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Also in this section:
Panama City's parades
Bush visit
Law 132 boosters' faux pas
Strutting before an anticipated brawl
FBI director Mueller visits here
Panama News Briefs
 

Strutting before an anticipated brawl

photos and note by Eric Jackson

In the United States, for various historical reasons, the right wing of the political spectrum claims exclusive dibs on the national symbols, denigrating leftists as "un-American" and so on. But not so in Panama. All across the political spectrum, people here figuratively wrap themselves in the Panamanian tricolor.

And so it was that, just a few days before some likely confrontations between police and leftists who will be protesting George W. Bush's visit here, both the cops and the radicals took part in the patriotic parades.

The flag was torn apart in front of the reviewing stand upon which President Torrijos stood. An administration spokesman berated these leftists from the elite Instituto Nacional as a bunch of failures and malcontents.

And one thing that's also different about the tone of political discourse here is that people are more willing to read things with which they disagree than is the case in the United States. As in Tourism Minister Rubén Blades, below, reading a copy of the tirade against the Torrijos administration that the radical SUNTRACS construction workers union and friends distributed at the parade.

Editor's note: As it turned out, there wasn't much of a confrontation at all during the Bush visit. In a joint operation by Panamanian law enforcement and the US military and Secret Service, vast areas of the capital were cordoned off, the university was kept closed by police guards, the high schools were closed by government decree and many Panamanians took the opportunity to spend an extra-long holiday at the beach. The protests were small but the roster of those participating should not be very comforting to those who want a free trade agreement with the USA, as they included not only the usual suspects of the left and the labor movement, but also farmers and indigenous groups with their particular concerns. In El Chorrillo people who lost family members in the 1989 US invasion set up a burning tire barricade, which authorities mainly ignored. A few FRENADESO members tried to march from the Parque Porras rally to the US Embassy, were stopped far short of that goal at the police barricades on Avenida Justo Arosemena, and when they insisted 23 were arrested.