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newsAlso in this section: Panama News Briefs
Gag laws on the way out The National Assembly has passed on second reading legislation that would repeal the 1978 law by which journalists were licensed and regulated and some of the contempt laws that had been used against journalists, while granting journalists the right to protect the identities of confidential sources and mandating that people aggrieved by something that's published have a right to have their replies published with 48 hours. This latter provision is likely to sooner or later be used against the smaller press, for example by requiring weeklies to publish special editions at the behest of legislators who look bad when their actions are faithfully reported. The dictatorship's press law mostly became a dead letter after the 1989 US invasion, but in 1997 a Pérez Balladares administration required the editor of The Panama News to show compliance with the licensing law in the belief that the requirements could not be met. However, upon proof of the editor's Panamanian citizenship and more than 10 years of experience in journalism, the Ministry of Government and Justice issued a certificate indicating compliance. (That document was then posted on the editor's toilet seat.) The University of Panama Faculty of Social Communications and the Sindicato de Periodistas lobbied the legislature without success to reimpose journalist licensing and restrict the practice of journalism to graduates of the University of Panama. However, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which by treaty is the highest court of appeal in Panamanian cases touching human rights issues, has struck down journalist licensing laws because they violate international human rights conventions. The legislation needs to pass on a third reading before the assembly and then must be signed by the president to become law.
Immigration director in an ethical jam Immigration director Ramón Lima's law firm won't get to cash in on his appointment. After it was revealed by La Prensa that the firm was representing clients before Migracion, Government and Justice Minister Héctor Alemán --- his boss --- cited the conflict of interest as a violation of the Torrijos administration's code of ethics. Lima, on a trip to the Far East, made himself unavailable for comment while the details of the story played themselves out in the daily newspapers, then returned and made his reply by way of newspaper ads in which he denied any wrongdoing and announced that his law firm would no longer handle immigration cases. Lima is a member of the Partido Popular, and his case and those of a few other party members who have run into problems have been the subjects of a furious intra-party argument. One member of the party's national leadership, Martín González, has called upon Lima to resign, while party founder Ricardo Arias Calderón has complained of a double standard applied against Partido Popular members who hold posts in the Torrijos administration.
Bucaram gets asylum For a fourth time, former Ecuadoran President Abdalá Bucaram has been granted political asylum by Panama. Bucaram had returned to Ecuador during the crisis that led to former President Lucío Gutiérrez's ouster, attempting to put together an alliance with Gutiérrez which included as one of its objects control over the Supreme Court and dismissal of corruption charges pending against Bucaram. Although protesters turned out in their hundreds of thousands at the country's main airports to block Bucaram's and Gutiérrez's departure from the country, both men slipped away, the former back to exile in Panama and the latter to Brazil.
Cigarruista orders halt to audit Supreme Court magistrate Alberto Cigarruista, a controversial Mireya Moscoso appointee whom critics say owes his position to the former president's bribery of several PRD deputies in the former legislature and who himself has admitted that there was an unspecified deal involved in the vote to approve his nomination, has called off Comptroller General Dani Kuzniecky's audit of Mireya Moscoso's secret fund expenditures. In so doing, Cigarruista has expanded the impunity that's one of the perquisites of membership in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). The treaty by which that body was created gives its members immunity from criminal investigation and prosecution. All other member countries have voted to eliminate that protection, with the exception of Panama. Now, in issuing an order to halt the audit, Cigarruista has extended the protection to non-criminal investigations to determine the extent of the public's losses to politician's theft. During the five years of her presidency, Mireya Moscoso spent an average of more than $1,000 per day of public money to buy clothing and jewelry for herself. This latest pro-corruption ruling by the high court enhances the possibility that the president and legislature will neutralize the court by increasing the number of magistrates or passing judicial reform legislation. However, there is no clear evidence that Martín Torrijos opposes impunity for corrupt politicians and the current legislature has consistently blocked any action against political corruption whenever it has had the chance to do so.
