Panama News Briefs

Martín gets special powers

The National Assembly has approved legislation that gives the president authority to legislate by decree about 10 subjects in January and February, when the legislature will be out of session. President Torrijos will be allowed to restructure the Public Services Regulating Board (Ente Regulador) and the Free Trade and Consumer Affairs Commission (CLICAC). He will also be able to make changes to the National Bank of Panama (BNP), the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI), and the Institute for Professional Formation (INAFORP). He will also be allowed to abolish certain state-owned financial enterprises and transfer their portfolios to the BNP and create a development fund out of some Panama Canal profits. The special powers legislation passed almost strictly on party line votes, receiving the support of only one opposition deputy.

Alba’s immunity lifted on one of several charges

National Assembly deputy Rogelio Alba (Liberal Nacional - Kuna Yala) is now officially under criminal investigation for allegedly having phantom employees on his legislative office payroll and collecting their paychecks for himself. The Supreme Court thus exercised the power to lift legislative immunity for the first time since that power was transferred from the legislature to the high court in the 2004 constitutional reforms. The file in that case was sent to Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez for further proceedings. Alba is also the subject of petitions to lift his immunity for smuggling liquor and cigarettes out of the Colon Free Zone and for the laundering of drug money. He has also come into question for allegedly abusing his privilege of importing duty-free cars by bringing in luxury vehicles for persons who do not have the legislative duty-free perk. After a first attempt that was aborted on procedural grounds, the National Liberal Party is moving to expel Alba from its ranks and remove him from the assembly. Nine other deputies, from both the governing and opposition parties, have petitions to lift their immunity from investigation and prosecution pending before the Supreme Court.

Panamanian killed in Iraq

On January 6, US Army Chief Warrant Officer Isaías Santos was buried with full military honors at the American section of the Corozal Cemetery. A helicopter pilot, he died in the line of duty on December 28, when two Apache gunships collided in the course of a combat mission. The son of a Puerto Rican father who served in the US Army and a Panamanian mother, Santos was born here. Santos was 29 years old.

Assistant prosecutor allegedly practiced law sans license

Anti-corruption prosecutor Daniel Batista has been fired, among other things for allegedly sending an assistant prosecutor, Nelson Ruiz, to make court appearances in criminal cases although he lacked a license to practice law. Ruiz, a judge’s son, was despite his lack of qualifications appointed as an assistant prosecutor under the pro-corruption regime of former Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa. The Public Ministry has opened a criminal investigation against Ruiz and is trying to identify cases in which he may played an improper role. Beyond that may lie a series of questions about how decisions in matters in which an unlicensed attorney appeared for the prosecution would be affected.

(Ex) prosecutor demands that reporter reveal source

One of Daniel Batista’s last acts as an anti-corruption prosecutor before the attorney general fired him for other reasons was to demand that TVN reporter Justino González reveal the name of his source for his reports about the death of National Maritime Service (SMN) marine Nathaniel Chiari. According to TVN and several other media organizations, which cited unidentified sources within the SMN, Chiari collapsed and died while being forced to run in the sun with rifle, full pack and life jacket while covered with a rain poncho because he had failed a training course. TVN has refused to identify the witness, whom it described as an SMN non-commissioned officer, to protect him or her from reprisals. The case has also been controversial because there were conflicting medical reports, one of which attributed the death to an undiagnosed heart condition and the other which said that Chiari was healthy but overworked to the point that he suffered a heat stroke.

28 defamation investigations against journalists in 2005

La Prensa, quoting prosecutor Julio César Laffaurie, reports that in 2005 there were 28 prosecutorial investigations against journalists under the nation’s calumnia e injuria --- criminal defamation --- law. Convictions under this law are relatively rare, and over the past decade have usually been the result of political pressures from high court magistrates, attorneys general, top government executives or others with political leverage who have brought the charges. Usually such charges have been brought without expectation of a conviction, mainly to intimidate and annoy media and run up their legal costs, given that lawyers are expensive here and there are no penalties for bringing charges for frivolous or improper purposes. But under the Torrijos administration the law has not been invoked by government executives and unlike her predecessor Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez has not been on any vendettas against the press. Thus the vast majority of criminal defamation cases of late do not involve the news media.

Dixon faults news media for court’s bad image

The new presiding magistrate of Panama’s Supreme Court of Justice, Graciela Dixon, set off a storm of protests from news organizations and media professionals when during her January 3 inauguration discourse she denounced “silent and invisible powers” that seek to subjugate the court and opined that the power of the news media to damage the justice system’s image must be confronted. She complained that in high profile cases the media will place the judge in the bench of the accused, but on the other hand said that a new information order with more transparency and a greater effort to bring public officials who abuse their positions to justice would have to be important components of any improvement in the way her institution is perceived. The consensus of journalists’ commentary was that when the court stops behaving scandalously the reporters will stop telling tales of judicial corruption.

