editorial

Blades should do his job and expect the press to do its job

Fact: As part of the recent emergency crime bill, the National Assembly and the President reduced the length of tourist visas from 90 days with a possibility of renewal to 30 days with a possibility of renewal. The new visa law has been applied by Migracion in a haphazard fashion, with conflicting information about it coming from various governmental sources.

Fact: When the legislature took up the matter of tourist visas, neither a representative of IPAT nor its director Rubén Blades appeared before the legislature or had anything at all to say about the changes.

Fact: The National Assembly, as part of a worldwide measure to limit the possibility of a devastating pandemic of a deadly flu strain or some other communicable disease, has before it a law bringing Panama into compliance with an international accord to which it had agreed, which would require people entering this country to show immunization records and to have had such shots as health authorities may require.

The change to the 30-day visa and the proposed requirement that people have to present immunization records to enter the country were duly reported in The Panama News and other English-language online media, and these matters have been widely discussed in the Panama-related English-language email groups. But IPAT director Blades, rather than participate in any of those discussions or talk with or send any note to any of those publications --- or have any of the people working under him at IPAT do so --- issued a downright bizarre denial of the plain truth.

"These statements were related to irresponsible information currently circulating through the Internet indicating that the total amount of days tourists can stay in Panama had decreased," Blades said.

But of course, that's precisely that had happened. The total amount of days a tourist can stay in Panama with a 90-day visa extendable to six months is more than the time she or he can stay on a 30-day visa extendable to three months. As a musical genius Blades ought to be able to figure out this simple math problem. Maybe he did and that's why he alleged "irresponsible information" rather than "false information," and if that's the case it's even worse because he's arguing that the reporting of a truth of interest to an important industry and to many individuals is improper.

About the vaccinations, Blades pleads that "The Panamanian Tourism Bureau was not initially consulted on the draft of a health law seeking to improve sanitary controls, in agreement with international sanitary regulations. As of Monday June 11, 2007 IPAT will participate in the meetings that will take place."

Doesn't Blades have the rank of cabinet minister? And what about the 732 people listed on the IPAT website as being on that institution's payroll? He's telling us that when Panama's foreign relations and health authorities made an agreement that affects tourism and furthermore promised before an international forum that the agreement will in short order be approved by the legislature, neither he nor anybody under his supervision knew anything about it, and only when people began writing about it online did he or IPAT pay any attention. Quite frankly, it's a damning if tacit admission about the disorganization of IPAT and its director's inattention to his duties.

Far worse, when the press reports about the gist of the agreement that has been made (albeit not yet ratified), Blades charged that "unscrupulous people have taken to the task of circulating rumors to harm the country."

The reality is that Blades and IPAT have not been doing their jobs. Their national press policies are about rewarding pro-PRD media owners rather than informing the public. They aren't even keeping themselves informed about governmental actions that affect Panamanian tourism. Instead of putting his own house in order Blades casts aspersions about those independent media that the Torrijos administration doesn't control.

Just do your job or step aside for someone who will, Rubén. You haven't seen fit to talk to the independent press or even send us a press release, so spare us the amateur psychoanalysis of our motives. We have a job to do, and so do you.

Condi doesn't wow the OAS

The 37th OAS General Assembly concluded without the organization acting on the US request for a special investigation of Venezuela's failure to renew the RCTV license to use that country's channel 2, and by passing a weak resolution supporting freedom of the press that was proposed by Venezuela.

Some hemispheric leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and others don't. Hardly any like the US vendetta against Venezuela. Even though Cuba remains outside the OAS (having a long time ago been thrown out for allegedly supporting guerrillas in Venezuela and never applied to get back in), most Latin American and Caribbean leaders don't support the US hard line against the Castro dictatorship either.

Except for some arguments about immigration, nobody who's running for president of the United States is talking very much about US relations with the rest of the Americas. However, after all of the sound and fury of Condoleeza Rice's attack on Venezuela at the recent summit here fell on deaf ears, it really is time for US politicians, especially those who would be president, to start thinking about more realistic relations with the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

It's not a horrible sin for a country to stand alone on a matter of principle, or even on a matter of its own interests. However, the United States stands alone or nearly so way too much, in the Americas and around the world. The next person to occupy the White House will have to work hard and rethink some customary foreign policy assumptions if she or he cares to revive American leadership in the hemisphere and in the world.

Bear in mind...

Everybody loves to see justice done on somebody else.

Bruce Cockburn

Women are like teabags. You don't know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt

You cannot keep a man down without staying down with him.

Steve Biko