Most ads are interactive -- click on them to visit the folks who make The Panama News possible

opinion

Also in this section:
Jackson, Freedom for Panama's own sake
Leis, Invisible indigenes
Garraway, Measuring tourism's sustainability
Gutiérrez, China's economic invasion of Mexico
Birns & Kozyn, Haiti's upcoming "elections"
Avnery, Iraq's fate
Human Rights Watch, Bush and Castro team up to deny Cuban travel rights
Rodríguez, Selling Panama's beaches and islands
Bernal, "We don't want you here"

The sale of Panama's beaches and islands --- a proposed national sellout

by Ariel Rodríguez

On October 18 the National Assembly's Treasury Committee approved the second chapter of the proposed law that attempts to regulate concessions for tourism investment and the alienation of insular lands and properties on the coastal zones of the mainland for the purposes of their tourism uses, and which contains other provisions.

The climate observed in the assembly that day makes us foresee that the approval of this law is a decision that was taken by the executive branch and that the assembly is simply carrying out a mission sent to it by its bosses in the executive.

It's an unconstitutional law, contrary to the common welfare and beneficial to those whose interest it is to take every beach and island in this country. It is to legalize the assault on our precious islands and beaches, with their natural attractions.

It includes the construction of tourist-oriented residences and takes recourse to Law 8 on tourism incentives. That is to say, that not only will they take every island and beautiful coast in this country, but those that pay would only pay a trifle for these. It's not a cash transaction!

It's evident that here we have political favors being paid off with the nation's legacy. There can be no other way to justify this brazen assault on the nation.

The October 18 session was evidence of the vicious alliance between the “investors” interested in taking away our legacy and the deputies on the Treasury Committee over which Mr. Pedro González presides.

People, we can now see that Martín Torrijos has unveiled his true plans and interests, after the Seguro Social reforms. This law, with all its aberrant and sellout articles, comes from the heart of the Cabinet Council, which designated the Ministry of Economy and Finance to present it to the assembly, whose deputies are now very diligently not making any objections to this proposal for further enrichment with more concessions to “investors,” who have left it clear that they not only want to take islands, but also land along the ocean shores, under the tortured pretext of tourism development investment.

In this country there isn't anyone available to save anyone. The political class is bought by the economic elite.

On October 25 the Treasury Committee will continue the discussion of this proposal and the approval of the rest of this nefarious law, so that it can go to the next debate, because this law is going through as is.

We believe, from what we see, that only the Supreme Court can detain the voracious appetites and the generational irresponsibility manifested by the national government and its puppet deputies.

We are on a state of alert because it appears that there are various dangerous proposed laws and it looks like they're all coming from this vicious alliance of the government's followers.

Our proposal is to drop the debate on this law and for all Panamanian society to come together and create a Law on the Coasts and Key National Legacies in which these are not taken from us and moreover that the rights and responsibilities of all the citizenry with respect to our common inheritance are set forth.

NO TO THE SALE OF THIS NATION!

The author is an environmental activist