Most ads are interactive -- click on them to visit the folks who make The Panama News possible

news

Be well informed --- try these online news and talk radio alternatives:

Also in this section:
Most canal expansion studies are in English
Lines being drawn on canal referendum
Torrijos administration caught up in teak fraud scandal
Bocas suicide brings out anti-gay hatred
Martín shuffles his cabinet
Jackson, Bush and his warrantless wiretaps

Pedophile suspect's suicide becomes gay-bashing occasion
by Eric Jackson, largely from and about other media

On April 24 a journalist investigating pornography and prostitution involving children went to the Changuinola house rented by US citizen Bruce Crosby and noticed the unmistakable stench of death. Crosby's remains were found in the bathroom, in a state of decomposition that indicated that he had been dead for more than a day. An investigation by police and the medical examiner determined that this had been a suicide, self-induced asphyxia by the inhalation of butane cooking gas.

Crosby was the author of a website entitled "Minor Miracle," http://www.panamaminormiracle.com, in which he offered $3,000 tourism packages in a cryptic manner that strongly suggested that their central attraction was sex with underage boys, and in which he made repeated references to taking to sleeping with boys as young as 10 years old. Crosby and his Internet offer became the subject of a story by investigative journalist Okke Ornstein on his Noriegaville website (http://www.noriegaville.com), and either because of the questions he raised or simultaneously based on other leads, both Panamanian and US authorities took an interest in Crosby. Because of his notoriety, or because he was suffering from a painful leg infection and wanted to be closer to a clinic where he was being treated, Crosby had moved from the Bocas Islands and rented a house in the Changuinola district community of El Empalme several weeks before his body was found, and four days before his death was discovered his home had been raided by the sex crimes unit of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ), who seized the hard drive from his computer.

The death became the subject of something of a media feeding frenzy, and also of a prolonged and sometimes acrimonious debate in some English and Spanish-language Panamanian email groups.

Coverage in La Critica was as lurid as one might expect from that tabloid, and the TVN television network reported the case in a similar vein. La Prensa ran a series of stories that was much more subdued, and went deeper into the business of commercial sexual exploitation of children in Bocas del Toro. That daily's tale of how many impoverished families will either actively promote or turn a blind eye to the prostitution of their children should serve as a shocking wake-up call about social problems associated with the influx of foreigners into Bocas, but unfortunately also as a magnet for pedophiles looking for easy pickings. The publicity about the boys shown on Crosby's website and republished elsewhere also resulted in those kids' ostracism at school.

Ornstein followed up his earlier exposé and may publish more as the PTJ investigation not only about Crosby but about the child sex trade in Bocas continues. In an exchange in the Panama Forum email discussion group, Ornstein expressed relief that his first stories hadn't incited any lynch mobs and opined that"

One factor in Panama that has to be taken into account as well, to my great dismay, is what our distinguished Spanish language colleagues will make of such affairs. While we may exercise great care, in the case of Mr. Crosby I was not happy at all with the necro-porn style coverage of La Critica and TVN (and luckily they didn't give me any credit for first publishing about this guy, something I'd otherwise be upset about).

The distinction between reporting on an ugly situation and taking on the roles of cop, judge and executioner appeared to be lost to many people. Ornstein observed that:

It still amazes me how in these cases moral outrage goes hand in hand with an enormous desire to know each and every detail. The two top days of traffic on my website were when I first published about Crosby and then yesterday when I wrote about his death. You wouldn't believe the amount of emails I've received --- some even congratulating me as if I had personally executed the guy --- asking for more details ("what did he do with these boys?" etc. etc.).

There are a lot of perverts out there.

In an example of this mentality, one person wrote on the Panama Forum: "GREAT NEWS I hope he regrets now what kind of services he was providing. They say what goes around comes around." When it was pointed out in that forum by this reporter that Crosby never had his day in court and argued that people should neither so readily set aside the "innocent until proven guilty" standard nor celebrate somebody's death, another person wrote: "I thought he was already considered guilty. According to TVN channel 2 news, their investigative reporters found a website dedicated to pedophiles where the deceased openly offered children for 3k."

As could have been expected, the Spanish-language delante discussion group, which specializes in baiting the targets of criticism of the moment by calling them (usually falsely) "maricon" or "cueco" (derogatory Spanish-language terms for homosexuals) got a lot of traffic, much of it directed at the young man and boys pictured on Crosby's website, and generally focused on hateful screeds about homosexuals in general, many of which conflated the concepts of homosexual and pedophile.

(In reality, pedophilia exists roughly in proportion to the sexual orientations of society at large. Principally a male disorder, it is overwhelmingly a matter of grown men interested in little girls, with a relatively small homosexual expression. Whether vicariously through child pornography or actively through sex with minors, the indulgence in pedophiliac behavior is a crime in most places.)

On the Panama Forum as well, the discussion soon turned to an attack on homosexuals in general, although these assertions were disputed by other members of that group. One Afro-Panamanian man asserted that "We don't want pedophiles nor gays here in Panama, specially if they come from outside of Panama." Another Panamanian, who deplored the prejudice, added that "believe me, gays are not accepted in Panama."

"What made gay OK?" a naturalized Panamanian of US origin wrote. "Lots of people on these yahoo groups moved to Panama because the US policy of allowing too many bad things to happen. The US has allowed the minority to dictate laws to the moral majority."

Others pointed out that Panama has as big a gay community as anywhere else, traditions of tolerance as well as intolerance, and a strong gay presence in some of the places most attractive to Americans. "Anyone who is homophobic would hate Casco Viejo.... That is one very welcome element moving here in abundante," wrote one American resident of that neighborhood.

When a critic of anti-gay attitudes expressed in the Panama Forum compared them to the racism of the southern United States, it drew this response: "As far as queers they are not a race, but a choice that was made, a bad choice, that goes against the laws of man, nature and God."

Another email, from a Jewish American resident of Panama, claimed that:

The downfall of most of the great civilizations of the past were also preceded by an overt acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. Some of course argue this, but it is an historical fact that these things (loss of the power of the civilization) did occur within one or two generations of the acceptance of homosexuality as a 'normal' way to live.

(While such arguments about the nature of homosexuality, which crop up at many times in many places and tend to sound quite similar, began to run their course and move away from front and center in isthmian discourse, another news story arose from the world of science. Researchers reported having found that some of the chemical functions within the brains of lesbians are more similar to those of most men than to those of most women. Nobody has yet found a "gay gene," and as a physiological matter a number of studies have suggested that lesbianism may have a different source than male homosexuality. But it does seem, from many studies done in many disciplines from many perspectives, that whether or not a person is sexually attracted to persons of the same gender is a congenital condition that, much like left-handedness, is innate rather than learned.)

Also in this section:
Most canal expansion studies are in English
Lines being drawn on canal referendum
Torrijos administration caught up in teak fraud scandal
Bocas suicide brings out anti-gay hatred
Martín shuffles his cabinet
Jackson, Bush and his warrantless wiretaps