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Panama News Briefs

 FSU student released in stabbing

After spending a little less than three weeks in jail, Florida State University student Jared Williams, 23, has been released. He was held for the stabbing death of another FSU student, 20-year-old Turner Ashby. Williams's lawyer said that it was a matter of self-defense. Ashby was stabbed in the leg at a student party, whose other participants called the bomberos but neglected to render any first aid, so that by the time the emergency medical technicians arrived he had bled to death.

Former immigration official charges journalists

Rosendo Rivera, who used to work at Migracion until a series of reports led to his firing and an ongoing criminal investigation against him. Rivera has charged TVN's news director Sabrina Bacal and reporter Justino González, as well as El Panama America reporter José Somarriba, with calumnia e injuria for reporting the irregularities that have landed Rivera in hot water. The former immigration official said that the stories caused his mother and his wife to suffer psychological damages, and prosecutors have notified the three journalists that they are facing criminal charges and must appear for an indagatoria, the formal deposition to be used against them at the trial.

TVN journalist fired for freedom of the press protest

Remember this: TVN news is a rabiblanco business and propaganda outlet for some of this country's wealthiest families, and has little concern for informing the public or defending the right to a free exchange in public discourse. On June 20 more than 100 members of various journalists' organizations marched against a proposed toughening of the anti-press defamation law that entail longer prison sentences even for publishing stories that can be proven true and the creation of a new offense for publishing a true story if a judge can be convinced that proper journalistic standards were not used. One of the protesters was TVN Yesibel Bethancourt, who has won a number of awards for her work. But TVN fired her for taking part in the protest while on her lunch hour. The person who fired Bethancourt was TVN's Colombian news director, Sabrina Bacal. The TVN board of directors under whose auspices Bethancourt's firing took place include Stanley Motta, Alberto Motta, Ricardo Martinelli, Osvaldo Heilbron, Jaime Alberto Arias Calderón, Roberto Pascual, Herman Henríquez, Jaime de la Guardia, Osvaldo Mouynes, Pedro Heilbron, Aquilino de la Guardia, Vicente Pascual III, Elisa Gnazzo, Irma Martinelli, Ramón Ricardo Arias Porras, Haralambos Tzanetasos, Diego de la Guardia and Janette Poll.

International criticism of new anti-press measures

While Panama's government elite and inbred Creole aristocracy, supported by the sophistries of the lawyers they hire, seem very content to increase the prison terms for the publication of true stories about the corruption and injustice by which they run this country, the proposed new anti-press measures in Martín Torrijos's proposed Penal Code reforms are generating a storm of international protest. "We manifest our solidarity with the journalists," declared the conservative Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Gonzalo Marroquín, the president of the management-oriented Inter-American Press Association's Freedom of the Press and Information Committee, said that the Torrijos proposal violates international human rights standards and called for the replacement of criminal defamation laws with civil remedies for libel and slander. The OAS Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the Center for Justice and International Law joined in the demand for decriminalization of defamation. Within Panama, by and large journalists oppose the proposed increased longer prison terms for libel, slander and the publication of true stories that are unflattering to the rich and powerful and the creation of a law criminalizing true stories if a judge found that unspecified journalistic standards weren't used. However, the managements of many media organizations have mixed opinions and the owners of the corporate mainstream media for the most part support the threat of longer prison terms against their employees.

Community activist charged with defamation

One Jorge Rubén Carmargo, a/k/a "Cholo Chorrillo," has brought calumnia e injuria (criminal defamation) charges against El Chorrillo community activist Héctor Ávila, whose son was gunned down on June 18. Ávila blames the gangsters of El Pentagono for his son's murder and blames Camargo in particular. Cholo Chorrillo did not file his complaint in person, but through a lawyer. You see, the police want to talk to him about the bloody ongoing war between El Pentagono and the gang led by the Viteri Brothers and the complainant prefers to avoid the police and prosecutors at the moment. Ávila's response to Cholo Chorrillo's criminal charge was a taunt: he called upon Camargo to give himself up to police and clarify matters about the string of murders that El Pentagono and the Viteri Brothers war has entailed. Supposing that everything that Ávila said was absolutely true, the Torrijos administration, through its proposed Penal Code changes, would impose a two-year prison term on Mr. Ávila for disputing the honor of Mr. a/k/a Cholo Chorrillo.

