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Panama News Briefs

Bush visit will draw protests

by Eric Jackson, largely from other media

The National Movement for the Defense of Sovereignty (MONADESO), a leftist umbrella group led by the radical Catholic priest Conrado Sanjur, had been kind of quiet lately. Actually, the same individuals have been seen in the streets quite a bit this year, as the groups in MONADESO are, along with a major part of Panama's labor movement, to be found in FRENADESO, the National Front to Defend Social Security, which forced the government to at least temporarily retreat with a month of strikes and demonstrations in May and June. But from the leftist perspective the issue of national sovereignty, which had been simmering on the political back burner, came back to the front and center of public discourse as soon as it was announced that US President George W. Bush would be visiting here on November 6 and 7. MONADESO has announced a series of protests, which it says will be peaceful, during the visit.

The American president plans to attend the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on November 3 through 5, then spend a day meeting with his Argentine and Brazilian counterparts, Néstor Kirchner and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bush will fly into Panama on the evening of November 6, hold a series of meetings with Panamanian President Martín Torrijos and others and fly out late on the seventh.

Of Bush´s trip to Latin America in general, Torrijos said that it's “an opportunity [for the United States] to get closer to Latin America, of which we should all take advantage. It will be Bush's fourth visit to Latin America in nearly five years of his presidency. Torrijos will not himself attend the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, as he prefers to be in Panama for the Independence Day and Flag Day celebrations on November 3 and 4.

It is unclear whether bilateral free trade will be on the Torrijos-Bush agenda. As these words were written Panamanian and American negotiators were preparing a late October round of meetings to try to get around a few obstacles that have prevented an agreement. By all accounts the main cause of the impasse has been agriculture, with the Americans insisting on full duty-free access to the Panamanian market for its products and the Panamanians balking at that so long as US farmers are subsidized, and Panama pushing for more access to the US market for Panamanian sugar producers, to which southern US sugar cane and midwestern US sugar beet farmers object. Panama is also pressing for changes in US maritime rules to allow cruise ship passengers to begin or end their trips to or from the USA in Panama, while the United States is also pressing for free trade in government contracting with respect to any canal expansion project. Independently of whatever MONADESO does, it's likely that there will also farmers on the streets protesting when Bush is here. Free trade with the United States is anathema to the Panamanian left, so any announcement of an agreement during the summit is likely to touch off serious disturbances that would continue well after Bush leaves.

The Torrijos administration, while it says it will respect the right to peacefully protest, is vowing not to tolerate any violence during the Bush visit. In some cases the government is insisting on more than that --- the Instituto Nacional high school, notorious as a center of activism, is closed after demonstrations about the price of gasoline and the Education Ministry is demanding that students sign pledges that they will not join any street protests --- like on the occasion of the Bush visit --- as the price of letting them go back to school.

Another big question mark is whether Bush will see former President Mireya Moscoso. Mireya stole more than $1000 per day from the public coffers to buy herself clothing and jewelry over the course of her five-year presidency, but as a member of the Central American Parliament she is immune from investigation or prosecution for corruption during her presidency. Despite the Bush administration's proclamations against corruption and terrorism, Moscoso was a guest of honor at the swearing in of GOP Senator Mel Martinez at the US Capitol, largely because of her pardon of anti-Castro terrorists who had planned to set off a powerful explosion when Fidel Castro spoke at the University of Panama in November of 2000. The quantity of plastic explosives seized would have leveled everything within two city blocks (including parts of the nearby Arnulfo Arias Hosptial Complex). Torrijos condemned the pardons, which disrupted Panama's relations with Cuba and Venezuela. (In thhe latter case because the group's leader is an escapee from a Caracas prison, where he was being held for his role in the 1975 bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed all 73 people aboard the flight). A lot of Panamanians, and not just those on the leftist political fringes, would see a Bush meeting with Moscoso as an unfriendly act. Nevertheless, La Prensa reported persistent rumors, which it couldn't confirm or debunk, of a Bush-Moscoso meeting on November 7, while El Panama America, citing a confidential source, says the meeting definitely will happen.

The Bush visit, however, is also drawing some criticism from Mireyistas. Adolfo Linares, who served as Mireya's vice minister of foreign relations, complained in El Panama America that the absence of the dispute over the unexploded ordinance left behind by US forces at firing ranges in the former Canal Zone is unacceptable.

Anti-Americanism is not an important aspect of Panamanian political life these days, as it was when the US hold on the former Canal Zone was still in dispute. Nevertheless, polls suggest that by an overwhelming margin Panamanians are against the Iraq War and by lesser majorities tend to frown on such key US policies in the region as Plan Colombia and attempts to oust Hugo Chávez as Venezuela's president. Free trade with the United States, however, probably has the support in principle of a plurality of Panamanians and whether an agreement would be supported or opposed by most citizens would depend on how the contents of any specific deal are perceived.

Father Sanjur told the Cuban government's Prensa Latina news agency that “The visit should not take place, because Bush is persona non grata in Panama and in the entire world. He is a human rights violator.” He also predicted that a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States would “asphyxiate” Panama's economy.