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Panama News Briefs

Gómez: proposed new Penal Code abets impunity

Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez led off the special legislative session on January 23 by charging that the proposed new Penal Code "propitiates impunity" by adding to rather than reducing the privileges that impede the investigation and prosecution of corrupt legislators and magistrates. She added that a number of other sections represent setbacks for criminal justice, particularly the proposal to require a pattern of conduct before the laws against domestic violence could be invoked. The attorney general also criticized the proposed new rules of criminal procedure, alleging that the plan to add a new set of judges to pass on questions of pretrial detention would both be inefficient and undermine prosecutors' independence and warning that the new rules under contemplation are confusing and in many cases contradictory. However, Gómez disagreed with many of the groups and individuals making the same criticisms and demanding that the proposals be withdrawn. She favors debate and amendment within the legislative process to correct the problems.

Torrijos popular, but one of his ministers isn't

He may not be the "Teflon President" like Ronald Reagan was said to be in the United States, but by and large Panamanians are looking at the relatively healthy economy rather than government scandals when forming their opinions about Martín Torrijos. A Dichter & Neira poll commissioned by La Prensa and taken between January 12 and 14 has the president slightly improving his already high public approval rating to 63.4 percent favorable. However, 63.4 percent say that Torrijos ought to make changes in his cabinet, with 10 percent expressing no opinion and only 26.4 percent saying that the cabinet ought to stay the way it is. The least liked cabinet member, Health Minister Camilo Alleyne, gets only a 31.9 percent approval rating and nearly 60 percent of those responding specifically support his ouster. Alleyne, of course, is one of the key figures in the scandal over the distribution of poisoned medications and its cover-up.

Kuna village burning was arson

Investigators from the Cuerpo de Bomberos and the Judicial Technical Police say that the burning of the Kuna village of Wala, which is located in the Wargandi Comarca in northwestern Darien province, was definitely arson. A new trail through the jungle leading to the village has been discovered and it’s believed that this was how the person or persons who set the fire got to the village and then escaped. There is speculation that this and the fires that burned down two other Kuna villages in the past few weeks arose out of some dispute among drug traffickers, but so far no suspect has been identified.

Church calls the politicians on their games

Panama’s Catholic bishops, who had been toning down criticism of the government by clergy and lay workers and in the Catholic media for the past year and one-half, have issued a stinging critique of the politicians. At a January 11 ceremony at Colegio La Salle, Monsignor José Domingo Ulloa read a letter from the bishops that demanded the immediate publication of the proposed US-Panama Free Trade Agreement and argued that the scandals over the bus fire that claimed 18 lives and the distribution of poisoned medicines that has claimed dozens of lives are symptoms of a political patronage systems that puts people who have little commitment to public service in responsible government posts.

More indications that Navarro will run for president

Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro hasn't made any formal announcements, but things he's doing and saying sure make him look like the 2009 presidential candidate that he's expected by many analysts to become. At a meeting to promote the city's dry season recreation programs, Navarro said that he likes his current job, but when Housing Minister Balbina Herrera announced that she will run for mayor in 2009, he said that she's a good candidate. Meanwhile, when the Comptroller General sent the mayor's plan to buy a building on Avenida Cuba to convert into a new city hall back to the city to clarify certain details whispers of corruption circulated and the mayor's press secretary promptly alleged an underhanded political campaign. That was but one more instance of Navarro's detractors within the PRD making unattributable political or personal attacks. Navarro joined the PRD just before the 1999 elections and is resented by some of the party old guard. He has also sometimes bickered with the PRD-dominated city council. Despite the low-intensity sniping, polls show Navarro to be Panama's most popular elected official. The first test of whether that translates into enough intra-party support to get the 2009 presidential nomination will be his performance in this year's four-way race for the party's presidency, in which his most prominent opponent is former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares.