ACP seeks exemption from public funds for campaigning ban

“You’re dealing with a state project,” Panama Canal Authority (ACP) board of directors member Adolfo Ahumada protested in La Prensa, as part of campaign by the authority to get the Electoral Tribunal to reconsider its preliminary warning that it will not allow public funds to be spent on a “yes” campaign in a referendum on expanding the waterway by building a larger third set of locks. Support for a hypothetical canal expansion plan --- the ACP keeps issuing press releases about the details of its plan, then denies there is a plan whenever journalists ask --- has been dropping in recent months, to the point where the “yes” side still holds a lead but not an insurmountable one if there is a reasonably equally funded referendum campaign. The ACP has been waging an expensive and thinly veiled campaign for the project for years, but doubts about the cost of the project have been eroding support, as has a growing public perception that the Torrijos administration is too corrupt to be trusted with such a large project.

SENACYT, La Prensa reveal individuals’ medical records

One matter of journalistic and medical ethics that has not aroused much public controversy again surfaced in La Prensa on January 3. Reporting about a controversy about alleged pollution emanating from a lead foundry in Juan Diaz, the daily listed the names of 47 people, including five children, and the levels of lead allegedly found when their blood was tested. The source of that information, according to La Prensa, was the National Secretariat of Science and Technology (SENACYT). In most places health care workers and governmental institutions do not reveal medical information about individuals to the press, and news media do not publish such data. Earlier La Prensa published the medical records of cancer patients who had been exposed to radiation overdoses at the National Oncological Institute (ION). La Prensa, which is dominated by an alliance of PRD and Partido Popular shareholders, does not publish the medical records of wealthy individuals, just like the gory tabloids never publish photos of rich people’s cadavers. The Panama News, whose editor is the son of a doctor and a nurse, adheres to different standards of medical privacy.

Avenida Central pedestrian mall safe this Christmas

You know those guidebooks to living in or visiting Panama that tell you to avoid the Avenida Central pedestrian mall in Santa Ana because it’s a high crime area? Well that advice, generally given by people who don’t actually know the popular and inexpensive shopping area, is wrong. Police told El Panama America that during the 2005 Christmas shopping season there were no armed robberies or assaults in the area. Police presence on the mall was increased for the season in which robberies tend to peak, but in ordinary times there are usually plenty of cops on patrol there, and the work they do tends to be controlling pickpockets, purse snatchers and shoplifters rather than more violent criminals. It’s still a dumb idea to walk around that area wearing ostentatious and expensive jewelry or carrying large sums of money, but the mall is a good place to go bargain hunting.

“Ecological jails” coming

The Ministry of Government and Justice and the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) have signed an agreement to establish two “ecological jails,” one in Chiriqui province and the other in La Chorrera, to put minimum security inmates to work on reforestation and other environmental conservation projects. The inmates will earn money for their work, which will be deposited in accounts, which they will receive when they are released.

Cops to get new guns

The police officers who walk ordinary beats will over the course of this year be exchanging their .38 caliber police special revolvers for 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols. The new sidearms carry more shots per load and are more powerful. Officers had for some time been asking for more powerful weapons, because from time to time they are outgunned by criminals whom they must apprehend. Many police units are already better armed --- the Linces who respond to most violent crime calls on motorcycles have long been issued automatic weapons.

405 perished in 2005 traffic mishaps

Last year’s death toll in road accidents was about normal for Panama in recent years: more than one per day, for a total of 405, with pedestrians accounting for nearly half of those killed. That’s 33 more deaths than in 2004, but short of the national record. The widening of most of the Pan-American Highway in the Pérez Balladares and Moscoso administrations did reduce fatalities along Panama’s principal road. However, other deteriorated roads --- particularly the Trans-Isthmian Highway between Panama and Colon --- and ever-greater traffic congestion in the Panama City - San Miguelito metro area have offset the earlier safety gain.

New year begins with attempted lynching

A 23-year-old bus driver --- illegally behind the wheel because the law requires bus drivers to be at least 25 years old --- ran over and killed a 25-year-old New Year’s reveler in San Miguelito, and then the accident victim’s enraged relatives and friends set upon the driver, beating him severely. The police intervened and took the driver to the hospital. Investigations were begun, but nobody was immediately arrested for either the accident or the beating.

Ten arrests, but no loot recovered in $2.1 million bank heist

Police have arrested 10 individuals, including those whom they accuse of being the ringleaders, for a December 20 robbery at the MultiCredit Bank in Panama City. However, the $2.1 million that was taken has not been recovered and those who have been jailed all claim to have no knowledge of or involvement in the crime. The police and prosecutors’ theory of the case is that an alliance between a gang of bank robbers and another group of thugs who were into armed assaults on the houses of the wealthy hit the jackpot when one of the maleantes struck up a relationship with a former bank employee, who is one of those being held.

