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Two bomberos electrocuted, five others injured, in Colon Free Zone blaze
Police open fire with shotguns, arrest 97 in Kuna protest

Martín Torrijos on the campaign trail

Miguel Antonio Bernal on the campaign trail

Partido Alternativa Popular on the campaign trail

Méndez fights charges that he tried to set up a shooting incident
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

More than 100 rights activists oppose Dixon

Foreign ministers reviewing candidates for magistrate positions on the International Criminal Court have received more than 100 letters from human rights activists around the world opposing the selection of Panamanian nominee Graciela Dixon. Dixon has drawn criticism because as a Supreme Court magistrate she repeatedly ruled that investigations or prosecutions of murders, disappearances and tortures committed by government agents during the dictatorship are prohibited. Leading the campaign against Dixon internationally is the Argentine group Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo --- mothers of those disappeared by their country's former dictatorship --- and in Panama the opposition is led by the families of those who were disappeared by the Torrijos - Noriega dictatorship. However, the governments of most Latin American countries support Dixon. Over the holidays Dixon was in Havana seeking the Cuban government's backing for the post. Competing with Dixon, with three seats to be filled, are France's Bruno Cotte, Trinidad-Tobago's Jean Angela Permanand, Uganda's Daniel David Ntanda Nsereko and Japan's Fumiko Saiga. A sixth candidate, from Nigeria, has withdrawn. Voting will be the 120 countries that have ratified the Statute of Rome that created the court.

Report on aid abuse forwarded to court

It will be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether or not there will be continued impunity for the Moscoso administration's theft of some $4.4 million in aid from Taiwan. The aid, intended for hospital equipment and to create a children's museum, was funneled through President Moscoso's sister Ruby Moscoso de Young, who acted as first lady in that administration, and then diverted into "private foundations" owned and run by members of the Moscoso inner circle. Much of the aid went to pay "salaries" for the foundation officers and a lot of the rest of it just disappeared. Ruby Moscoso de Young does not in her own right enjoy immunity from prosecution, but her sister and her sister-in-law, former President Mireya Moscoso and former Minister of the Presidency Yvonne Young, are both members of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and enjoy immunity from prosecution or even investigation in those roles. It has been held that if a person without immunity commits a crime in league with someone who has immunity, she or he acquires immunity, and thus in order to investigate Ruby Moscoso de Young Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez has petitioned the high court to lift immunity in this case. That's something of a back-door way of investigating the flagrant corruption of the former president herself, something that the courts, legislature and executive branch have all combined to prevent so far.

Weapon that killed hostage found

After more than a week in which it was "missing," a pistol used by an Institutional Protection Service (SPI) agent was handed in to the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) and identified by ballistics experts with 98 percent certainty as the weapon that fired the bullet that killed architect Cristina María García Eleta, who was taken hostage in a botched October 18 robbery of an IDAAN water and sewer utility payment office in Corozal and then killed in a hail of bullets. SPI has denied wrongdoing and there appears to be no internal investigation of the shooting, but it was a violation of the institution's rules restricting the use of deadly force to open fire at both a hostage taker and an innocent hostage as was done. The Public Ministry is investigating and there is a possibility of a negligent homicide charge.

$7,000 missing from foiled robbery

The robbers foolishly tried to stick up an IDAAN office that was close to the Institutional Protection Service (SPI) headquarters, SPI agents quickly responded, surrounded the place, opened fire and shot robbers and a hostage alike. The assailants were all arrested, several of them wounded, at or near the scene. So if the robbery was foiled, how come $7,000 of the cash the thieves took is missing? Prosecutors are investigating that anomaly, including by questioning SPI agents and others who were present at the scene of the crime.

Five shot, including three cops and night judge

Five people were wounded, including night judge Lereyda Calderón and three National Police officers, in an October 25 gang raid on the night court in the San Miguelito district of Paraiso. The gang shot into the courthouse in an attempt to kill José Gilberto Cano, alias Indio Cano, who has a record of burning people on drug deals.

More restrictive gun laws sought

The Ministry of Government and Justice has sent the National Assembly a proposed law that would require more rigorous verifications before sales of firearms to individuals and set new training and background check standards for security guards. The ministry says that at the current rate this year will end with about 375 firearms deaths in Panama, including homicides, suicides and accidents.

No money for elite prosecutorial bodyguards

With a controversial Torrijos administration proposal to virtually eliminate the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) who are under the Public Ministry and centralize most Panamanian law enforcement under the Ministry of Government and Justice still hanging in limbo, it seems that Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez is not going to get the new protection that she wants. After a string of attacks on prosecutors, the breakup of an alleged plot by Colombian drug cartels to stage more attacks and the still unsolved poisoning death of the head of the PTJ sensitive investigations squad, Gómez requested the creation of a special elite bodyguard unit to protect top officials in her ministry. That brought about a lawsuit by anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro, which if it's not moot is unlikely to prosper in any case. The real problem is that no money is provided for the unit in the 2008 budget that the cabinet sent to the legislature. In general the Public Ministry is slated to get far less than it requested, leading not only Gómez to complain that investigations of crimes and prosecutions of criminals will in some cases be made impossible. However, it may also be a sign that some of these functions are about to be taken away from the ministry.

