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Also in this section: Panama News Briefs Panic, alert over Boquete area tremors A series of small earthquakes that started on May 4 in the Boquete area but caused no deaths or injuries has led the SINAPROC disaster relief agency to declare a "green alert" that closed local schools and prompted a number of residents to sleep outside their homes. Although there are popular fears that the tremors are signs that the Baru volcano, which hasn't erupted for more than 800 years, is coming to life, SINAPROC rejects that possibility and says that what's happening is slippage along a fault that runs through the area. Courthouse fire was arson Although it was difficult to get access to the wreckage of the Maritime Tribunal Building in Ancon, investigators sifting through the debris were finally able to detect that court records at the Fourth Penal Court were sprayed with xylene and kerosene in the April 1 fire that destroyed court documents and facilities at the building. It has also been determined that someone tried to force the lock on a safe containing evidence in that court. Because so many records of several courts were destroyed, there is a lot of speculation about who may have done the deed --- lots of criminal defendants and some civil litigants had a motive to burn the records. Among the files destroyed were those in the Prados del Este scandal about a National Bank of Panama-financed housing project in a flood plan that led to several drowning deaths and the money laundering case against former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán, his wife and several others. According to reports in El Panama America, the investigation has turned to reviewing the possibility that a person or persons who worked at the court were involved in the arson and trying to reconstruct exactly who went into or came out of the building on the night of the fire. The owners or occupants of four cars seen in the area at or before the time of the blaze are also being sought for questioning. Chileans think Pinochet washed $7 million here A Santiago, Chile, appeals court has petitioned the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Relations for help in an investigation of six companies and to question a number of individuals in an attempt to uncover money trails by which it is believed that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet moved some $7 million of illegally obtained wealth. The authorities in Santiago allege that Eastview Finance, Abanda Finance Limited, Society Belview International Inc, GLP Limited, Tasker Investment Limited and Cornwall Overseas Corp were used to by the former strongman and his relatives to launder money obtained by embezzlement, acceptance of bribes, illegal arms trafficking and other crimes while Pinochet ran Chile and afterwards when he was no longer running the country but was still an active-duty military officer. They want Panamanian prosecutors to take the sworn declarations of six individuals whom they say either helped create or played other roles in these corporate shells. General Pinochet remains under house arrest in Chile, whose courts have found him too ill to stand trial for these crimes and more serious human rights violations committed between 1973 and 1990. Most of the money that Chile now seeks is from sales of weapons to Ecuador during its 1995 border war with Peru. Liberals to strip Alba of his assembly seat Rogelio Alba's days as a legislator from Kuna Yala may be numbered. The honor and discipline committee of the National Liberal Party, on whose ticket he was elected, has revoked Alba's mandate after a string of scandals that includes smuggling liquor and cigarettes out of the Colon Free Zone without paying duty, abusing his tax exemption for imported cars by transferring expensive duty-free autos to third persons and allegations of drug money laundering. Alba may appeal within the party, and after that the issue may go to the courts. Panama's constitution allows political parties to remove legislators elected on their ticket for corruption or political differences. Four charged in SMN death Two captains, a former captain and a former second ,lieutenant have been charged with homicide in the January 2005 heat stroke death of National Maritime Service marine Nathaniel Chiari. The original investigation was an apparent cover-up, with the medical examiner attributing the death to natural causes. But what happened was that Chiari, who flunked a training course abroad, was forced to run in the sun carrying a double pack and weapon while dressed in full uniform and wearing a rain poncho, until he dropped. He died shortly thereafter at the hospital, and a second autopsy performed after other marines came forward with the truth of what happened determined that the cause of death was heat stroke caused by the punishment. Warrant for former Canal Once director During the Moscoso administration the nation's public educational television network, Canal Once, was assigned as a fiefdom to the Rosas family which at the time ran the MOLIRENA party, a junior partner in Mireya's governing coalition. Soon after that administration left office its ex-director, Alex Rosas, fled to Costa Rica and applied for political asylum. This was denied, but as there was no warrant out for his arrest he was allowed to go on his way and drop out of sight. Meanwhile, the Comptroller General did audits and found millions of dollars unaccounted for and a lot of expensive equipment, especially stuff donated by the government of Japan, missing. Now anti-corruption prosecutor Betsy Cedeño has issued orders for the detention of Rosas and six other former Canal Once management personnel. There are two charges, one relating to the disappearance of 11 TV cameras and the other about a contract for the construction of broadcast towers with a company called ELENCOR which was allegedly paid more than $1.75 million but never did the work. Cop arrested for payroll robbery A National Police sergeant has been arrested for setting up a bogus police checkpoint in Betania, at which a $10,000 payroll for Cochez y Compañia was stolen from a messenger. Two alleged accomplices and the loot got away. Disappearance cases reopened The Tribunal Superior in Chiriqui province has ordered the reopening six cases of murders and disappearances of political opponents of the former dictatorship. It may be a temporary victory for the families of the victims, however, because the Supreme Court has a history of suppressing such cases. Theoretically there is no statute of limitations for murder, but judges have frequently found ways to effectively rule that there is, or else have held that when the military regime that was responsible for a crime quashed the investigation or rigged it to arrive at a bogus result, that legally ended ended the matter forever. A code of silence among the former soldiers involved in the abuses has also hindered justice. However, in her investigations anti-corruption prosecutor Janeth Rovetto has uncovered a number of secret military intelligence documents that reveal details of a "death patrol" that operated in Chiriqui between 1968 and 1972 and was responsible for the disappearances. Legislator calls for TV censorship Legislator Alejandro Vanegas (PRD-Colon), who heads the National Assembly's Communication and Transportation Committee, says that violent television programming turns youngsters into delinquents, and told a meeting of Latin American parliamentarians on May 6 that laws need to passed to get this sort of entertainment off the air. One problem with doing that here is that the worst offenders --- in fact all of Panama's commercial television entertainment stations --- are owned by PRD members or supporters. There could also be problems down the road caused by free trade talks with the Americans, as the bulk of the most violent stuff that MEDCOM and TVN imports is produced in the United States. There have been conflicting study results over the years in various societies about the relationship between depictions of violence in the popular culture and the incidence of violence in a given society. A steady stream of violent programming is more likely to make an impressionable youngster insensitive to cruelty than it is to cause the commission of violent acts, but there clearly are an minority of people who are so impressed by violence in the popular culture that they attempt to live it out themselves. Other factors, however, seem to be more important determinants of a country's violent crime rate. Panameñistas elect delegates More than 100,000 members of the Panameñista (formerly Arnulfista) Party internal elections on May 7, electing 1,356 convention delegates to a July 30 convention in which a new party leadership will be chosen. There are four candidates for party leader --- the incumbent party president, former legislator Marco Ameglio, legislator José Isabel Blandón, former Moscoso cabinet member Harmodio Arias and Juan Carlos Varela. As results came in from the Interior, it appeared that Varela was the clear front runner and may have won enough delegates to clinch the party presidency. Looking ahead to 2009, it is believed that the election strengthens the possibility of banker Alberto Vallarino getting the party's presidential nomination. The big loser, who was not a candidate, was former President Mireya Moscoso: those most closely identified with her were routed. The one former Moscoso cabinet minister in the party presidency race, Harmodio Arias, appears from early returns to have won no more than five percent of the delegates.
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