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Panama News Briefs
 

The tall man with the shaven head to the immediate left of President Torrijos at this police ceremony is National Police Chief Rolando Mirones. To the right of the president in the gray suit with the pink tie is Government and Justice Minister Héctor Alemán. On this occasion Martín announced an increase in the police budget. Photo courtesy of the Presidencia

Police take more aggressive stand toward student protesters, get increased funding

by Eric Jackson

On the afternoon of October 13, after several days of disturbances, police swept into the Artes y Oficios vocational high school and arrested 18 students who were accused of vandalism or inciting riots. Eight other students were arrested off campus. The school was closed down indefinitely.

Also closed, after confrontations between riot police and students, was the elite flagship of Panama's public school system, the Instituto Nacional. During the course of the disturbances there, police fired tear gas into the high school building.

Police have also been getting rougher than usual when confronting student militants from the University of Panama, but going short of having officers set foot on the campus --- they fire tear gas and rubber bullets into the university from outside.

Rolando Mirones, the new director of the National Police, has also engaged in a high-profile argument University of Panama rector Gustavo García de Paredes, giving the latter an opportunity to change the subject from a nagging false diploma scandal to tough talk about resisting the cops if they dare set foot on his turf.

All of this, and Mirones's shaven head and fondness for the martial arts, have made for some fun cartooning in the daily newspapers --- La Prensa's Víctor Ramos portrayed Mirones as a Nazi skinhead --- but drivers who are stuck in traffic blockades, students who have had their schools shut down and the chief himself aren't laughing about it.

At an October 19 ceremony distributing new vehicles to the police, President Torrijos announced an extra $8 million dollars for next year's police budget and his intention to draft a master security plan for the nation's law enforcement agencies. It's needed, Martín said, because "citizens want to live in peace."