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Panama News Briefs

18 killed in bus fire

An October 23 bus fire, apparently caused by an electrical malfunction in a recently repaired engine, claimed the lives of 18 people, including four children. The vehicle caught fire near the bus stop at the Hosanna Temple on the boundary of La Cresta and Perejil, and panicky riders dashed to the back in search of an emergency exit. However, the bus, a newer model bought with government financing under the Moscoso administration, had no emergency exit, in the back or anywhere else. The Torrijos administration immediately announced that because the bus purchase was financed by the semi-autonomous state-owned National Bank of Panama, and because the bus's owner-operator had 92 previous tickets issued by the semi-autonomous public Land Transportation and Transit Authority (ATTT), the government bears no responsibility for what happened.

CSS absolves itself

The Social Security Fund (CSS), having investigated itself for its distribution of tainted medications that claimed at least 32 lives, has declared in an October 25 press conference that it had found itself not responsible. Prosecutors' investigations are ongoing, and international health organizations called in for the investigation have yet to issue a definitive report on the incident's cause. The victims were found to have been poisoned by diethylene glycol (DEG) mixed into cough syrups and benadryl elixir at the Seguro Social medicine production lab. Several containers of glycerin, which the institution bought in 2002 and 2003, were found to have contained not glycerin but a mix of chemicals typical of glycerin that has decomposed --- including DEG --- were recovered from the CSS lab and the institution's warehouse in Curundu. The CSS claims that the fault is either with the Spanish company that manufactured the glycerin or someone who introduced DEG into the material at some later time.

$75,000 compensation fund for poisoning victims

The Torrijos administration has created a $75,000 fund to compensate the families of 32 people who died from taking poisoned medicines produced and distributed by the Social Security Fund. The at least 47 others who became sick from the government poison will have to look elsewhere for compensation for their losses.

Flags fly half staff

In an interview on the PRD-aligned RCM TV news channel President Torrijos said that he had ordered flags flown at half-staff for the 18 people who died in the bus fire and the 32 people who died from poison that the government distributed to the public. In the same interview, the president announced a study of health standards and that no matter what the ongoing scientific and criminal investigations find about the culpability of top public officials in the poisonings, Seguro Social director René Luciani and Health Minister Camilo Alleyne would keep their jobs.

PRD founder Gerardo González dies

Gerardo González, a member of the Central American Parliament and one of the founders of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), died on October 21 after a long struggle with cancer. Twice the party's president and once its secretary general, González is probably most noteworthy for leading the party back to power in 1994 after the crushing defeat of its former de facto leader, military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, in the elections of May 1989 and the US invasion that following December. He also served in the legislature and among his surviving family members is current legislator Pedro Miguel González.

RP supported Guatemala in the UN

The Torrijos administration supported Guatemala in its stalemated contest with Venezuela for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The United States lobbied hard against Venezuela, but South American countries led by Chile and Brazil, both of which are headed by presidents who were tortured by US-backed military regimes in the "Dirty Wars" of the 70s and 80s, held firm against Guatemala, where the intellectual authors of genocidal massacres against indigenous people remain in high positions in the government. After 35 votes in which neither Guatemala nor Venezuela could muster the two-thirds needed to win the seat, it appeared at the time these briefs were written that both these contenders would step down. However, it looks as if Venezuela would step aside in favor of Bolivia, which would then likely prompt a US-led "stop Bolivia" movement. The United States doesn't actually have a vote in this process, but the Bush administration insists upon a prerogative of choosing Latin America's representative. The row has affected US relations with many countries in the region.

Suspected short-eye perv gets the boot

Richard Wesley Gibbs, a 65-year-old former Pennsylvania university professor and North Carolina wanted in several states and by the US federal government on child molesting and child pornography charges, was arrested in Bocas del Toro on October 13 and expelled from Panama the next day. Technically speaking, it was not an extradition: authorities here merely decided that this was an undesirable alien and deported him, handing him over to the FBI as they put him on the plane back to the USA. It is unclear whether anyone will collect the $1 million reward that was offered for information leading to Gibbs's arrest.

Panama trip figures in US congressional campaign

Rick O'Donnell, the GOP candidate for an open congressional seat in Colorado, has this 12-point platform for ethical government that blasts politicians who accept vacation trips from special interests. However, it turns out that when he was the head of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education he spent a lot of public money buying ads from a CBS-affiliated television station to promote scholarships for Latinos, and as a token of its gratitude for all that business CBS sent him and his girlfriend on an all-expenses-paid trip to Panama. "Ban corporations, trade associations, unions, foundations and individuals from paying for the travel expenses of a member or staff to attend a charity event. Too often these trips become all-expense-paid vacations for members and another way to peddle influence," O'Donnell argues on his website, and under pressure from reporters and his Democratic opponent he says that what he did is not in conflict with that. He does have a point --- this was not about "charity."

Writer wins two Miro prizes in one year

It was a rare success for author Ariel Barría Alvarado, who teaches literature at USMA and works as a publicist for the National Police to put bread on the table but writes fiction to leave his mark on history. This year he won Panama's top literary prize, the Miro, in two categories, short story and novel. His prize-winning works were "Ojos para oír" and "La casa que habitamos" respectively. Barría had previously won the prize for novels in 1999.