Iranian journalists detained

In 1979 the government of General Omar Torrijos briefly allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to take up residence here, and had its cops beat law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal nearly to death for staging a public protest to oppose the admission of the tyrant into this country. On June 23 two Iranians, a journalist and a history professor, were here making a video that looks back to that time. They interviewed Bernal, took footage of the canal and Panama City, and were about to be on their way back to Iran when police arrested them at Tocumen Airport and confiscated their videotapes. (Leave it to a certain American copyright thief to hail this as a victory against terrorism, as he did.) Police later said it was a "misunderstanding" and allowed the Iranians to go on their way.

Ideological falsehood? Take them away!

Chiriqui circuit prosecutor Luis Guillermo Zúñiga has filed criminal charges of "ideological falsehood" against superior prosecutor Edwin Guardia and four other Public Ministry employees, alleging that they concocted a document that improperly makes it look like there were irregularities in his job performance. It wasn't specified if this ideological falsehood was the product of a deviationist line.

Torrijos's popularity up

A poll taken by the CID - Gallup organization in June found that 34 percent of Panamanian voters surveyed believed that President Torrijos is doing a "good" or "very good" job, as against 21 percent who rate his performance as "poor" or "very poor." The poll was published online by Canada's Angus Reid Global Scan. Its result represents a continued gradual climb in the president's popularity since the beginning of the year, but leaves 45 percent rating the president's performance as ordinary or refusing to express an opinion, at a time when most Panamanians despise all politicians and believe that the usual in government is corruption and incompetence. In May of 2004 Torrijos won with 47.4 percent of the vote, adding to the usual one-third of the electorate that can be counted as the PRD's hardcore base the massive support of young new voters and a fringe of older voters who are usually anti-PRD but were disgusted with Mireya Moscoso's alliance and unimpressed with either Guillermo Endara or Ricardo Martinelli.

New government propagandists

The president's relative popularity notwithstanding, he has been caught in a number of embarrassing situations like plugging businesses run by hoodlums, and if the canal referendum turns into a mandate on Martín Torrijos he faces the reality that 34 percent support doesn't win a referendum in which "yes" and "no" are the options. So of course, the son-in-law of the ad cartel's founder has done the natural thing --- he's hired a new publicist. Erich Rodríguez Auerbach is the new Secretary of State Communications and he told La Prensa that his first task is to review the president's entire publicity operation. Meanwhile, although no official announcements have been made, a different set of faces from the administration and the ACP has been appearing before the public to promote the Torrijos - Alemán Plan to expand the Panama Canal as support for the referendum proposal has dwindled. It seems that Rodolfo Sabonge's quotations from Chairman Deng Xioaping and José Barrios Ng's "it's a money machine" pitch were giving off strange and unattractive aromas.

Torrijos team shuffle

President Torrijos has made a number of changes in the lineup of people around him. Rafael Mezquita, who was the president's executive secretary, has been named to a post that has been vacant since last November, the Secretariat of Measures that's supposed to determine how well Torrijos has kept his "zero corruption" pledge and other campaign promises. Leonel Solís, who was head of the National Security Council, has been taken out of that position and made the president's private secretary. He was replaced by the number two man at the council, Eric Espinoza, who in turn was replaced in the second spot by presidential aide Marcel Salamín. Meanwhile former Panama Defense Forces Major Severino Mejía, who was one of dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega's top aides, has been appointed Vice Minister of Government and Justice. Doris Zapata is the new Vice Minister of Housing and former legislator and San Miguelito Mayor Felipe Cano is now the Vice Minister of Social Development.