Toro against bus plan

In a move to rally PRD dissidents behind his campaigns for the 2009 presidential nomination and this year's contest for the party presidency, former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares has come out with some scathing criticism of the Torrijos administration's plans to replace the owner operated metro area bus system with one or more large companies that would run lines of the bigger "articulated" buses. Toro accused Martín of ignoring the true complaints of metro bus riders and criticized the current administration for cutting bus owners and drivers out of discussions about mass transit problems. The bus system is likely to be at the top of the agenda when the next regular National Assembly session begins in March. So far the Torrijos administration is adamant about its plan.

Arnulfista group trying for opposition unity

In 2004 Martín Torrijos received substantially less than a majority of the votes cast for president, but in a four-way race it was enough for a landslide victory and with the president riding high in the polls at the moment it appears that that his party would retain the presidency if the opposition is divided in 2009. Thus the Panameñista Action Movement (MAPA) has been holding a series of meetings with all of the opposition factions willing to participate in order to create the foundation for a unified anti-PRD presidential campaign. The big problems now are ongoing faction fights within the Panameñista and MOLIRENA parties and the insistence of some people in the traditional number two political forces (the Panameñistas) and the party that currently runs second to the PRD in membership (the Union Patriotica) that the candidate must come from their group. Also posing obstacles to unity are the individual ambitions of former President Guillermo Endara and businessmen Alberto Vallarino and Ricardo Martinelli. The latter two have the personal resources to run a campaign that Endara lacks, but don't have the reputations for integrity and experience that Endara would take into a campaign. If, as 2009 approaches, polls show one of the opposition hopefuls with a commanding lead over the others then MAPA's quest for unity would be boosted.

Prosecutors open a file on Luciani and Alleyne

The Public Ministry has opened a case against Health Minister Camilo Alleyne and Social Security Director Rene Luciani in the poisoned medications affair. The two men were the targets of complaints by the families of some of the people who died but at this point prosecutors are just doing a preliminary investigation and haven't filed any formal charges against Alleyne or Luciani. Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez said that so far there is no proper cause to seek the two officials' removal from their jobs and asked the public to be patient as required legal procedures take their course. A few low-ranking government employees and people connected with an importer who apparently supplied some mislabeled chemicals --- but not the owners of that company --- have been charged with various crimes and some of them are in jail awaiting trials that might be years in the future.

Lawyer: Noriega's coming back

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega's US attorney, Frank Rubino, has told the AP wire service that his client will hop on a plane headed for Panama when he's released from a US federal penitentiary on September 9. The Panamanian government at least officially wants Noriega back here because he has multiple prison sentences, the results of trials in absentia for various acts of violence or corruption, awaiting him here. Many observers, however, believe that the former strongman will head for a third country and save the Torrijos administration some unwelcome and possibly divisive reminders of the ruling PRD's past.

Murder charge against Viteri

Reputed drug gang leader David Viteri, incarcerated after a conviction for inciting violent crime (a violent conflict the El Pentagono gang from El Chorrillo, via a series of statements televised by the MEDCOM television stations), now faces more serious charges. He's accused of ordering the November 2004 shooting death of El Pentagono leader Alex "Mole" Martínez outside a Santa Ana bar. Viteri says he didn't do it.

High court allows investigation of Alba

The allegations against legislator Rogelio Alba, who was elected on the Liberal Nacional ticket from Kuna Yala but who was thrown out of that party after having been caught smuggling liquor and cigarettes out of the Colon Free Zone without paying duty on them, are many and notorious, even if his colleagues and the Electoral Tribunal have blocked his erstwhile party's moves to kick him out of the National Assembly. Now, however, Alba's steak of good luck may be coming to an end. The Supreme Court has authorized a criminal investigation of Alba for having 10 employees on his legislative payroll whose salaries he allegedly diverted to himself.