Mireyistas charged in Cuban terrorists' release The woman who pardoned four Cubans who plotted to set off a powerful bomb at the University of Panama during a Fidel Castro speech there in 2000 is immune from investigation or prosecution and her pardons have been upheld by the courts. Nevertheless, top former Moscoso administration officials have been charged by anti-corruption prosecutor Maribel Cornejo for their role in whisking the men out of the country. Cornejo charged former Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona, former National Police chief Carlos Barés, former commissioner of the National Police's DIIP detective bureau Arnulfo Escobar, former Corrections director Concepción Corro and former Immigration deputy director Javier Tapia with freeing the terrorists from jail and getting them out of the country without following the legal procedures for release from custody or leaving Panama. Three of those released immediately flew to Florida and a gala reception, while their leader, Luis Posada Carriles, went underground for several months and recently appeared in the United States, requesting political asylum. Posada Carriles, a former accomplice of Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal and other death squad activities, is an escapee from a Venezuelan prison, where he was held for his part in the 1976 bombing of a civilian airliner that killed 73 people.
Panameñista Party's furniture seized On May 6 items of furniture and office equipment were seized from the national headquarters of the Panameñista Party's national headquarters on Avenida Peru under orders from a labor tribunal judge. Mireya Moscoso left the party presidency to Marco Ameglio with empty party coffers, the party headquarters transferred into the names of some of her friends, unpaid employees and no spending records for the better part of her last year as party leader. The lack of records led the Electoral Tribunal to cut off public subsidies to the party, which meant that party workers had to be laid off. Thirteen of those who were let go complained to the Ministry of Labor about the unpaid wages, which led to the seizure of assets.
Navarro accuses Weeden of costing the city millions Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro says that former Comptroller General Alvin Weeden's refusal to sign purchase orders for new garbage trucks cost the city some $2.5 million in avoidable rental and repair bills. Weeden, however, counters that the city treated the waste collection services devolved to it by the national government in the lame duck months of the Pérez Balladares administration as part of the municipal general fund, whereas Weeden argues that it should have been accounted for separately. The essence of what was going on was that the Mireyista national government, from Weeden's refusal to allow city purchases, to delays in the project to clean Panama Bay by rebuilding the sanitary sewer system and treating waste water, to Arnulfo Escalona's physical assault on the mayor on the steps of city hall, used various means to try to make the PRD mayor look bad. It didn't work with the voters, who re-elected Navarro by a landslide, but the effects of the political games are still with the city well after the Mireyistas were ejected from the public offices they held.
Colombian extradited for journalist hit On April 28 Panama handed Edgardo de Jesús Martínez De la Cruz, a Colombian arrested here in September pursuant to an INTERPOL warrant, over to Costa Rican authorities. It is alleged that Martínez De la Cruz was one of two hired assassins who shot reporter Ivannia Mora to death in December of 2003. Mora's former boss, Uruguayan magazine publisher Eugenio Millot, has been jailed along with four Colombian men in the case.
Nuevos Horizontes ends On May 6 the Nuevos Horizontes maneuvers by US Armed Forces reserve and guard units came to an end, after three months of construction, health care and support practice. The Americans built a new school, four new classrooms for existing schools and three community centers. The health care teams included veterinarians, pharmacists, optometrists and dentists as well doctors doing general medical care. The maneuvers took place in the Macaracas area of Los Santos province.
Weapons bust in Arraijan On April 19 police in Arraijan seized 50 AK-47 assault rifles hidden under plantain stalks in the back of a pickup truck and arrested two men. The weapons were apparently leftovers from Central America's conflicts of the 1980s, en route to Colombia for use in their long-running war.
Colon metal collectors busted Police watching scrap metal buyers in Colon have arrested 15 people who were trying to sell stolen sewer caps, curbside drain grates or other stolen public property. Several of those detained have had their days in court and received 15-month prison sentences for the thefts.
MINJUMNFA gets a name change Ministry of Youth, Women, Children and Family (MINJUMNFA) is both a mouthful and proof positive of the bureaucratic nature of the minds that created it during the Pérez Balladares administration. Now, "as part of the process of modernization of state institutions," the ministry with the awkward name and ridiculous acronym will be called the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES). Leonor Calderón, who heads the ministry, says that the new name is more inclusive and better describes what that part of the government does. Plus the acronym's pronounceable.
Police cadets get food poisoning Some 107 police cadets at the Justo Arosemena Center for Advanced Police Training near Summit came down with acute stomach complaints and diarrhea on the weekend of April 30 and May 1. Nobody died, but seven of the cadets were so sick they had to be hospitalized. The specific cause of the outbreak is still being investigated.
