opinion

Until when is contamination off the agenda?

by Raúl Leis R. --- raulleisr@hotmail.com

“For Herasto Reyes, in memoriam.”

Take care. Before, the explosions came from above, falling from the air. Today, they can explode from below.

Yesterday: The seismograph at the University of Panama does not lie. It registered 442 explosions in the first 12 hours of the December 20, 1989 invasion, that is, one explosion every two minutes. That night, the majority of the explosions in the capital came from El Chorrillo. Almost all of the houses were of zinc and old wood. It is calculated that some 4,000 housing units were destroyed or affected. The area that was directly bombarded was the Central Barracks and its surroundings, and the fire consumed the rest of the neighborhood. The hydrants went unused, as the attackers didn't permit the firefighters to do their job. Hundreds or thousands of people, for the most part civilians, lost their lives.

Today: One hundred ten thousand explosive shells lie across thousands of deadly hectares. The Washington Post says that only 8,500 shells at most were removed from these areas. The troops that “cleaned” these lands that were contaminated by the war games of several decades did so superficially near the trails, without appropriate detection equipment. The “cleaning” didn't begin until 1998 --- in other words, the year before the Canal's transfer to Panama --- and was thus tardily done.

The American troops worked negligently to tardily and superficially clean our national territory that they contaminated.

The excuse is that this cleaning wasn't practicable and that what has to be done is to cordon off these areas forever, ignoring the dangers that they pose for the population and the country's loss of this territory that's valuable to national development.

Ensconsed on these firing and bombing ranges, they held maneuvers for nearly 90 years in special areas like Empire, Balboa West, Piña and Fort Sherman. As a result of these actions, the United States turned over to Panama 3,175 hectares contaminated with explosives and unexploded ordnance, and it's calculated that some 10 percent of the shells that are fired don't explode for one reason or another. These areas are situated in the metropolitan region where half of the national population lives and 75 percent of our economic activity takes place. 56,000 people in 65 communities are at direct risk of being the victims of the explosion of such artifacts. Already 28 people have been killed and dozens injured in explosions, according to the most recent figures. These are farming populations, poorly educated and living in precarious situations, so they look at the forbidden contaminated areas as poles of attraction for hunting, food gathering and searching for recyclable metals, which increases the danger of being victims of explosions.

Such is the case of Sabino Rivera Santamaria, who entered the  Piña Range on Colon's Costa Abajo in June of last year. He was looking for bananas and found death. In his house in Escobal he had the needs of his nine children to look after, and, driven by unemployment and poverty, he ignored the signs that warned of the danger. He stepped on a lethal 60mm mortar round and his life was ended at age 42, as he was dismembered by an artifact left over from the bygone American military presence in Panama. In the newspapers Sabino's brother explained that “he had no job, so he was used to looking for food in the jungle.” Clearly, Rivera disobeyed the warnings about the danger to his life and took that risk upon himself.

This situation flies in the face of article IV of the Accord for the Implementation of the Panama Canal Treaty, which provides that upon the termination of any activity or operation in conformance with this agreement, the United States is obliged to adopt all the measures insofar as is practicable so that every hazard to human life, health or safety must be removed from any defense site or area of military coordination or portion thereof as of the date when the authorization for its use by the United States forces ends.

The contaminated areas are a heavy weight, and are going to burden Panamanian-American relations now and in the future with every death or injury or property value affected by these thousands of munitions and by the presence of chemical weapons residues on Isla San Jose and perhaps at other sites will be referred to as the responsibility of a government that didn't want to clean up what it had contaminated. At the same time, the Panamanian government will be responsible if it does not adequately push for a solution, or if it acts negligently in this matter.

The decontamination of the firing ranges is a matter of state, and thus must be on the agenda of bilateral relations. Inexplicably, however, and once again, during the Bush visit the subject stood out by its absence.

Editor's note: The firing range issue was not on the agenda for the meetings between Bush and Torrijos, but it was brought up at a press conference, and in response to the question Bush softened his administration's prior stance that the United States would not discuss the issue by saying that his government would talk about it with Panama.