200 NGOs lose tax-free status

Some 200 non-governmental organizations have lost their tax-free status. The Torrijos administration has adopted a policy of restricting non-governmental organizations, particularly environmentalist groups that criticize developments that the government is supporting and anti-corruption groups that the PRD doesn’t control. Under a new set of regulations an NGO essentially has to be able to afford the services of a certified public accountant and a lawyer and submit to government oversight and regulation to maintain its tax-exempt status or even have a bank account. The Ministry of Economy and Finance has taken its actions against the NGOs under an earlier existing policy because the groups didn’t submit lists of their donors and expenditures for five consecutive years. What’s happening is that a lot of groups are now existing informally and continuing their functions, but the government is pretending that they don’t exist and limiting its dealings with so-called “civil society” to those groups that can afford to retain lawyers and CPAs.

Evangelicals audited

The Ministry of Economy and Finance is auditing the Hosanna Community, which is a spinoff of the Hosanna Temple, a large Evangelical congregation in Panama City. The Hosanna Community runs a television station and a number of other satellite businesses. The church’s Reverend Edwin Álvarez, who ran for legislator on the MOLIRENA ticket but lost, has been a critic of the current administration. During the canal referendum campaign power to the television station was mysteriously cut off when in the course of a broadcast Álvarez began to talk about conflicts of interest that the Panama Canal Authority administrator and directors have.

US citizen jailed for human trafficking for commercial sex

Victor Panangiotis Politis, a US citizen who owned the Crystal Moon nightclub off of Avenida Central, has been handed a five-year prison term for recruiting two Colombian women to come to Panama to work as dancers and then taking their passports and forcing them to work as prostitutes. It's the first ever conviction for human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Panama. The US State Department and various international human rights groups have criticized this country for allowing this type of human trafficking to flourish here for many years.

The spin on violent crime

On the one hand, some politicians want people to think that the country is confronting an unprecedented crime wave and they're heroically moving to stop it via "get tough on crime" legislation. Others would like people to have the impression that the police the public order situation pretty much under control. There are people taking both of these stances within the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party, depending on their particular positions within it. So what do the numbers say? In 2006 there was a small increase in the absolute number of violent crimes, but as it was about equal to the increase in population, our violent crime rate stayed about the same as in the previous year. Political analyst Danilo Toro, who's secretary general of the Ministry of Government and Justice these days, recently made that point in La Prensa. The reality is that Panama is a comparatively nonviolent country, with the great majority of its murders related to drug gangs and homicides arising from domestic violence running a distant number two. Our capital has a substantially lower crime rate than does Washington DC and is not experiencing a great crime wave, but these facts tend not to convince people that such crime as we do have is acceptable.

Former Uruguayan pol called to trial for hotel scam

Armando Da Silva Tavares, a former Uruguayan legislator who has been jailed on allegations that he swindled a number of Panamanian investors of more than $1 million by getting them to put of the money for a phantom hotel development project, was ordered to stand trial for fraud. Although it's relatively rare for anyone to be jailed for a business fraud here, when the victims are Panamanian the law will step in, especially if the perpetrator is a foreigner. On the other hand, frauds against foreigners are seldom investigated or prosecuted by our legal system.

Some coke freaks get special treatment

In Panama, the general rule is that if you are caught with drugs there is no bail and in court the burden of proof shifts to a presumption of guilt and a requirement that the defendant must prove his or her innocence. But there are special rules for the political class. Mario Alberto Mastellari, the former Panamanian consul in Belgium, was encountered on January 20 by police in a car with Belgian license plates and asked to produce his license and car registration. In the process of getting the documents from the glove box he allegedly let the police see three small envelopes of cocaine. He was arrested, but after a couple of days in jail a magistrate freed him pending trial because the coke was for personal use. An ordinary person would not get such consideration --- our jails and prisons are full of people awaiting trial or serving time for possessing small amounts of drugs. The penalty for possession of cocaine for personal use is two to three years in prison.

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Panama absent from Correa's inauguration
Panama News Briefs