Cops prepare for Seguro Social debate Although there are tales in the daily newspapers that the Cabinet Council has already decided on the specifics of a Social Security Fund reform package to be sent to the National Assembly, the contents of the proposal have yet to be made public. Better known are the details of how the police are gearing up for the expected disturbances. The National Police has scheduled a May 26 bid opening for 200 pairs of armored boots and other materiel for anti-riot police. The SUNTRACS construction workers union and the Alternativa Patriotica Panameña leftist umbrella group have plastered walls all around the country with posters and spray painted slogans opposing many of the likely changes in the retirement rules as well as idea of privatization, the latter which the Torrijos administration is unlikely to propose. Polls suggest that while only a relatively small minority of Panamanians support the left as a general proposition, large majorities share their opposition to such measures as an increase in the retirement age. Whenever the social security proposals are announced there will be street-blocking protests, and some of the more militant labor leaders are warning that if the proposed changes are offensive enough there will be a general strike.
6,217 HIV/AIDS patients The Ministry of Health says that there are presently some 6,217 people in Panama who have been diagnosed with the HIV infection, and warns that the true number may be up to five times that. The number and estimate were released as part of an ongoing AIDS prevention campaign, which lately features posters and billboards of young men and women with the autographs representing sexual partners on their faces and reminding people that since people don't wear their sexual histories on their faces, one should use a condom to be safe.
Lynching in Juan Diaz Two people are in custody and investigations are continuing in the wake of the April 29 beating death of 36-year-old Roberto Miranda, who was set upon by neighbors in the Las Acacias area of Juan Diaz after he allegedly wandered into someone's home while inebriated. Two people, one the owner of the home in front of which Miranda was killed, were arrested when police noticed blood stains on their clothing. Police complain that among the neighbors there has been a code of silence and that some of the few people who have talked to them have told stories that are demonstrably untrue.
Toro wants to be PRD president Former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares is running for president of his Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Toro has expressed an interest in the party's 2009 nomination and is also said to be shopping around to buy a newspaper to boost his campaign.
Rasta denounces reggae perversion The music that goes by the name "regue" in Panama owes much to latter-day dub and hip hop forms and not enough to the reggae genre's spiritual roots, according to a prominent local Rastafarian. Ras Nini, a/k/a James Robinson, one of the usual suspects when Colon's unemployed and community organizations take to the streets and the legal representative of The Lions Kingdom Promotions, has denounced songs glorifying violence and gangsterism that pass for reggae in Panama and called for fans to boycott the purveyors of such music. Rastafarianism is a religion that draws from Ethiopian Coptic Christian traditions and treats the late Emperor Haile Selassie (born as Prince, or "Ras" in Amharic, Tafari Makonen) and Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey as modern-day prophets, to which the late Bob Marley and most of the other Jamaican founders of the reggae musical genre adhered. "Rastaman vibration positive," Marley said, but nowadays one can ride the Panama City buses and hear alleged reggae that, for example, encourages violence against homosexuals.
New cedulas to list blood type The National Assembly has passed a new law mandating some changes in the form to be used for Panama's national identity card, the cedula. Mainly, the cards will list their owners' blood types, as certified by an approved lab. The advantages and disadvantages of including such information are debatable, but the theories are that it can help in a medical emergency and it creates one more way of detecting falsified or altered cedulas, in the event that the carrier's blood is not of the type listed.
Community service to ease prison crowding The National Assembly has approved legislation that would allow a lot of jail sentences to be commuted to community service work, with an eight-hour work day to be substituted for a day behind bars. The measure would not immediately affect most of the inmates in the nation's jails and prisons, as the majority are awaiting trial rather than serving sentences. However, in the long run it should reduce the number of people being held and make it easier for corrections officials to address many of the chronic problems caused or aggravated by overcrowding.
Inmate slain at La Joyita On April 20 Enrique Potes Alexander, who had been in jail for four days awaiting trial on theft charges, was stabbed to death in a disturbance at La Joyita Penitentiary. Police say that the man who did the stabbing was one Cristian Santana, who is serving a sentence for murder. In Panamanian prisons they have safer places where those with money, influential families or political ties are kept in the rare event that they are incarcerated, but otherwise prison populations are not separated between those convicted and those awaiting trial or according to the severity or violence of the various offenses.
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