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opinionAlso in this section:
Leis, Watch out! Posada Carriles is loose! Silié, Rio Group and European Union support Haiti Pilgrim, Biofuels a step forward Jackson, A flawed plan to deal with Panama City congestion Sirias, Inside the mind of a tormented writer
Martín's authoritarianism by Miguel Antonio Bernal Atrophy of constitutional consciousness had taken hold of the social body that is our nation. The absurd and alarming indifference of citizens in the face of attacks against the most elemental civil liberties has become the prinicipal cause of the authorities' fatal attraction toward a police state. Cowering from spectres instead of acting like determined citizens, the majority of the population guards its complicit silence in the face of the "Patria Nueva's" beatings, which are perpetrated by ganging up and enabled by the deputies' "supine ignorance." Not content with an undignified Penal Code, they have proceeded, on direct instructions from the executive, to approve Law 292 which, under the pretext fo guaranteeing citizens' security, in reality proposes to suppress the fundamental guarantees and democratic freedoms that must accompany any rule of law. The anticipated dismantling of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) and its symbiosis with the Police Institutional Investigation Directorate (DIIP), puts us on the road to the reissuing, "corrected" and augmented, of the dictatorship's tenebrous G-2. Added to this, the fusion of the National Maritime Service and the National Air Service, and the coming nomination of a militaroid to head the now militarized and misnamed Police, will make it unnecessary to have a drawing to know where Martín's authoritarianism is leading us. To talk of authoritarian regimes is to make reference to the power-freedom relationship in all of them as the driving factor of social arrangement. And this, exactly this, is what Martín's regime is doing with premeditation, willfulness and treachery. Morever, it's being done with the knowledge that authoritarianism doesn't need to be linked to the ends of power, but is rather a form of its exercise. In the 32nd month of his administration (during which he has taken an equal number of trips out of the country), President Martín Torrijos has speeded up his race toward the authoritarianism that characterized his political progenitors. From Rafael Borja's Political Encyclopedia one learns that "In an effort to comprehend all the authoritarian types and find a common denominator, you can show that they all have these peculiar characteristics: the concentration of public authority in an elite, the exoneration of legal limitations on the exercise of power, the diversion of popular participation, the abridgment of human rights, the reduction of liberty, the exclusion of political parties, unions and other popular organizations, the suppression of suffrage in all its forms, the rule of judicial insecurity, the elimination of all ideological pluralism and of course of the political opposition, the inexistance of the division of powers or the mere simulation of such, the absence of mechanism of accountability for those who govern and the elimination of public opinion as a democratic factor." "Team Martín" and their tutors, the absence of judiciary independence and permanent violations of due process, the wiretaps, Law 292 and its terrorism against habeas corpus, the manipulation of information, the monopoly over the Electoral Tribunal and the National Assembly, the corruption, the impunity, the prevarications, the collusion, the sale fo the country to Odebrecht and Slim and a long train of acts against the true interests of democracy, justice and freedom confirm that this is a government of certain caste, far removed from all ideals and all grandure. The notions of decorum, of rectitude and restraint that certain officials are obliged to honor when they occupy certain offices have been thrown out as inconvenient, in order expedite the way for Martín's authoritarianism. This past March 23 I wrote that: "for Martín and/or his team to prolong their stay in power certain measures become necessary and we're beginning to hear the notes of another dance of millions like the expansion campaign and all the investment hype. A high court chamber for the ruling pseudoconstitutionalism is the most comfortable way to get around the obstacles so that arbitrary rule will have a mantle of legitimacy and the putative father of the governing regime can calmly return to his lessons, which have not only not been forgotten, but are now being applied by a strutting set of new kids." Today we have more authoritarianism, more illegality, more illegitimate and arbitrary things than we did yesterday, and we'll be left with fewer rights tomorrow. There's an urgent need for a democratic platform that brings together those citizens who abhor authoritarianism and demogogic populism, in order to confront the neo-Torrijista neo-dictatorship.
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Leis, Watch out! Posada Carriles is loose! Silié, Rio Group and European Union support Haiti Pilgrim, Biofuels a step forward Jackson, A flawed plan to deal with Panama City congestion Sirias, Inside the mind of a tormented writer Unclassified Ads | Calendar | Outdoors | Dining | Science | Sports | Español | Front Page Archives | Wappin' Radio Show | Just Music
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