Son-in-law of Panama Caucus chief charged with genocide

In order to cement its relationship with the GOP-controlled US Congress --- for whatever reason --- the Torrijos administration, through its Washington lobbyists, created a "Panama Caucus" of US Representatives. Its anointed head, Illinois Republican Jerry Weller, is having a family crisis of the sort that the Panamanian government could well have foreseen. Weller's son-in-law, former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, has been charged with genocide by a Spanish court and an international warrant for his arrest has been issued through INTERPOL. Ríos Montt, a purported born-again Christian, became a TV star through his television ads that declared: "Listen subversives --- only the army carries guns and anyone who opposes the government will be executed." The pseudo-Christian strongman ordered the obliteration of entire indigenous communities in the Guatemalan highlands, in which all men, women and children were massacred by the army. Tens of thousands of non-combatant civilians were killed in these raids. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran his TV commercials as part of its critical reporting, but the coverage Ríos Montt got in the United States was mostly on Pat Robertson's show, where he was shown at weird religious rites bashing people on the forehead, whereupon they fell to the floor twitching like sprayed cockroaches, apparently demonstrating to American religious fanatics that they were "saved." (Better than being in one of those villages he ordered exterminated, so it seems.) Other than in Panama and the United States, government types steer as widely as they can away from Ríos Montt and his family. The Torrijos administration has agreed with the United States to protect American war criminals from the International Criminal Court, but it's unclear if that agreement extends to the thuggish in-laws of US politicians.

Urban noise crackdown

It wouldn't be the first time that a city administration announced an anti-noise campaign, and since its announcement Panama City residents have still heard the yeyes in their boom cars and the plastic people announcing their social status by setting off their car alarms for the neighbors. But Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro has issued a decree providing fines of up to $3,000 for those caught in the act of making unreasonable noise. The decree also gives the police the most useful power to confiscate the devices used to create the noise. One feature not in the law, and probably beyond the city's power, is a ban on the sale or installation of those alarms and other devices that by their very nature create excessive noise. To implement the new decree there have been educational sessions for the corregidores and night court judges, and an educational campaign aimed at kids has been announced. The real test will be the extent to which police enforce the decree.

16th century ship stolen?

Was it Christopher Columbus's caravel the Vizcaina? People differ about that proposition, but the remains of the vessel found in shallow water off of Playa Damas near Nombre de Dios were clearly from the early 16th century and constituted the most important underwater archaeological find ever for Panama. However, sources tell The Panama News that the entire hull has gone missing, having been dug up from the sea floor where it rested and taken away to parts unknown. The National Institute of Culture (INAC) has been denying requests by scholars to visit the site for some time, according to INAC's National Heritage Office (Direccion de Patrimonio Historico) because all work at the site is paralyzed while a dispute over rights to do the work remains frozen in the Supreme Court's docket. During the Moscoso administration the site had been under guard by the National Police and INAC. That watch has not been maintained by the Torrijos administration. A Dr. Mendizabal, an archaeologist working for Patrimonio Historico, said that INAC officials went to the site last year and that the shipwreck was still there. The removal of the ship would have been a major undertaking that could not have gone without notice with even the most cursory police guard. But if the reports of the vessel's disappearance are accurate --- we are not allowed to go there and check for ourselves --- Panama has lost a priceless treasure and Nombre de Dios's dream of building a museum to house the remains of the vessel and put itself on the tourism map has been shattered.

Big yacht busted

The Panamanian government may have acquired an expensive new toy. A group of Russians for whom money was apparently not an object had been conducting illegal diving operations in Ecuador's highly protected waters around the Galapagos Islands, having hired out the 88.5 meter German-built yacht the Constellation, the US-owned and Panama-flagged support vessel the Cebaco Bay and a mini-submarine from the British company Silvercrest Submarines. Ecuador's navy intervened and nabbed the Cebaco Bay and its eight-member crew that included six Panamanians. The Constellation fled the scene. In Ecuador the Cebaco Bay's crew all pleaded guilty to using a submersible in protected waters without a permit and received sentences ranging from 30 to 90 days. The Constellation was later busted as it approached the Panama Canal, and taken to Cristobal to be anchored pending further legal proceedings. Meanwhile Panama has appealed to Ecuador to release the Panamanians who have been jailed, arguing that those who are truly at fault are the bosses who were on the Constellation, not the crew of the support vessel.

