his articles that we had not cleared and planted, and his intimations that we had purchased Indian tribal lands, as he claimed

on a message board; because there seemed instinct in his writings an animus belying his characterization of his articles as "journalism" and of himself as a "journalist;" because his private conduct, his former associates and a business that he had recently conducted, or attempted to conduct, which was the subject of a warning by the Comision Nacional de Valores, did not suggest an overabundance of rectitude; and because his unrestrained public ranting against others on message boards and on his website and some private observations respecting his behavior involving a person who he regarded inimically implied an irrational person with an ad hominem agenda who was not possessed of very good self-control or very much capacity for self-censorship. It did not help in our appraisal of his motivations that his business had offered teak interests. Also, his allegations as to McMurrain's criminal activity in Atlanta, which at the time I had seen only in those articles, seemed to me to be in the fine American tradition of attempting to criminalize behavior in order to obtain favored treatment or preferential status under civil laws, including those relating to bankruptcy, or the predictable but understandable accusations of disappointed investors. The vague allegations of these articles, which essentially claimed that the borrowing of money followed by failure to repay was criminal, pale in comparison to the specificity of the indictment, which alleges acts that, if they occurred, were clearly criminal. McMurrain's spending habits were also troubling, but until quite late, money was available to meet obligations. There were signs of disorganization, insufficient focus and lack of care in entering into transactions, especially those involving the purchase of land, but that's why subordinates were needed. On the basis of what we knew, then, we were all disquieted, but none of us was so uncomfortable as to leave. The arrest, added to what we had experienced, made it impossible for us to view him as a desirable business associate. In addition, as a stylistic matter, we wished to establish an organization that would be run along more democratic lines than was San Cristobal.

The new company and San Cristobal operate in parallel. We all agreed that, although we had no legal obligation to remain with San Cristobal, we could not as a matter of conscience abandon its customers, many of whom had become friends, leaving them with the likelihood of losing everything.

1. San Cristobal has signed over property at Palmira to the customers who purchased it and has signed promissory notes for an agreed amount in settlement of their other claims.

2. San Cristobal has entered into an arrangement with investors in the Buccaneer project that may result in their receiving back their money and a profit, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit against the seller of the Buccaneer, who has refused to complete its transfer, and the eventual sale price of the Buccaneer if the lawsuit is successful.

3. San Cristobal has transferred possessory rights properties to their purchasers. This places valuable rights in their hands, but the work of obtaining the promised title to these properties has not been completed. As noted in the last edition of this journal, there are hopeful signs that the government may adopt legislation regularizing this process.

4. We are working on an escrow arrangement under which purchasers who owe balances for the so-called "Big Bight" properties may deposit them in escrow, with the escrowed funds to be used to complete titling of that project. One customer has done so, but his funds alone are insufficient.

On this escrow depends the future. If enough deposits are made, funds will be available for the continuance of the work of meeting San Cristobal's obligations. If not, a very difficult period lies ahead.

The impetus for the above activities has come from within. We have heard from and dealt with lawyers for some customers, but we, rather than they, have been the driving force.

There are some less bright spots. San Cristobal has yet to consummate its first sale of noni. And the process of clearing up problems with title to registered property on the mainland moves more slowly than we would like.

San Cristobal and its assets remain and will remain wholly separate from the new company. All of the members of the new company expect to apply much of their energy and some of the revenues of the new company to the orderly satisfaction of claims of customers of San Cristobal. While it may be apparent to your journal and to some others that San Cristobal should close its doors, that I should leave Panama and that its former employees should be hounded out of commercial life, I doubt very much that San Cristobal's customers, who would be the persons most nearly affected by this outcome, would concur in that judgment.

1. We did not "steal" --- to use your terminology --- the name of Tropic Star Lodge any more than other companies throughout the world that use "TropicStar" in their corporate names have appropriated it. The name was freely available and met the criteria of Panama's Public Registry that require that corporate names should not be confusing. We did not choose it because of any hoped-for association with the lodge, which is engaged in a wholly different line of business, the fine reputation of which I was unaware and the existence of which I had only the slightest knowledge. We may not in point of fact have chosen well --- we tend to get lost in the extensive information about the lodge that a web search produces. I take you at your word that the owners of the lodge are unhappy with our choice; but they have yet to manifest their displeasure to us.

2. I share your perception that whatever may happen with respect to teak and noni, customers may do well with their land. While McMurrain may have been overly optimistic about noni as a marketable crop and about the potential income from it, he may also have been insufficiently rosy in larger measure as to prospects for Bocas real estate.

3. On a personal note, I have been berated in your journal, in another on-line publication and on a few message boards for overseeing San Cristobal's legal affairs. I did so to the best of my ability and I don't apologize for it. That's what American lawyers do and I believe that I did so within the law and in an ethical manner. (I use the words "American lawyers" deliberately, because one of my more disappointing and bemusing discoveries from the San Cristobal debacle is the tendency of the top Panamanian law firms to run at the least whiff of scandal, which is just when you require the services of these fair-weather friends. Or maybe you don't --- who needs a lawyer that is afraid of controversy?) Always, I served San Cristobal's interests and never McMurrain's, which is why neither the famous criminal libel complaint or anything that I wrote speculated on McMurrain's past. Notwithstanding some of my jocosity on message boards, I was never "McMurrain's mouthpiece."