Documentary maker arrested

In the Moscoso - Torrijos constitutional reforms, it was alleged that disrespect for police officers was no longer a crime. Before and afterwards, it is alleged in Panama's constitution that we have freedom of expression. But when Ana Endara, a Panamanian documentary maker with the support of Cinergia, a Central American documentary group, went to make a documentary about the slums of Curundu, police arrested one of the men she was filming and seized one of the production crew's cameras. When Endara went, with cameras recording, to the police station in San Miguel to demand the camera back, she was thrown in jail for the allegedly decriminalized disrespect of a police officer.

We're number 39!

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a conservative Paris-based human rights group dedicated to defending freedom of expression, rates Panama number 39 out of the 158 countries listed on its ranking of press freedoms. Basically RSF looks at government repression of press freedoms and does not consider abuses within the private sector, even when orchestrated by ruling political parties, to be a serious concern. Thus the decline in prosecutions for criminal defamations from the Moscoso administration to the Torrijos administration is considered progress, while the acquisition of media by members the ruling party and the subsequent blackout of opposition voices on those media is not considered an abuse by RSF.

Couple shot at after attending gangland funeral

So what if you were friends with Carlos "Yogi Bear" Mejía, the reputed member of the Viteri drug gang who was gunned down on the Amador Causeway after a concert at the Figali Convention Center? Alberto Racines Correa and Juliza Paredes, both 34 years old and husband and wife, attended services for the late Mejía on October 18 and on the way home their car was cut off by another vehicle, from which shots were fired into their car. The assailants are believed to have been members of the rival El Pentagono gang.

Judge removed for letting drug suspects walk

If you are busted for drug trafficking here, there is no bail and the prosecution does not have to prove you guilty --- you have to prove your innocence. But then you can always buy off a judge. The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, has removed appeals judge Andrés Almendral for a 2004 decision by which he freed some Colombian drug suspects. Patricio Candanedo, then an anti-drug prosecutor, filed the complaint against Almendral and his alternate, Rolando Quesada Vallespi. The latter was removed from the appeals court but only suspended for 30 days from his other job as a judge in a lower criminal court. High court magistrates Adán Arnulfo Arjona, Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista dissented from the decision.

Criminal charges in Olympic Committee dispute

With two rival groups claiming to be the genuine Olympic Committee of Panama (COP), the Public Ministry now appears to be throwing its weight behind the one that's now supported by the courts and the Torrijos administration. Anti-corruption prosecutor Yolanda Austin told El Panama America that the directors of the faction headed by Melitón Sánchez are to be charged with the improper use of some $27,000 during the Athens Olympiad. The Torrijos administration cut of funds for the COP when it was revealed that some government funds were improperly spent on liquor for that party. The COP has for a long time had a notorious reputation for short-funding athletes yet spending lavishly on delegations of "dignitaries" accompanying teams to international competitions.

Heavy rains bring floods

We are now into the height of rainy season, and with the heavy rains parts of Panama are also getting floods. The worst in recent weeks have been in Chiriqui, where storms on the 15th and 16th of October caused the Rio Chiriqui Viejo to overflow its banks in parts of Alanje and Baru districts, driving about 1,500 people from their homes; washing away construction machinery along the Rio Chico; and causing landslides in Las Vueltas and Chorchita.

Scavengers got into Hospital del Niño wastes

In the streets around Panama's hospital for children, the Hospital del del Niño, used syringes and other medical wastes have been scattered about for the past few months. Now the people in charge of the hospital's waste disposal and security have been relieved of the posts, and a new area to guard wastes is being created. It seems that the quasi-public foundation that runs the hospital was lax about letting dumpster divers get into its medical waste receptacles and commuters who have more influence with those in power than do the neighbors began to notice when red bags containing infectious wastes were thrown out onto Avenida Balboa. It is not, however, a matter of all of the hospital's neighbors being throw-away pariahs. The people next door, for example, are the British Embassy.

Traad complains of trial in marine's punishment death

In yet another assertion that nobody should be held accountable when the government kills people, National Maritime Service (SMN) director Ricardo Traad has protested in the daily newspapers and on television about anti-corruption prosecutor Yolanda Austin's motion in a criminal court to bring former SMN non-commissioned officers Ángel Franco and Juan Escarreola to trial for the January 2005 death of marine Natanael Chiari. After an initial fraudulent "investigation" that cost some people in the Public Ministry their jobs, colleagues of Chiari's leaked the story of how the young man actually died. Having failed a training course abroad, Chiari was obliged to run in the sun wearing a double pack, carrying a rifle and covered with a rain poncho for punishment. Eventually he collapsed and died of heat stroke in a hospital shortly afterwards. Franco and Escarreola have admitted what happened, but say that they were ordered by superiors to inflict this punishment on Chiari. Traad told La Prensa that the SMN would appeal the prosecutor's decision to seek a trial on homicide charges.

Teenage bus robber killed

On October 11 two teenage boys, aged 14 and 16, robbed a San Miguelito bus driver of $35 but were caught in the act by the National Police. According to the police the kids opened fire, which the police returned. In the end the 16-year-old was dead, the bus driver's assistant was wounded and the was 14-year-old under arrest.

Also in this section:
Canal expansion referendum results
Death toll in tainted Seguro Social medicine case at least 30
Panama News Briefs