Mireya's not attending PARLACEN, but won't quit

Whenever former President Mireya Moscoso shows her face at a Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) session, another member of the Panamanian delegation invariably gets up to make a motion. Former Panama City Mayor Mayín Correa moves that the body lift Mireya's immunity from corruption so that the ex-president can be tried for stealing an average of more than $1,000 in public funds per day over her five-year term to buy herself clothing and jewelry and for other high crimes and misdemeanors. So now Mireya says she sick of the insult and won't attend any more sessions. She is not, however, renouncing her PARLACEN immunity from investigation and prosecution, or her legislative paychecks.

Mireya and Toro campaign for Torrijos - Zubieta Plan

In addition to the endorsement from a Chinese state-owned corporation, the "yes" campaign has picked up the key support of former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, who has no US visa because of the side business of selling visas to Chinese citizens seeking to sneak into the United States while he was president; and former President Mireya Moscoso, she of sticky fingered fame. The two called in the mainstream newspaper photographers to record their July 4 luncheon to promote the "yes" vote. Neither former president was to be seen at the reception in the US ambassador's residence that evening.

Prosecutor barred from USA, boss wants to know why

When Aminta Corro, the anti-drug prosecutor for Colon, went to the United States to visit friends and relatives as she has done before, things were different. This time US immigration officials in Miami informed her that her US visa had been canceled and put her on a plane back to Panama. Corro's boss, Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, is most interested in the reason why. The US State Department doesn't need proof that would support conviction by a court, or even that which would establish probable cause to bring a person to trial, to deny entry of a foreigner into the United States. That's an administrative decision about a privilege rather than a right. Despite its history of abuses ranging from rudeness to torture and the existence of a long list of political enemies that it won't allow to fly on passenger planes, the Bush administration claims that it doesn't deny foreign public officials visas without a very strong reason for doing so. So Gómez wants to know if the Americans have reason to believe that Corro is corrupt, or if what happened to her subordinate was something like the times when Homeland Security officials have kept Democratic members of the US Congress from boarding flights. According to El Panama America Gómez has sent inquiries to the US Embassy, the DEA and to US immigration authorities.

Disappearing wreck stops investigation

How convenient! The manslaughter and drunk driving case against prominent lawyer Carlos Jones has been paralyzed because investigators can't inspect the remains of the car in which Jones had been driving at the time of the crash that killed a married couple driving another car. Why can't the wreck be inspected? Because Jones's lawyers swore before a magistrate that the car is in an inaccessible place. How did it get in an inaccessible place, and why isn't anybody in jail for obstruction of justice for putting it there? Questions like these are why the high and mighty are proposing longer prison terms for truthful reporting by journalists who grovel insufficiently.

High court orders file reconstructions

Many months after the fire, the Supreme Court has ordered the reconstruction the court case files that were lost in the burning of the Tribunal Maritimo building. The files of four separate criminal courts, two maritime panels and two civil courts went up in the arson flames. The court was supposed to have been guarded, but nevertheless nobody has been charged for the blaze and it appears that the investigation is not making much progress. The circumstances point to inside involvement, but there were so many cases with so much at stake in the files that were burned that it's hard to narrow the range of suspects according to potential motives. To the extent that prosecutors, police and defense attorneys have duplicates of papers in the files many of the dossiers can be reconstructed, but a lot of depositions may have to be retaken to fill gaps in the records. Color that more docket delays. Moreover, color that a greatly expanded number of opportunities for bribery or extortion --- which, come to think of it, could be another motive, one that would be unusual in that it wouldn't originate with one of the parties to one of the many cases.

