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More questions than answers in this issue's letters to the editor

The media in Panama

The media in Panama covered demonstrations by thousands of people on streets of Panama City and communities of the Interior of the republic. Union leaders from SUNTRACS and other civic organizations did interviews for television, radio, and newspapers. I was especially pleased by the media coverage of the strike, demonstrations, our leaders' midweek meeting with diputados on Wednesday the 25th and union leaders' meetings and later press conference at Plaza Cinco de Mayo on Friday the 27th. Our demonstrations made front page news in papers.

There is one disappointing note I have to relate to you, however. I am told that almost 90 percent of the media in our country are owned by the government, businessmen aligned with the political parties or politicians' cronies. So when pro-government legislators and officials get wind of honest reporters' investigations of their corruption --- especially the theft of millions of dollars from the Social Security Fund, cases like CEMIS and so on --- they shut down all the media coverage or have reporters misrepresent the things they investigate. It was the same when union leaders or people on streets did interviews for the media. They misrepresented our meetings. Indeed, some articles said the exact opposite of what the people told the media.

But the corrupt government of Martin Torrijos and his cronies in the National Assembly could not cut us off entirely from the world and shut us up. Several independent papers like The Panama News and others covered our battle on streets and international news organizations could not be silenced by "Team Martín's" corrupt Panamanian government.

Manuel Avila
a SUNTRACS member

A question from the Gold Coast

Do you think Panama might be gradually becoming a boiling cauldron of dissatisfaction and getting ready for their very own, homegrown revolution???

Probably not --- they used to having somebody else do it for them.

Mon, the Colon City bum rap that they continue to get absolutely blows my mind.

Big bucks being made all around them and still potholes and raw sewage flooding the streets.

As we know from time proven experience, the populace overall reaches a point of boiling over.

Basic sociology.

At this point it starts to get real scary. Lots of people start dying in the efforts to resist government trying to put them down. There is song in there somewhere.

Entrances and exits to Colon City now blocked but access through Free Zone wide open.

Eskip

What ever happened to those attacked by paramilitaries?

What ever happened to the indigenous people who were attacked by paramilitaries in the jungle border region?

I hope they were able to get their lives back together after the brutal assault.

Keep well, keep up the flow of compelling information --- we get so little here in the US.

Steven Hunt

Editor's note: For four men, there were no lives left to get back together. Nor did the government at the time show the slightest sympathy, even though those who were killed were local public officials. The tour guide who was wounded by the AUC death squad but nevertheless escaped and ran ahead to the next village to warn of the attack was jailed for several weeks, but eventually he was released because he had committed no crime. People in the Darien have told me that the border is much better patrolled now and there is not so much fear of attacks by Colombian guerrillas or paramilitaries as there once was.

Panama's canal and the NY Times article

I attempted to send the following letter to the NY Times in regards to the article they ran on 5-24-2005. I am sending it to you as I ultimately care more about reaching the people of Panama, the operators of the Canal, and Dr. Stanley Heckadon Moreno.

I write as a landscape architect and practitioner of reforestation and "green" architectural and civil engineering construction.

The global exposure The NY Times presents on the Panama Canal, one of this hemisphere's most important and energy efficient centers of transportation and commerce was, well, splashing and necessary.

The canal's conundrum appears to be more easily solved, in the short run, through mechanical engineering rather than the noble and necessary, but politically constrained, long term solution of reforestation.

Perhaps sinking a pair of antiquated, structurally sound, canal class tankers at either end of the canal's entrances, in the form of breakwater jetties is the solution.

The below sea level tanker holds could then capture the outflows of freshwater through underground pipes. From there, utilizing the existing hydroelectric power systems in conjunction with the abundant wind and solar energy available for additional hybrid electric generation, the captured fresh water could be pumped through pipe lines back up to the reservoir for reuse.

Byrne H. Kelly
byrnehk@starpower.net
cell phone (240) 678-9121

Editor's note: Variations on the scheme described by Mr. Kelly have been consideredn on a number of occasions, but have always been rejected because the cost of the energy required to pump the water back up to the locks would be enormous. Understand that with the current gravity-run locks, it takes 52 million gallons of fresh water flowing out to the sea to put a ship through the canal. For a new third set of locks, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is considering a set of water-sharing reservoirs that would also be run on gravity, which would diminish but not eliminate the need for water to run the locks.

Trying to locate lost family members

My name is Luis Alejandro Victor. I am in the United States. I am looking for my family, the Victor family.

My son is named Luis Alejandro Victor. My daughters are Elenka Victor and Dorka Yasira Victor. My father is Lucas Humberto Victor and my mother Josefina Humberto Glascón. The mother of my son is Angela Del Carmen Medina.

Any assistance in locating my family members will be greatly appreciated.

My address is:

1395 Eloise Drive
Memphis, TN  38106

My telephone number is (901) 413-9694

Thank You Very Much, standing by to hear from you.

Luis Alejandro Victor

Searching for Danny Alegria

I am a daughter searching for her birth father. His name is Danny Alegria. I am unsure of his age, I'm guessing some where in his 50s. From what I have been told my birth-mother, Kathleen (Kathy) Rowe, and Danny were very young and very much in love during the late 1960s in Panama. When Kathy became pregnant with me, she was taken back to the United States, where I was eventually born (January 8, 1970) and placed for adoption. I have been told Danny was heartbroken when he heard "His Little Girl" was given away. If anyone has any information regarding Danny Alegria please find it in your heart to contact me as soon as possible, because this little girl would truly love to be united with her birth-father. Thank you.

Please contact me by email at antigoum@newnorth.net or by telephone at (715) 623-0869.

Karmen Marie Alegria-Quartaro