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Panama News Briefs

Carnival prompts multiple political controversies
by Eric Jackson, from other media

Carnival is a very big deal, culturally and economically, for Panama. Thus we should not be surprised that as it approached it became the object of several political clashes. To wit:

Capital celebrations moved back to old spot

The Carnival Commission that runs the festivities in Panama City had announced that this year the party would be moved from Via España in the banking district to a roughly parallel section of Avenida Balboa, on the city's waterfront. The stated reason for the move is that there is more open space on Avenida Balboa than there is on Via España.

That idea, however, prompted worries about ambulances getting in and out of Santo Tomas Hospital, just a few blocks up the street, and grumbling from neighbors who preferred not to have their homes surrounded by revelers over a five-day period.

In the end, Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro overruled the Carnival Commission's Mingthoy Giro and moved the party back to Via España. His stated main concern was that a lot of expense and labor has been invested in beautifying the median along Avenida Balboa, fixing up the railing along the seawall and maintaining Parque Urraca, and there would be a high probability that much of this work would be trashed and a virtual certainty that the Carnival Commission budget would not include money to repair the damage.

COPA mechanics threaten to strike

Unionized mechanics at COPA Airlines, Panama's principal air passenger link to the rest of the world, have set a February 20 strike date. Noting the company's strong financial performance of late, the union says it want parity with other aircraft mechanics in the industry. (Of course, many of the other airlines with which COPA workers want parity are in or at the edge of bankruptcy, and their managements cite expensive union contracts as the specific reason for their woes.)

The strike threat is causing panic within the nation's hotel and tourism industries, because Carnival is the high point of tourist season. Most Carnival tourism is "internal," as in much of the capital's population heading for the beach or for the celebrations in Las Tablas or other places in the Interior. However, we do draw a lot of tourists from abroad, particularly people with historic ties to Panama, and most hotels are booked solid for the five-day celebration. The cancellation of a lot of the flights into Panama would mean the cancellation of a lot of hotel reservations, and a huge hit to the national tourism industry. Thus there has been a call by the Panamanian Hotel Association for the Ministry of Labor Development to step in and declare a cooling off period, as it has the power to do.

Meanwhile, the mechanics are speculating that if they go on strike COPA would have its maintenance and inspections done by other airlines in other countries in order to keep their planes flying.

Blades denigrates Carnival

If Carnival is such a major tourism event, one might think that the head of the government's IPAT tourism bureau would be very busy over that long weekend.

Well, IPAT director Rubén Blades, who holds cabinet rank, does intend to be busy over Carnival --- in Los Angeles, attending to personal business.

Blades told El Panama America that IPAT has nothing to do with organizing Carnival, and complained that the celebrations in the capital don't generate tourism. "The majority of people flee to San Andres and to other parts of the country," he said. He said that IPAT would be willing to take over next year's Carnival if it were put in charge of the festivities as of Ash Wednesday this year.

What's "offensive" in Las Tablas?

Local governments issue their annual rules for Carnival celebrations, mostly to do with public health and safety. In the capital, for example, masks and "resbaloso" face painting that might help maleantes disguise themselves are for the most part forbidden this year.

In Las Tablas, Mayor Melquiades González has forbidden glass containers at the Carnival site in and around Parque Belisario Porras, a common sense measure to reduce litter and the means of violence. He has also banned "offensive posters, placards and propaganda" during the parades of the respective Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo organizations.

So what's "offensive?" Typically the Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo queens and their supporters mock one another in the course of the festivities, but there is the suspicion here that what might be considered especially offensive is not that stuff, but radical labor unions working the crowds to mobilize opposition to a free trade deal between Panama and the United States. Members of the SUNTRACS construction workers union have, despite constitutional guarantees of free speech, been arrested and sometimes beaten up by police in a number of places in the Interior druing the past year for passing out literature or carrying signs or banners at public events.