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Panama gets onto the UN Security Council
Panama News Briefs

Panama gets UN Security Council seat it didn't seek

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

After a bitterly contested but inconclusive 47-round General Assembly election battle between Guatemala and Venezuela, both of those countries withdrew their nominations for the Latin America - Caribbean region non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and agreed upon Panama as a compromise candidate. The representatives of regional governments voted to accept the deal, and although a formal General Assembly vote remains to be taken it is assured that for two years to start in January Panama will hold the Security Council seat now occupied by Argentina.

It will be the fifth time that Panama has served on the Security Council. Venezuela had also held the post four times, while Guatemala has never held it.

Guatemala led Venezuela on every vote except one that ended in a tie, but was unable to get the two-thirds General Assembly consensus to win election.

This confrontation was more than anything about George W. Bush, with tangential issues about both Guatemala and Venezuela. Essentially the United States called in as many favors as it could to block Venezuela, whose president it tried to overthrow in an April 2002 coup attempt. Bush is widely disliked in Latin America and the Caribbean, which by and large did not respond favorably to his "stop Venezuela" movement. That he was stuck with Guatemala as his pawn in this effort weakened his position, because in a decades-long civil conflict the Guatemalan Army and associated paramilitary groups massacred entire indigenous communities and the people most responsible for these acts of genocide were not only not punished, but several of them still occupy important posts in the Guatemalan government. On the other hand, Venezuela was weakened by its President Hugo Chávez's penchant for bombastic speeches and gestures, some of which have run afoul of diplomatic niceties and the norms about one country interfering in the elections of another. (That latter problem is in particular a bone of contention between the government of Venezuela and those of Peru and Mexico, but it's not something that the United States can credibly complain about, given Washington's long history of interference in the elections of Latin American and Caribbean countries.)

So how will Panama behave on the Security Council? This country has a history of straddling fences --- membership in the Non-Aligned Movement, but going along with the "Washington Consensus" about economic matters that the Third World countries overwhelmingly oppose;  and parting company with the Americans on many of those issues in which the USA is isolated in the world such as the Iraq War but sometimes standing with them against the majority in controversies involving Israel. Panama is likely to stand with its frustrated East Asian canal customers in opposing the international pariah North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling. Given the corruption found throughout the Panamanian government, the possibility of bribery occasionally affecting the way that it behaves on the UN Security Council should not be discounted. Generally look for the Panamanian voice to be that of a Third World moderate.

Even with the news coming as Panama went into its November patriotic holidays, it wasn't particularly received as a matter of great national pride. Part of this would be due to the fact that the country has had this honor several times before, and part of it because there were other domestic issues --- unfortunately some grim ones --- dominating the headlines at the time. That Panama was the compromise candidate after a brawl provoked by the United States also detracted from the gleam of this trophy.

There may be domestic political consequences arising from the Security Council post. From time to time some of the local media float the possibility of Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro as the 2009 PRD presidential nominee. (Looked at from a rank-and-file PRD members' perspective of this particular moment that looks like a remote possibility, with Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro and former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares figuring as much more likely contenders.) If Lewis Navarro does have presidential ambitions, the next two years ought to offer him some opportunities to personally represent Panama at the Security Council table in headline-grabbing roles.