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editorial

Cause for optimism, cause for concern

On September 7 in Los Santos, police say, one Heraclio Ruiz Rivera was arrested while driving his car and in possession of five kilos of cocaine. There was no dog and pony show for the TV cameras, nor any press release. Just another garden variety drug trafficking case.

Well, maybe not.

It turns out that Mr. Ruiz Rivera was a personnel analyst for the president. He had been a PRD candidate for legislator in the May 2004 elections.

The story was broken in La Prensa by Jean Marcel Chéry and Vielka Corro Ríos a few days later. Subsequently the Presidencia said that Ruiz Rivera had been a temporary employee whose one-year contract had expired the week before his arrest, and President Torrijos opined that the full weight of the law should apply in the case because in his administration political connections won’t mean impunity for criminal activity.

There are all manner of questions raised, the first of which must be whether the accused actually committed the crime. In Panamanian drug cases the presumption of innocence has been dropped, which is not a good thing for any system of justice. As far as The Panama News is concerned, that presumption remains. Mr. Ruiz Rivera is an alleged drug offender unless and until he has had his day in court and fairly been judged to have done what it is said that he did.

But what if…?

The man’s job was vetting presidential appointees. We have already seen earlier this year an arrest for heroin trafficking involving other activists with the ruling PRD-Partido Popular coalition who held posts with the legislature and were actually busted while allegedly carrying out their nefarious activities in a vehicle that belonged to the National Assembly. So what if Mr. Ruiz Rivera actually is a drug gangster, and used his position to seed other members of his criminal organization throughout the Torrijos administration?

It’s a costly and disruptive question to ask, but given the circumstances, one that needs to be looked into with more than just a cursory glance.

Beyond that, we have a sordid political class and a jaded populace and a lot of people will say that everyone has known since Noriega times that the party over which Martín Torrijos presides is a bunch of thugs. The large minority of Panamanians who think this way tend to point to the presence in the Torrijos administration of people with military or paramilitary backgrounds, or who played various roles in unresolved scandals like the PECC affair, to make their case.

Another large minority of Panamanian society gives Torrijos the benefit of the doubt. These people tend to take at face value Martín’s plea that the president’s role in the justice system is limited by the constitutional separation of powers and argue that if he hasn’t been able to jail some of the flagrant offenders of past administrations his “zero corruption” pledge is still being kept with respect to misconduct by members of his own team.

The underlying problem is cultural. A large segment of Panamanian society believes that it is natural and proper that one goes into politics or government to advance personal and family interests by whatever means one can get away with. Too many of those who find this way of thinking appalling avoid public service because they don’t want any of that slime rubbing off and sticking to them. By both default and design, the field of public affairs gets left to all the worst people.

The solution to this mess is leadership, and the jury is still out about whether that which we get from the president is adequate to challenge the subculture of sleaze.

Bear in mind…

How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in Heaven.

Robert Heinlein

I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.

Molly Ivins

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Napoleon Bonaparte