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Another Bocas trip

by Joel Inwood

First-time visitors to Panama often find themselves in one of the mid-priced restaurants along Via Argentina in the Cangrejo district of Panama City. Before their meal arrives they often get a cartooned placemat map of the country. Over Panama City there’s usually something to do with the old fort at Panama Vieja. Over the Darien there’s usually a reference to the indigenous population. And over the Bocas del Toro region there are banana trees, which is appropriate on several levels --- the real estate market there has gone completely bananas.

Marred with scandal after scandal after scandal, Bocas del Toro province is slowly making its way down the list of retirement destinations in Panama. The truly beautiful archipelago has been through more than its fair share of title problems and fraud cases, and now it’s taken a turn for the worse.

Marciano Duncan, who has carved out a farmer’s living on a stretch of land in the Bocas del Drago area for over 50 years, but never filed for a title, has occupied the land for well over three times the 15 years necessary to have squatter’s rights, he says. On Saturday, July 30, however, his land was being surveyed by a different owner.

There are two sides clashing in Bocas these days: farmers who were given land by former dictator Omar Torrijos or had occupied land up to several decades before, and the holders of titles that often date back to when Panama was part of Colombia. Bocas del Toro was the location of a huge banana boom throughout the early 20th century, but in 1914 a plague began to strike the crops, and by the mid 1930s there wasn’t much left, including inhabitants.

In the middle of the 20th century settlers began to come in from other regions to farm the still rich soil, and then in the 1970s Torrijos began granting small to medium plots of the presumed abandoned land to underprivileged individuals who could farm it.

Fast forward to the late 90s. Foreign investors “discover” the beauty, tranquillity, and, most of all, financial opportunity of the region. Land values shoot up much faster than restaurants or hotels. Old titles no longer represent just jungle and spent farmland. They’re potential resorts, hotels, or, more than anything, retirement or vacation homes for wealthy investors “looking for the next Costa Rica,” as the often repeated saying goes.

“These swindlers are selling to other foreigners, shares of Panamanian registered companies pretending to be the owners… and this is a fraud which is punishable up to ten years in jail,” Oscar Surgeon says. Courtney and Rosemary Parks are the “swindlers,” Surgeon is referring to.

The Parkses moved to Bocas del Drago in the early 1990s, looking to live a “tranquilo life,” and fell in love with the place, says Courtney Parks. The “Bocas Boom” was in its infant stages, and the Parks began to help friends buy land in the region through corporations, according to Parks. The twenty or so investors remained in their respective locations, and the Parkses stayed here and handled business on this end, he says.

In the mid 1990s the Parkses bought titles to several properties from residents who had claims to the land through being there over the 15 years required, according to Parks. There were no denuncias or demandas filed to retrieve the land throughout the over 50 years some residents have been there, Parks says. Then, at the turn of the next century, came another claim. The Surgeon brothers filed for their land back.

The Surgeon Brothers Corporation got into the transportation business around the turn of the last century. The first “Bocas Boom” was beginning to catch fire, and the Surgeon brothers began building ports and transporting passengers to Colon and other destinations around the Caribbean, according to several web sites on the history of Bocas. Around this time they also bought some land.

“The Parks and [their lawyers] are usurpating the rights of the legitimate owner of the land which is: Surgeon Brothers, a familiar company founded in 1900,” Surgeon states.

According to Parks, the Surgeon brothers’ claim is that the land was taken by force. Parks said that he and the legal team representing the island residents with squatters’ claims or Torrijos land grants have sworn affidavits from most of the small area’s several hundred residents, some of whom are of the third generation born there, stating that there was no use of force.

Oscar Surgeon referred The Panama News to his lawyer, who was unavailable for comment before this edition was posted, for comments on these and other statements from the Parkses and Bocas del Drago residents in this story.

Parks says the story, as he hears it, is that after the banana plague wiped out much of the area’s commercial success in that period, the Surgeon family eventually left Bocas, and in the late 1940s the last member of the Surgeon family living on their property passed away. From that point on the Surgeons hadn’t set foot on the property until they filed their claim for the land, Parks says the story goes.

Several locals, who stand to lose from a legal victory for the Surgeons, stated to this reporter that “there had been no violence, that they had lived there their whole lives, and that their land was being [effectively] stolen,” but spoke only under conditions of anonymity.

Parks says that the Surgeon’s claim goes only as far 265 meters away from the waterfront, which means that if the Parkses lose their court case, then they’ll still have the most valuable property. The farmers, however, are the ones who stand to lose the most --- “they lose everything,” Parks says.

Parks also says that there is “suspicion surrounding the way things are being handled.” He points to other “similar cases” that had been decided for the squatters.  He says, “Panama is at a crossroads: to invest or not to invest. [This case] will either bolster a boom or fuel the fire of a bust.”

On the Panama Guide web site Surgeon posted the following:

“Those who have been swindled or defrauded by Courtney Parks, his wife Rosemary or their lawyers Martucci & Martucci or their companies that are not the legitimate owners, which have sold their shares or squatters rights on this land, must contact our lawyer, Licenciado Jose Maria Lezcano --- phones (507) 775-8460, or 775-2644  E-mail josemarialezcano@hotmail.com --- in order to legalize their situation.

”We offer to sue on Aggravated Fraud these persons that have incurred illegally, which is punishable up to ten years in jail.

”We want to warn people who try to do good investments but are being swindled by these U.S. Citizens or Panamanian based Companies which their attorneys control.”

The Panama News is awaiting further comments from the Parkses, the Surgeons and their lawyers. Panama, for its part, is awaiting an end to the wave of real estate scandals in Bocas.