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Assembly approves new press gag laws on second reading
Church weighs in against weakening domestic violence laws

Panama City Carnival woes

Tests show that Torrijos administration understated poisoned medicine death toll
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

Carnival death toll at 16

There are different ways of reporting, but if one uses the traditional method of counting all traffic fatalities during the long Carnival weekend and all deaths resulting from accidents during recreational activities or violence at the scenes of Carnival festivities, then this year's Carnival death toll was 16. All but one of these were in traffic mishaps. If one includes unnatural deaths --- crimes and suicides, mainly --- away from the Carnival sites, the number goes up to 18. Only one person was killed in violence in a Carnival area, a 22-year-old man who died in a shootout between rival Curundu gangs on the Transistmica in Panama City. The National Police, however, are giving out a figure of only six carnival deaths. The death toll is neither a record high nor a record low.

Government by cell phone?

In this day and age it's not a big technical problem, but Panama does have a constitutional provision leaving the first vice president in charge of the country while the president is abroad, or the second vice president when both the president and the first vice president are gone. Quite often this provision is used for the granting of pardons and other favors. But during President Torrijos's recent visit to Washington, Panama faced a most unusual situation. First Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro, who's also foreign minister, was part of the Torrijos entourage in Washington. Meanwhile Second Vice President Rubén Arosemena was in a hospital in Boston, where he's being treated for chronic pain and other complications after some December surgery to repair herniated spinal disks didn't turn out well. Wags had it that Panama City Carnival director Mingthoy Giro was in charge of the country in the president's and vice presidents' absence, but it seems that due to Carnival there wasn't much government business anyway and Torrijos was reachable by phone if anything needing his attention came up.

Mayín wants PARLACEN to move here

The Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), which has few powers, does little and has been repeatedly been used as a shield of immunity for various criminal activities by its members, meets in Guatemala. In the wake of the February 20 ambush murders of three right-wing Salvadoran members in Guatemala City, Panamanian deputy Mayín Correa is calling for the organization to move its headquarters to Panama City. The three slain deputies were all from the ARENA party, one of whom was Eduardo D’Aubuisson, the son of the late death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson. Nobody has been arrested in the case, but most speculation is that it's a settling of an old score from a civil war that left more than 79,000 people dead, mostly at the hands of the death squads that went on to become the ruling ARENA party. There does not appear to be a groundswell of support for Correa's proposal --- really, such popular agitation about PARLACEN as exists both in Panama and in Central America is mainly to abolish the institution. So far that sentiment has prevailed in Costa Rica, which pulled out of PARLACEN a few years ago. In order to stem that erosion in support most of the member countries have agreed to eliminate the single most unpopular thing about PARLACEN, the immunity from criminal investigation or prosecution of its deputies. However, that reform has been blocked by the veto of one of the member countries --- Panama.

US-RP agreement to prevent nuke smuggling

It used to be that the nuclear threat that Americans felt was in the form of a Soviet ballistic missile coming over the horizon. Now the fear is Osama's boys smuggling a weapon into the United States as if it were a shipment of cocaine or other contraband and setting it off in a major US city. Thus the United States and Panama have signed an agreement to step up surveillance of this country's ports and canal to avoid the smuggling of nuclear materials into US ports. The initiative involves the installation of scanning devices to detect radioactive materials and other screening measures, but the details of these will not be published for people who would circumvent them to read. The agreement also requires the phased in use of more secure shipping containers.

Woman drowns off Kuna Yala in illegal immigration bid

A 19-year-old Ecuadoran woman drowned and 21 other people were arrested on February 19 after the speedboat in which they were attempting to illegally enter Panama hit a coral reef near El Porvenir in Kuna Yala and sank. The boat, coming from Colombian waters, had a three-member Colombian crew and carried 19 passengers, all but one of them Ecuadoran nationals, who had planned to land on the Costa Arriba of Colon.

Gringo child molester suspect caught and expelled

Donald Leroy Johnson, 60, had jumped bail on a child molesting charge in the United States and fled to Costa Rica, but it seems that authorities in both of those countries were hot on his trail. Thus he tried to take advantage of the Carnival holidays to cross into Panama at Paso Canoa on February 18. Was it a problem that the INTERPOL warrant and extradition request had not come to Panama and that most government offices would still be closed for several days yet? Hardly. Costa Rica had done the paperwork and Johnson had no sort of legal status here, so he was simply expelled from Panama --- after a few phone calls, of course. When he got back to the Tico side of the border the FBI was waiting to whisk the suspected short-eye perv back to the USA. During Carnival Panamanian immigration authorities always increase their vigilance.

Customs inspector and agents busted

Acting on an anonymous tip, a Customs inspector and three customs agents were arrested on February 10 for allegedly taking a bribe of more than $100,000 to let a man traveling on a fake Belizean passport and carrying more than $1 million in undeclared cash get through Tocumen Airport. The agents were making $350 per month, the inspector a bit more than that. Authorities are still looking for the man who allegedly paid the bribe.

La Joyita warden busted for drugs

The acting warden of La Joyita Penitentiary, Iván Flores, is out on bail but also out of a job after having been busted by a police patrol in Santa Ana during the wee hours of February 16. He was allegedly holding a small amount of an illegal substance that spokespeople for police and prosecutors did not identify. (Because he was quickly released, most likely it was marijuana.) Flores had only been on the job for a little more than two months. There has been a lot of turnover in prison administration posts lately, mainly because of scandals involving privileges for high-profile inmates, escapes with the suspected connivance of authorities or favoritism in contracting.

Refugees may be legalized

Legislator Rogelio Paredes (PRD-Arraijan) says that when the regular legislative session begins in March he'll push for a law to give about 700 people who are here with refugee status legal residency that includes the right to work in Panama. These are mostly not the Colombians who have come fleeing here in recent years, but people who fled Central America's civil wars of the 1980s. One would have to be a refugee who has been here for more than 10 years, and back then Panama wasn't granting refugee status to Colombians.

UNHCR cites regional problems

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Louise Arbour, was in Panama on February 11 to dedicate a new regional office at the former Fort Clayton. At the ceremony she cited economic pressures, violence against women and discrimination against indigenous peoples as major causes of migration in the region. She praised Panama for its recent willingness to review its laws and policies about refugees, particularly with respect to those who flee from Colombia's civil strife.

Assembly approves new press gag laws on second reading
Church weighs in against weakening domestic violence laws

Panama City Carnival woes

Tests show that Torrijos administration understated poisoned medicine death toll
Panama News Briefs