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SUNTRACS members killed in government move to smash union
With habeas corpus motion pending, Noriega's house being renovated

Toned down rhetoric, but Cornejo case moves ahead

US denies RP basketball team visas, reverses itself

Mayoral candidates and labor
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

PRD warned about their man to head the legislature

There are denials coming from the presidential palace and silence coming from the US Embassy, but according to several media reports the outgoing president of the National Assembly, Elias Castillo, and top members of the Torrijos administration have been warned by the American Embassy that if the assembly picks deputy Pedro Miguel González (PRD-Veraguas) as its next president the US - Panama free trade deal will surely be rejected by the US Congress. The problem is that there is a terrorism warrant out for González in the USA, which carries the possibility of a death penalty. He was charged, tried and acquitted here for the gist of the US charge, a 1992 drive-by shooting in Chilibre that took the life of US Army Sergeant O. Zak Hernandez. There were circumstances and alibis raised at the trial to suggest guilt or innocence, but the centerpiece of the case was an assault rifle found at the González family farm. The FBI crime lab said it was the murder weapon, the PTJ crime lab said it wasn't and ballistics experts from Scotland Yard said that it couldn't be conclusively proven one way or the other. The jury of government employees voted to acquit, but the US government has never accepted that verdict. As a result of the widely reported US pressures, González supporters have been playing a nationalist card, arguing that the Americans should refrain from intervening in Panama's internal affairs. The National Assembly chooses it new officers at a September 1 organizational meeting, with the PRD holding an absolute majority and at the time these briefs were written González as the party's only candidate for the top post.

Alba wins a reprieve

Rogelio Alba, the ex-Liberal legislator from Kuna Yala who was caught smuggling duty-free cigarettes out of the Colon Free Zone and said he was doing it for his community, may get to hang on to his job in the National Assembly for a bit longer. The National Liberal Party (now merged into the new Union Patriotica) threw him out and moved to assert its right to remove him from his seat in the legislature, and after a series of legal delays the trial before the Electoral Tribunal to determine whether he could be thrown out was to have begun on August 23. However, the tribunal gave Alba more time when his lawyer said that new evidence has come up that should be part of the trial. The trial was then postponed until September 12.

Public Ministry wants pimping law revived

The Penal Code that the National Assembly passed and President Torrijos signed earlier this year is not yet in effect, but already the Public Ministry wants some changes made. One of the things that the ministry headed by the Attorney General that includes the nation's prosecutors and the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) wants to see revised is the president's and legislature's legalization of pimping. The inter-agency Commission on Crimes of Sexual Exploitation says it's a step backwards, and others point out that Panama, already criticized internationally for not doing much about the international trafficking of women for the purpose of prostitution, is likely to gain yet more notoriety in the world by this policy. Another concern is that pimping for child prostitution, for which there have been at least 30 criminal complaints this year, will also be legal under the president's and legislature's new code. The original draft of the Penal Code that President Torrijos sent to the legislature would have legalized domestic violence on first offense and allowed a proposal of marriage as a defense to a rape charge, but after protests those presidential proposals were stricken from the code.

Ceville supports president's uncle

Administrative prosecutor Óscar Ceville has filed his arguments with the Supreme Court opposing its hearing of a lawsuit that challenges the sale by the government's Agrarian Reform office of 26 hectares of beach front land in Punta Chame to a company owned the President Torrijos's uncle, Rodolfo "Charro" Espino, for $2,080. Although the land was largely mangrove swamp --- which is supposed to be illegal to sell --- the price was way below market value and moreover Espino was allowed to jump over other people who had previously applied for the land. Espino is facing an investigation for environmental crimes for bulldozing the mangroves and then using sand from a public beach to fill the swamp. Ceville's argument for corruption with impunity for the president's relatives is based on assertions of procedural law.

Balbina officially running for PRD presidency

It now looks like the race for the presidency of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is between Housing Minister Balbina Herrera and former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares. Balbina made her announcement on RPC radio and television on August 23. She aspires to be the PRD candidate for mayor of Panama City in 2009, while he wants to be the party's presidential candidate in those same elections.

Alberto Vallarino's a Panameñista (again)

Former banker Alberto Vallarino, who ran as a third party presidential candidate in 1999 and was thus thrown out of the Arnulfista Party by Mireya Moscoso, is back in the fold of his old party, which meanwhile changed its name back to the traditional one used by its founder Arnulfo Arias, the Panameñista Party. Vallarino is Arias's nephew and Moscoso his widow. Vallarino's return to the fold was welcomed by party leader Juan Carlos Varela, who nevertheless might end up as his rival for the 2009 party presidential nomination. Increasingly there is talk of an inter-party primary to choose a single opposition candidate to run against the PRD in 2009, with Vallarino's name being mentioned more often than Varela's. Cambio Democratico leader Ricardo Martinelli, Vanguardia Moral leader and former President Guillermo Endara and Union Patriotica leader, former Vice President Guillermo Ford and former Panameñista leader and ex-legislator Marco Ameglio are also prominent possibilities to lead the opposition in the next presidential elections. At this relatively early moment polls suggest that Martinelli is the most popular among these men.

Off-duty police officer slain

On August 22 National Police Corporal Samuel Hamilton Ramos was stabbed and killed in an altercation that took place near a public phone in the Arraijan neighborhood of Los Sauces. It appears to have been over a romantic triangle and the next day a suspect was arrested.

Gangland hit in El Dorado

Neighborhoods that usually don't get gang violence continue to become battlefields in Panama's underworld wars, with El Dorado the latest crime scene. On October 14 hit men pumped 30 bullets into the body of ex-convict, law student and real estate agent Ángel Denver Samudio, who was leaving his office in the Plaza Aventura building with his six-year-old son. Denver had served time in prison for homicide and drug offenses, and the United States had requested his extradition for criminal activities there. As a Panamanian citizen, Denver could not constitutionally be sent to stand trial in another country, but in the criminal underworld there tend to be no safe refuges from rivals.

IDAAN says cloudy tap water is no problem

In Panama there tends to be a lack of public trust in most institutions these days, and it appears that the IDAAN water and sewer utility is no exception. That's especially the case when the stuff that comes out of the tap just looks strange and that coincides with an outbreak of what appears to be a new strain of rotavirus sending more than the usual numbers of infants and toddlers to the Hospital del Niño with diarrhea and vomiting. There is, however, no connection between the illnesses and the cloudiness in the drinking water. IDAAN director Juan José Amado III says that the cloudiness is because there is air in the system that causes the pumps to hiccup and impart tiny air bubbles that make the water look white, but if you let it sit for a bit the water becomes clear. Enough people were left unconvinced to cause a big increase in bottled water sales.

Arraijan people close the road for their reasons

Protesting construction workers and university students expressing sympathy with them have been blocking streets off and on recently, but the biggest and costliest traffic blockades have been on the Pan-American Highway in Arraijan for distinct reasons. On August 20 residents of the Bique neighborhood closed the road for about six hours because they had been without drinking water for several days and the road to their community is in bad shape. On August 23 about 200 students from the Escuela Cristóbal Adán Urriola blocked the road to protest the Ministry of Education's removal of their principal, Enilda Rivera.

SUNTRACS members killed in government move to smash union
With habeas corpus motion pending, Noriega's house being renovated

Toned down rhetoric, but Cornejo case moves ahead

US denies RP basketball team visas, reverses itself

Mayoral candidates and labor
Panama News Briefs