4. Amazingly, McMurrain's Atlanta business was not, strictly speaking, a loan sharking operation. I had speculated prior to his arrest as to whether he might be charged under laws forbidding that kind of business, but have discovered that Georgia issues small-loan licenses under which loans may be made --- most often, I suspect, to the poor and helpless from Atlanta's ghettos --- at rates of 300 percent per year. Nothing in the indictment relates to the loan business as such. Even more surprising, McMurrain's company purportedly raised a great deal of money from persons that he met through his "born again" church, paying them interest at the rate of 36 percent per year. While none of these persons deserved to be defrauded, if that be proven, they hardly seem to be ethical investors, either.

Your journal has published a number of articles the import of which is that the persons connected with the new company are nothing more than members of the "McMurrain Gang" and are nothing less than crooks continuing a scam. "Lie down with dogs --- get up with fleas" has surface appeal, but it's not the only possible interpretation of events and it's not the correct one. We who worked for McMurrain misjudged him in the same way that San Cristobal's customers, along with his Atlanta lenders and I suspect many others, misjudged him and for the same reasons --- he was charismatic, gave the appearance of sincerity and credibility and was very persuasive. We were shocked by his arrest and by the mess that he left behind. We have carried on with the intention of cleaning up that mess and, to the extent possible, seeing to it that customers receive what they paid for; and we have done so using our personal financial resources, since neither the old or the new company has received sufficient funds to pay us very regularly. This story has not yet played out and a happy outcome is not certain. I should add that not one of us ever received more from San Cristobal than the salaries or fees to which he was entitled and that none of us has been paid very much since early 2004. All of us could have done better, from a financial point of view, pursuing other interests.

I wish that you had contacted us so that our side of the story might have appeared in your journal, but I realize that it would have been difficult for you to do so. McMurrain's bellicosity and rage made civilized conversation impossible before his arrest and left an understandable aftertaste even after he departed. In this regard, two incidents merit special mention. The first is the criminal libel complaint that was filed against the editor of this journal and another. Criminal libel is, in my view as an American, a remedy that is inappropriate against a person acting on purely journalistic motivations. In my view as a lawyer, the prosecution of important private matters should not be entrusted to public officials, for the reason that they may view them as having a lower level of significance and may therefore not pursue them as vigorously as a private individual. Accordingly, my advice was not to file the complaint, but others

determined to act differently. The complaint has been dismissed and the editor, who was one of its objects, was pardoned in advance of any factual investigation --- a Panamanian version of the Queen of Hearts' "Sentence first --- trial second." If, however, the case were somehow to be revived --- and I have no intention of seeking its resurrection --- I would not pursue it against him.

The second is the famous letter written by McMurrain to the editor of this journal, which was previously published on its electronic pages. I believe that, owing to the incoherence of that missive, which may be an indicator of the conditions under which it was written, many interpretations of its substance are possible, of which the unlawful purpose assigned by the editor is one but not the only one; at this point, there is little point to attempting to parse its true meeting, if there be one. Beyond quibble or

interpretation, however, is its belligerence, crudeness and vituperation. The letter was written by McMurrain alone in the dead of night and was transmitted without the knowledge of any of us. We all apologize for it and dissociate ourselves from it.

If you would like information about our activities since McMurrain's arrest, our door is open. I hope that you will enter.

Okke Ornstein's comment: I'm pleased to read that Barry Miller finally agrees that what I wrote about Tom McMurrain and his unsavory past in Atlanta was indeed true. It has taken no less than two years for him to admit to the facts.

I wish he'd do the same about what was published about McMurrain's activities in Panama. Months before I wrote the two stories that marked the beginning of the San Cristobal affair, McMurrain was claiming in email correspondence with clients that 32 plantations had been sold, surveyed, titled, cleared and planted, which was simply not true. Absolutely nothing had been titled at that time, something Miller confirmed in an internal email to sales manager Ian Calvert Bleasdale (who was later arrested for fraud and child rape). The first title documents they have sent to clients date from about six months after publication and are titles on the big properties, not individual plantation titles. Absolutely no client properties had been surveyed at that time, or cleared, or planted other than one piece of land at Punta Pargo which was used for display purposes. San Cristobal's own internal planting database which I obtained proves that beyond any doubt. Miller on the other hand, who now claims that what I wrote about clearing and planting was not true, has not offered a shred of evidence in over two years to back up that claim.

Another indication that Miller has a sort of lost track of history would be that he wrote and told me several times that in fact my articles pushed McMurrain into making a start with clearing and planting of the Tropical Working Farms.

Miller's statement that "San Cristobal has yet to consummate its first sale of noni" at least implicitly admits that McMurrain, but also the current president of Tropic Star, Peter Ernst, as well as other people working for San Cristobal, have consistently been lying over a period of almost two years about sales of the fruit at outrageous prices, contracts with Chinese, Colombian and European buyers and similar false statements. Yet, he asks us, prospects and clients to trust them now that they've adopted a new name.