Small-time kidnappers busted

Kidnapping is apparently not for the rich anymore. Salustia Estociel Avila, a 30-year-old Kuna woman and proprietor of a small hotel in Kuna Yala, was abducted in Panama City by a gang that demanded a paltry $1,000 ransom. Arrangements were made for a January 3 “payoff” at a local fast food restaurant, the payback being that two men who showed up to make the exchange were arrested. Following those arrests the police swooped in on the house where the businesswoman was held, freeing her and detaining two more kidnap suspects.

Plane crash held to have been result of pilot error

A Civil Aeronautics Authority (AAC) investigation of a November 24 plane crash that took the lives of controversial Colombian-Panamanian businessman Carlos Arango, two of his lawyers, a pilot and a Ministry of Health official has determined that the accident was caused by pilot error. There was no evidence found of a bomb or mechanical problem, but control tower and black box recordings indicated that the pilot thought he was much farther west than Cerro Pena Blanca in San Carlos district, where the aircraft smashed into a hillside in a mishap that left no survivors. 

Panameñistas lose Labor Code case

When Marco Ameglio took the reins of the Arnulfista Party (now the Panamenista Party) from Mireya Moscoso, he found the party coffers empty, the party headquarters in the name of one of Mireya’s cronies and a bunch of Mireyistas in the offices demanding back pay and benefits. The latter claim was taken to the Labor Ministry, and a labor tribunal has now found in favor of the former employees and imposed a judgment for some $52,000 against the party. The new party leadership may appeal.

Rosas purges “homosexuals, crooks, traitors and opportunists”

MOLIRENA party boss Jesús “Maco” Rosas, who got his party’s government subsidies suspended for running the organization --- and government offices over which the Moscoso administration gave it control --- as an extension of the family business, now finds that he has less than a majority of delegates to the party conventions that will choose the next party leader. What’s an endangered symbol of public corruption to do? Well, purge delegates who oppose him, of course. The Rosas-controlled MOLIRENA Honor Tribunal has expelled National Assembly deputy Marilyn Vallarino, former legislator Raymundo Hurtado Lay and prominent party members Waldo Arrocha and Eustiquio Cedeño Frias on various charges of violating party rules. More expulsions are expected to come before the upcoming party convention that Rosas had tried unsuccessfully to delay. Rosas called the purge a move to eliminate “homosexuals, crooks, traitors and opportunists.” The Electoral Tribunal has overturned some of Rosas’s previous expulsions. Meanwhile, one group of opportunists has been leaving MOLIRENA en masse of its own volition: the public school teachers who joined the party to get favorable appointments when Doris Rosas de Mata was minister of education.

Colon to get black history museum

Colon, which has a black majority, will soon be getting a museum to celebrate its Afro-Panamanian roots. The old Union Church on Calle 3 and Avenida Melendez will soon become the Museo de la Etnia Negra de Colon, at which the “colonial black” cultures --- those that originated with African slaves brought here by the Spaniards, some of whom ran away to the jungle to form African-style Cimarron communities --- and those of “Afro-Antilleans” --- the later waves of West Indian immigrants who played major roles in the construction of the Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal --- will be explained and celebrated.

Panama’s soccer federation in legal limbo

The Panamanian Football Federation (FEPAFUT), which is the ruling body for soccer in this country, is in a strange predicament. On December 31 it announced that it would be hiring former Argentine striker Mario Kempes as the new coach for the national team. But at about the same time the Supreme Court announced that it had upheld an old challenge to a 2003 bylaws change that strengthened the hand of the wealthy elite within the organization. That FEPAFUT resolution gave votes in the organization to the owners of each of the teams in the ANAPROF professional league, rather than the same single vote for ANAPROF that the various provincial amateur leagues hold. That makes the election of the federation’s current board of directors and officers invalid, and presumably their appointment of the new coach. Ramón Cardoze, the head of the governmental National Sports Institute (INDE) and a member of the FEPAFUT board of directors, said that the organization would make the adjustments to legalize its status.

Rigoberto Paredes dies of heart attack

Rigoberto Paredes, one of the first civilian politicians to support the military regime headed by the late General Omar Torrijos and later one of the PRD’s old guard, died on Christmas Eve of a heart attack. He was 76 years old. A University of Panama professor and member of the Liberal Party at the time of the 1968 coup, Paredes served as Minister of Education and a number of other government posts. He was also secretary general of the PRD and served in the legislature. A Noriega loyalist implicated in attempts to steal ballot boxes in the May 1989 elections, Paredes was arrested by US troops during the invasion that took place in December of that year and held without charges as a political prisoner. In several post-invasion elections he ran unsuccessfully for the legislature. His son Rogelio was elected to the assembly from Arraijan in May of 2004.