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Father Gallego's co-op claims government persecution

by Eric Jackson, from other media

On July 10, 1969, Father Héctor Gallego, a Colombian Catholic priest who had built a reputation for his work among the campesinos of Panama's north-central Veraguas province, registered the La Esperanza de los Campesinos multi-service cooperative and proceeded to develop its commercial activities in and around the town of Santa Fe. It was a politically risky thing to do.

Before the cooperative, farmers only had one place to go to buy their supplies in Santa Fe, a store that happened to be owned by a relative of Panama's military strongman of that time, General Omar Torrijos. The competition was not appreciated.

On June 9, 1971, Father Gallego was taken away by police and never seen alive again, save by his captors. The disappearance was a turning point in the church's relationship with the military regime. Although it is said that the late Archbishop Marco McGrath found Gallego annoying and a bit too militant, the forced disappearance of a priest proved beyond the pale of the church's tolerant understanding.

After the dictatorship fell in the 1989 US invasion the cops who took the priest away and their supervisor were jailed in the incident, but these men and others who know what happened have always maintained their silence about Gallego's disappearance. Under the Moscoso administration a Truth Commission charged with finding and publishing the truth about political murders and persecution during the dictatorship looked into the Gallego affair, but was never able to establish the truth of his final moments, identify the person or persons who actually killed him or locate the priest's remains.

This latter point is of great importance to many Panamanian Catholics who believe that Gallego should be canonized as a saint. The process that leads to sainthood requires that Papal investigators determine with precision how and where the person died, and they generally want to locate the remains to find out whether any miracles can be associated with them. According to various long-standing rumors, Gallego was either buried in a secret grave or thrown out of a helicopter from high above the Pacific Ocean.

In any case, when General Torrijos's son Martín became president he not only abolished the Truth Commission, his administration threatened to prosecute its members and investigators for wasting public funds. The official search for Father Gallego was not only over for at least five years, but privately funded efforts were effectively banned as well.

But meanwhile in Santa Fe, the co-op that Gallego founded survived his disappearance. It grew to become the means by which more than 1,000 members obtained their supplies and marketed their products. Its businesses diversified and came to employ about 70 people. It became an important voice in the community.

Not the only voice, however. The legislative circuit that encompasses Santa Fe has long been a PRD stronghold and is currently represented by Pedro Miguel González. The municipal government has more often than not been controlled by the party that General Torrijos founded as well.

Now the cooperative complains that there is a concerted, multi-pronged attempt by the Torrijos administration and the local government to put it out of business. The complaint is that:

·        The municipal government has imposed a tax on the co-op, which argues that this is illegal under the national laws governing cooperatives. That matter is before the Supreme Court, but meanwhile the city has seized the license plates from the co-op's vehicles for allegedly unpaid taxes.

·        The Ministry of Economy and Finance has hit the co-op with a bill for taxes going back to 1998. It's not a matter of failure to pay the principal that was due, but rather a penalty imposed because, although the ministry accepted quarterly tax filing all these years, it is now argued that the papers should have been filed monthly.

·        There have been frequent inspections and multiple fines imposed by the Veraguas office of the National Public Services Authority (formerly CLICAC), for alleged violations at the co-op's stores, when competitors have neither been inspected nor fined for the same conditions.

·        A series of municipal regulations, restrictions and fees have been decreed for the co-op only.

·        There is now a threat to seize the cooperative's assets on the basis of various fines, taxes and penalties.

Thus Father Gallego's old cooperative has sounded the alarm both nationally and internationally. Most of Panama's mainstream media, which are aligned with the PRD, have ignored the story. However, the Brazilian-based Adital news agency, which has a multi-denominational Liberation Theology point of view, has spread the word throughout the region. Due in large part to the martyred priest's legend, it's likely that further government attempts to drive the co-op out of business would prompt national and international assistance for the local organization.

But there, too, the Torrijos administration has moved to block such possibilities, by imposing restrictions on Panamanian non-governmental organizations from soliciting or receiving assistance from abroad. The gist of the government's restrictions are that only organizations that can afford the regular services of CPAs and lawyers will be able to qualify for legal standing and the right to engage in activities ranging from holding bank accounts to raising and spending money. In many ways the new regulations are aimed at the environmentalist movement, which has frequently relied upon foreign expertise.

But international confrontations with the son of the dictator who disappeared their founder are not at the top of the co-op's agenda for the moment. For now the Cooperativa La Esperanza de los Campesinos is simply demanding that the harassment stop, that the municipal tax bills and Ministry of Economy and Finance penalties be annulled, that the Supreme Court rule promptly on its appeal and that the government concentrate on improving the lives of farmers in the area rather than persecuting their cooperative.

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