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Four more charged in Seguro Social poisoned medicine case
Threats, information suppression over old US military Tropical Test Center
Protesters demand justice in poisoned medicine, bus fire cases
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

Solís is an Electoral Tribunal magistrate

The recent referendum marked the end of a 10-year Electoral Tribunal cycle, with all three magistrates and the Electoral Prosecutor's terms ending soon . The three magistrates on the Tribunal are selected by the Supreme Court, the National Assembly and the President respectively, while the Electoral Prosecutor is a presidential appointment. The Supreme Court has made its appointment, promoting Electoral Prosecutor Gerardo Solís to be a magistrate, replacing Eduardo Valdés Escofery. There is no word yet on what the president and legislature might do. Magistrate Erasmo Pinilla wants another term and is seeking to get one from the assembly. The other magistrate whose term is ending is Denis Allen.

The political traffic nightmare (1)

On November 16 traffic snarled around the city when patients suffering from such chronic illnesses as AIDS, kidney failure and hemophilia blocked the Transistmica near Seguro Social. They're demanding regular supplies of their prescribed medications, which are not always available at government pharmacies. The Torrijos administration sent Partido Popular activist Juan Antonio Tejada out to plead with the patients, but the protesters refused to talk to him and only left when Health Minister Camilo Alleyne came and promised that they'd get their medications.

The political traffic nightmare (2)

On November 20 there were more than the usual traffic jams because retirees were blocking the Transistmica to pressure the government to raise their pensions by $30 a month. This an escalation of a campaign of protests that began some weeks back when the Torrijos administration sent out a minor official to tell the retirees that there's no money to meet their demand.

The natural traffic nightmare

High tide plus heavy rains means that Panama City's storm drains don't work very well. Now that we are in the height of rainy season that has meant water collecting in pools in many places on the city's streets, including on some major traffic arteries. People throwing trash onto the streets or into gutters does not help matters, as in some places the accumulated trash clogs the drains. So far this year there have not been reports of the drivers of cars that stuck on flooded streets being robbed, but this is a traditional rainy season crime of which city drivers should be aware.

Traditional protest method suppressed

Actually, it has always been illegal to climb up on to the superstructure of the Bridge of the Americas to make your special point. However, the bridge was inaugurated in 1962 with protesters throwing things at Canal Zone dignitaries from above, and people have climbed the bridge to perform stunts, hang protest banners, dramatize economic demands or jump to their deaths on many occasions since then. The rescue or removal operations are dangerous and expensive, and now the government has installed a new protective fence that will make it a lot harder to climb onto the bridge's superstructure.

Paitilla's air quality declines

The University of Panama, in conjunction with the National Environmental Authority and international non-governmental organizations, has been monitoring the metro area's air quality for many years now and thus can spot trends. According to a report in La Prensa, based on what is happening now and what's projected to happen over the next few years, the upscale Paitilla neighborhood's air has become dirtier and is likely to get worse. Twice a day there is near-gridlock on the streets as people come and go in their cars between their apartments and their jobs, and that generates a lot of auto fumes. Plans for more condo towers and to extend the Corredor Sur along a causeway to be built around the neighborhood hold within them the prospect of further deterioration in air quality.

Balbina, former Chepo representante square off

This is the height of rainy season, and thus the height of flood season. Since Balbina Herrera has been Housing Minister, that also makes it the season for public scenes about the dangerous practice of building houses in flood plains. On November 11 bout 20 families were flooded out of their homes in the Villa Olympia area of Chepo, and it turns out that the former representante, Orlando Ledezma, had handed out titles to the families even though the land was prone to flooding. New places have been found for the people who were affected --- even though some of them didn't want to move --- and Balbina says she will fill a criminal complaint against Ledezma. But at a community meeting the former got into a public argument about it, face-to-face with the minister. He said that he made no profit off of the land transaction and that all he did was provide a place to live to homeless families. But the minister said that no matter what the motive, it's irresponsible to house people in a flood plain.

Watt to be an Episcopalian church executive

Former US ambassador in Panama Linda Watt has gone from the State Department to the church, after a brief retirement. She has taken a job as the executive director of the Episcopal Church's Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. The job, which she will assume in January, will take her from Utah, where she moved after retiring from the Foreign Service, to New York. Watt was a popular ambassador in Panama, maintaining contacts with a much broader spectrum of Panamanian society than has been the norm for American diplomats and reaching out to the American community here.

