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UNHCR hails a policy shift by Panama's government

by Eric Jackson, from other media

At a December 15 press conference in Geneva the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) hailed Panama's quick grant of refugee status to a group of 43 Wounaan asylum seekers who fled their homes on the other side of the Colombian border into this country's Darien province after receiving death threats from armed men.

Colombia's atrocious civil conflict is largely fought between right-wing paramilitaries allied with the government forces and left-wing guerrillas who have been defying the Bogota administrations' authority for decades, in remote areas whose indigenous inhabitants look upon all of the contending forces as intruders who are violating their traditional way of life. Both the AUC paramilitaries and the FARC guerrillas have assassinated indigenous leaders and attempted to press local villagers into their armies over the years.

In the past Panama has often given just temporary shelter --- which restricts movements and makes it impossible to legally work --- to those fleeing the Colombian violence. In many other cases it has used force or coercion to repatriate displaced people and in the Moscoso administration there was a de facto cooperation between the Panamanian government and the AUC death squads, which were allowed to commit crimes in and otherwise operate out of Panama.

The usual official Panamanian policy toward Colombia's civil conflicts is that we are not involved, don't care to take sides and wish that all armed Colombians would stay as far away from us as possible. This country declared independence from Colombia in 1903 not only because the Bogota politicians were blocking our aspirations to have a canal, but because the Thousand Day War of the previous three years had devastated much of Panama and people here were fed up with Colombia's chronic political violence.

Our biggest problem along the border with the Darien is that it's a remote wilderness that's fairly impossible for a strong army to defend, let alone for our National Police, which are militarily weaker than any of the armed Colombian factions. Among the many suggestions to change this state of affairs, none of which are likely to be accepted anytime soon, are regional economic development by way of building a highway connection between Panama and Colombia; a military buildup with foreign assistance to seal off the border; and an alliance with the Bogota government and its US backers to militarily defeat the FARC rebels.

But barring any definitive solution, the policy that essentially denies the reality of what's going on beyond our frontier has drawn much international criticism. Colombia's violence has driven well over three million people from their homes, hundreds of thousands of them into neighboring countries and human rights groups have long contended that Panama's non-recognition of the civil conflict's effects amounts to a violation of international treaties on the treatment of refugees.

The latest decision, said UNHCR spokesman William Spindler, "is an important step in the right direction for some of the most vulnerable refugees in Panama, who can now look forward to a more secure future."