Not only is Miller lying, his lies are also very transparent and easy to refute with facts. Maybe that is why both the prosecutor and the judge decided that his libel complaint had no merit.

Editor's note: The bottom line about Tom McMurrain is that he and his associates in San Cristobal used fraudulent misrepresentations to sell real estate and commodities investments here, and that his behavior in Panama was in keeping with a string of previous scams that he ran in both Georgia and Costa Rica. In the name of San Cristobal Land Development, he brought bogus criminal charges against me and then used this prosecution as a lever to try to force me to sell him The Panama News. Mr. Miller can sling as much mud as he want against me, Okke Ornstein or any other person. He can twist the lack of a warrant on the Law Enforcement Information Network database at a given time any way he wants. He can get into arcane discussions about the English vernacular and comparative law --- yes, just like prostitution is legal in Panama but a crime in Georgia, loan sharking is legal in Georgia but a crime in many other jurisdictions, and so what? It still doesn't alter the bottom line or move me to retract what this newspaper has published about San Cristobal Land Development.

One thing that is coming out of the whole argument is the obvious split in the Republican ranks between the religious conservatives and the corporate types. There was anger in Florida about Congress's intervention and there was a feeling that the Republicans were pandering to the religious. It didn't help matters when William Bennett demanded that Jeb Bush seize Terri Schiavo. And then there was Rick Santorum running around the state blaming the judges. The irony was it was a conservative Baptist judge who issued the ruling. The two Republican candidates for governor took a disappearing act. Even dear old Jeb laid low.

If anything good has come from the public torture and slow execution by our own government of an innocent helpless American citizen, preventing even her crying mother from bringing her water and love, it is that the hideous sickeningly evil conspiratorial face of our own government has raised its head in the light of day for all to see. This is a nightmare I will never recover from, nor I feel will the majority of the American people, until the perpetrators have been brought to justice.

I say nightmare because the sadistic murdering of Terri Schiavo in front of America, the world, and her crying family conjures up terrible past images of Nazi and Communist atrocities, of parents and little children being executed for hiding Jews and others designated "unworthy of life" by the state, as has happened to Terri Schiavo, while people stood by and did nothing, or those that did were arrested by the Gestapo police as happened in Florida by police fully qualifying as modern day Gestapo beasts, slavishly subservient to their cold blooded political masters and obviously devoid of any morality, integrity, or conscience, saving their paychecks by arresting and handcuffing brave little kids, ministers, and even Bo Grites, a highly decorated Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel war hero, for the crimes of trying to bring water and Holy Communion to a dying woman. The cowardly and conspiratorial president, governor, judges, and police have desecrated everything that is moral, right, and holy that our ancestors died for in all our struggles.

We should see www.thenewamerican.com (search schiavo) or www.jbs.org for the shocking incriminating evidence and prevent this type of crime by government ever again. These destroyers of our God-given right to life must be impeached, indicted, and never see the outside of prison walls again! Terri Schiavo is the Joan of Arc of our century!

When he saw the end coming, Pope John Paul II chose not to go back to the hospital to be hooked up to respirators, kidney dialysis machines, feeding tubes and so on, even though it may have kept his heart beating and brain waves moving for hours, days or even years. That prompted anguished protests from neither those who knew and loved him nor from pro-life zealots. The pope had an array of rights and options, which he chose not to exercise.

The American courts, in this case with mostly conservative judges presiding, found that Terri Schiavo had expressed a similar desire before the unfortunate heart attack that left her in a vegetative state in what would otherwise have been the best years of her life. But it seems that fanaticism is all the rage in the USA, so she was not allowed the same consideration that the pope received. Mix in the attention of sensationalist news media, plus the posturing of opportunistic politicians, and we had a very ugly scene indeed.

But you know what? Most Americans were unimpressed by the religious nuts and ultraconservatives and willing to give Terri Schiavo's wishes about her own life the same deference as was given to the pope's final desires.

The distinction here is between a right and a duty. Someone who may have a right to live as a vegetable hooked up to machines doesn't have a duty to live that way.

In the interests of peace and development why aren't there very large taxes on the global armaments, war industries and trade, and global financial transactions, especially immediate and short-term activities? These could provide very useful funding for humanitarian and development programs.

Also in the interests of peace and development the worldwide, routine and very serious human rights abuses in prisons, police stations, law courts and workplaces, and state-sanctioned judicial and extra-judicial murder need urgent, serious and sustained attention and action, as do the very serious human rights abuses and murders by other criminal organizations.

Pork barrel politics. It has become an acceptable form of political management of our government, our country (USA) and our people.

The term "pork barrel politics" is even joked about on late night television shows. In addition, the nightly news often refers to it in their "fleecing of America" news segments. And the public brushes it off as "business as usual" from our government. It is no big deal.

Pork barrel politics is for sure a more palatable term to sell to the populaces than for instance a "corrupt government." However, when you dissect a "pork barrel" political transaction, it really becomes nothing more than "transparent corruption." And I suppose this makes it a more honest form of corruption?

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