Charges dismissed in prostitute's death

Charges have been dropped against the madam and the john with whom 19-year-old prostitute Vanessa Márquez was last seen alive. In March of 2005 the young woman fell, jumped or was pushed from a 17th floor hotel room balcony at the Paitilla Inn during the course of a sex and drugs orgy there. There was an attempt to make the death look like an automobile accident and a medical examiner and the former number two man in the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) lost their jobs over it. Photos of the corpse showed marks that could have been defensive bruises on the hands, arms, face and neck. But since right after the spurious initial autopsy was done the body was cremated, it has been difficult to determine the cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt and for that reason a penal court judge dismissed the charges and ordered the suspects released from jail. Prosecutors, however, say that they will appeal the decision.

Our neighbors bust a drug sub

We heard a strange tale from Costa Rica on November 19 and it almost certainly had a Panama connection. The Coast Guard there captured a three-man submarine cruising at seven knots about 100 miles off the Nicoya Peninsula, and on board that wood and fiberglass vessel they found three tons of cocaine. The sub was being followed by US, Costa Rican and Colombian law enforcement agencies. It was the first time that Costa Rica has captured one of these things, but the Colombian government has found several of them in recent years.

Puerto Rican independence summit

On weekend of November 18 and 19 Panama played host to the Latin American and Caribbean Congress for Puerto Rican Independence. Participants from 20 countries assembled to denounce the island's colonial relationship with the United States and hear President Torrijos call for Puerto Rico to take its place among the sovereign Latin American nations. In referenda and polls, independence tends to come in third place when Puerto Ricans are given a choice among the present status as a US-dependent commonwealth, statehood within the United States and separation. That choice is generally illusory, however, because it's unlikely that the US Congress would ever accept a Spanish-speaking state. Puerto Rico's current status dates back to 1952, in the wake of the suppression of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and the jailing of most of its leaders.

Teenage hit man gets five years

A 15-year-old hit man for the Pentagono drug gang who shot and killed Jhonny Pozo of the rival organization headed by David Viteri in a daylight assassination on Via España this past March has been handed a five-year prison sentence. Prosecutors say they'll appeal, but if they win the most that the youth can get would be seven years.

Prominent priest dies after Santa Clara accident

Father Segundo Familiar Cano, renowned for his work with youngsters in Chitre, has died after an unusual traffic accident near Santa Clara. A passenger in a car driving through the fog on the Pan-American Highway en route to Tocumen to catch a plane, the driver and priest were surprised to hit a pig wandering in the road. Cano died of complications from his injuries a few hours later. For 27 years Cano was in charge of the annual Catholic Youth Gatherings.

Gap in legislative immunity --- never mind

In the constitutional changes that changed the form but not the reality of legislators' unaccountability for their actions, the National Assembly deputies and alternate deputies were broadly immunized from both criminal and civil immunity. However, civil liability for labor and family obligations was left out of the package. However, suplente Rolando Urriola owes $16,000 in child support arrears and the mother of his kids has taken her case to El Siglo, because she had found as a practical matter there is no legal recourse against a politician for that sort of abuse either.

PRD creates front group for poison scandal

The Torrijos administration is employing a now familiar tactic to duck responsibility in the poisoned Seguro Social medications scandal. Most of the families of the victims are supporting the Patients Committee for the Right to Life and Health and the Hosanna Temple evangelical church is offering them free legal assistance. But Torrijos has appointed former national ombudsman Juan Antonio Tejada as the "representative" of the families and now one Ivette Landero is being promoted by the government and the government-aligned media as the "leader" of a purported rival group of victims' relatives. A Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) agent and the niece of corrections director and former Noriega G-2 agent Carlos Landero, the "rival leader" first issued a statement blasting relatives of the victims who are demanding the ousters of top government officials over the affair. Then she complained that she can't get the leave she wants from her job while her mother is hospitalized. Just like Torrijos created paper teachers' "unions" to "negotiate" a "contract" that the real unions wouldn't accept, it seems that the government has set up its own victims' "representative" and "organization" in order to force a "settlement" upon those whom the government poisoned and to blunt most of the victims' relatives' demands for the ouster of Social Security director René Luciani and Minister of Health Camilo Alleyne.