New legislative caucuses

With the impending merger of the Solidaridad and Liberal Nacional parties, a number of members in each formation are left disaffected. After all, there are no ideas in play in Panamanian third party politics as presently practiced, just a division of spoils and neither of these parties have access to government perks at the moment. So the respective parties have left it up to the legislators who were elected on their tickets to go where they will. Mireya Lasso has joined Guillermo Endara's Vanguardia Moral de la Patria, so will become that proto-party's one-woman legislative caucus. Another Solidaridad deputy, José Luis Fábrega, says he quit the party and join the PRD. Solidaridad's José Muñoz, Aris De Icaza and Abraham Martínez have, along with former Liberal Rogelio Alba, formed an "independent caucus." Alba, the notorious crook from Kuna Yala, has been booted out by the Liberals, is not welcome in the new party and is fighting a Liberal move to strip him of his seat. Meanwhile, upheavals among the Arnulfistas and in MOLIRENA have resulted in internal party routs of the Mireyista in the former and the Rosas family in the latter, and that has led to the rescission of purges and the drift back of some former Arnulfistas and MOLIRENA members who backed Endara in 2004 to their old parties, a process that will be reflected by changes in the legislative caucuses as well. The Electoral Tribunal reports that among the parties that have ballot status, only the ruling PRD and Ricardo Martinelli's Cambio Democratico are registering a net increase in membership.

Police raising standards

There have been some exceptionally ugly police scandals, and Panama's cops tend to work under thoroughly corrupt courts and governments, but in general the relationship between citizens and the officers who patrol their neighborhoods is pretty good. Most Panamanian cops don't shake citizens down, and most of them do their best with few resources to suppress crime. But most will also admit that things are not ideal. National Police director Rolando Mirones, with his shaven head, blunt talk and association with an administration that a lot of people rate as unacceptably corrupt as its predecessors, has become a favorite target of editorial cartoonists. But meanwhile he's taking some steps to make the force more professional. The police academy course will be lengthened from six to eight months. To get into the academy in the first place one will have to undergo a more extensive background check than before, and take polygraph tests supposedly to weed out those who lie on their applications. (Polygraphs are of questionable value in weeding out liars, but a bit more effective in detecting psychopaths when used properly.) The eventual goal is to have officers with educations at least equivalent to a university degree. The fate of many of these goals is closely linked to the government's ability and will to provide the funds to accomplish them.

PTJ detectives caught erasing files

On June 28 three PTJ detectives were arrested after having been caught in the act of erasing the criminal records from the files of people applying for weapons permits. The bust has prompted a prosecutors' investigation to see how widespread the practice of erasing criminal records may have been --- it was rumored that an Alabama rape suspect lived openly in Boquete for several years until being found out after an altercation with neighbors by having information about his case in the USA erased from INTERPOL files that the PTJ has, and it may be the reason why millionaire convicted child molester Ronald H. Kelly is still here more than a year after the PTJ said it was investigating his past, which is notorious in Canada. The case adds to the growing pressure on PTJ chief Jaime Jácome to resign. The PTJ is part of the Public Ministry rather than the Ministry of Government and Justice like the National Police. Its chief is appointed by the Supreme Court but under the supervision of the Attorney General.

You think it stinks now?

Have you seen the surveyors working on Avenida Balboa, and on the beaches around Paitilla? What they're doing is making measurements to extent the Corredor Sur toll road from Punta Paitilla to the Casco Viejo, over Panama Bay. That traffic shortcut would, of course, trap the fragrant waters of the Matasnillo river close to shore, for the enjoyment of all who really like the smell of raw sewage. But a Mexican corporation stands to make money, and for our current government that's the most important thing of all.

Also in this section:
Hugo Chávez visits Panama
Notables from STRI back Torrijos-Alemán Zubieta Plan
Endara's party nears ballot status, gears for referendum campaign
Rector Magnifico briefly tossed off ballot, wins re-election, faces court test
Liborio García resoundingly dumped as Ombudsman
Torrijos signs pro-corruption legislator impunity law
Panama News Briefs