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A Torrijos administration flag etiquette gaffe?

Photo by Eric Jackson

Some may take it as an emblem of the Torrijos administration's attitudes or competence. Others may argue that it was nothing of the sort. However, on January 9, a national day of mourning on which the flags in front of government offices flew at half mast, the flag on Ancon Hill waved from the top of the pole.

The Day of the Martyrs commemorates those Panamanians who or were injured in the events of January 9-11 of 1964. A series of American flag-raising demonstrations begun by a Canal Zone cop named Gordon Bell led to Panamanian high school students marching with their flag to Balboa High School in the former Canal Zone. There was a scuffle between Panamanian and American kids in which the Panamanian flag was torn and that became the spark which touched off an explosion. By the time order was restored, 23 Panamanians and four US soldiers were dead, more than 500 Panamanians and more than a dozen Americans were injured, there had been extensive property damage and US-Panamanian diplomatic relations were temporarily severed. It was the beginning of the end for the Canal Zone.

Protests spread from Panama City and swept across the entire country, with rioting in Colon, labor strikes at the banana plantations, attacks on US-owned businesses in the Interior and statements of indignation from all sectors of Panamanian society. The Instituto Nacional students' protest at Balboa High was led by members of a radical faction headed by Floyd Britton, the predecessor of today's November 29th National Liberation Movement (MLN-29 and its student branch, FER-29). However, the demand for Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal Zone was by no means confined to the leftist political fringe.

The roles played by those who gave names to the great Panamanian political traditions, Arnulfo Arias of Arnulfismo and Omar Torrijos of Torrismo, are taboo subjects in this country's political discourse. Arnulfo Arias was one of few Panama City physicians who refused to report to a hospital to help treat the flood of wounded, and disparaged those who are now considered martyrs as thugs. Later that year he lost the presidential election largely because of this attitude. Omar Torrijos, a Guardia Nacional major who had been transferred from Colon to David a few days earlier, was flown back to Colon by the US Army to assume command of the Guardia there and suppress the protests. This, in keeping with his inclusion at the time on the CIA payroll.

Who was a martyr? That question is still a matter of dispute. Was a vendor on Avenida Central who was shot to death the victim of a stray bullet from the nearby political violence, or was it an unrelated crime? Were the people who died in the fire set at the Pan-American Airlines building opportunist looters who died at the hands of ignorant if arguably idealistic arsonists who thought they were torching an American-owned building but really set fire to Panamanian property, or were they genuine martyrs for their country? Is the US claim that its soldiers could not have killed little Maritza Alabarca, a baby who was overcome by fumes and died when a tear gas cannister landed in her family's Colon apartment, scientifically credible? These historical controversies still linger after 42 years.