Torrijos popularity drops, still high

Opposition leaders say that were it not for massive government spending on advertisements propping up his image, the president's approval rating would be in the pits. But according to a Dichter & Neira poll taken in late October and published in La Prensa, President Torrijos's approval rating stood at 55.1 percent, down 3.9 percent from the month before.

Assembly studies Ministry of Indigenous Affairs

There's nothing in the 2008 national budget for it, and there may or may not be something of substance in it at all. However, the legislature has created a special subcommittee to study the creation of a Ministry of Indigenous Affairs. Despite lots of time spent campaigning in the semi-autonomous comarcas and lots of envelopes containing $35 in cash personally handed out by President Torrijos, the PRD is in political trouble in many indigenous communities. In many cases this is nothing new, but the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca, which accounts for more than five percent of the national vote, is a notorious swing-voting region.

Prosecutors say suspected DEG cases up to 705

The Public Ministry says that the number of complaints it has on file about poisoning by cough syrup laced with diethylene glycol (DEG) is up to 705. In most of these cases it's too late to do toxicological tests that can identify the residue of the toxin, which made its way in a chain running from China through Spain and a local distributor into the Social Security Fund's medicine lab in jugs mislabeled as glycerin.

Jované files criminal charge against prosecutor

Dimas Guevara, the special prosecutor in charge of the investigations in the poisoned medicines case, has been himself accused of the crime of abuse of authority and illegally depriving a person of liberty. Former Seguro Social director Juan Jované, whom Guevara had jailed despite the fact that he had been out of office for several years when the Torrijos administration distributed poisoned medicines and killed hundreds of people, won his release in a habeas corpus action before the Supreme Court and is now on the legal counteroffensive. There may be other developments as its stands now, but it appears that there will be no government managerial accountability for the negligence that allowed diethylene glycol into the nation's medicine supply or for the more than two months of official suppression of the information that there was a rash of mysterious deaths and illnesses that greatly aggravated the crisis. But in any case, as Jované's lawyers pointed out in their criminal charges against Guevara, all that was long after his shift.

González hires Craig

National Assembly president Pedro Miguel González has hired high-powered Washington defense lawyer Gregory Craig --- who defended Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial --- to represent him in the USA. That probably does not mean that González intends to turn himself in to US authorities, who want to try him on terrorism charges that could get him the death penalty. González is accused in the USA of killing US Army Sergeant O. Zak Hernandez in a 1992 drive-by shooting in Chilibre. He was tried and acquitted of murder charges in a 1997 trial here, but the US government has never accepted that verdict. Former Vice President Guillermo Ford, leader of the opposition Union Patriotica party and former Panamanian ambassador in Washington, noted that González and his backers will have to raise a rather large sum of money if they are going to have Craig fight the charges in a US court.

Panameñistas to set primary calendar on December 1

There are still all sorts of disagreements about what sort of primary to have, the main one being whether there should be an common primary among all the opposition parties, but the traditionally largest of the opposition parties, the Panameñistas, may set the tone at a leadership meeting on December 1. The party will set a calendar and ground rules for primaries, probably to take place in the middle of 2008, to select presidential candidates for the May 2009 elections. Party president Juan Carlos Varela and his predecessor Marco Ameglio are already campaigning for the nomination and businessman Alberto Vallarino is also probably in the race. Then the question remains whether people from other parties will participate, but that remains doubtful. Among the other opposition hopefuls are former President Guillermo Endara (Vanguardia Moral), former Vice President Guillermo Ford (Union Patriotica), former Liberal leader Aníbal Galindo (Union Patriotica) and former Seguro Social director and ex-Canal Affairs Minister Ricardo Martinelli (Cambio Democratico). Panama's election laws bar anyone who seeks one party's nomination and loses the primary from appearing on another party's ticket, but does allow for negotiated alliances wherein the winner of a party's primary steps down in favor of someone from another party. That generally happens in January or February of an election year. There will probably be a brokered alliance against the PRD in 2009, but the question remains how united it may or may not be.

Floods affect Darien

Heavy rains that lasted for several days in late October have flooded 11 Darien villages and as these briefs were written were threatening to overflow the banks of the Chucunaque River into low-lying parts of the town of Yaviza. Suffering flood damage were parts of Jaque and the Sambu district of the Embera - Wounaan Comarca and the communities of Pavarando, Lucas, Llano Bonito, Borriquera, Mamey, Coco, Tornado, Guayabito and Puerto Indio. Although there were a few houses washed away and a few lost farm animals, mostly the damage was in the form of destroyed crops. Because the floods are in this part of the year there will be no worthwhile planting of new crops until the end of dry season so it will mean that people in affected areas will depend on food assistance for at least several months.

While there's no money for doctors' raises...

First Lady Vivian Fernández de Torrijos is getting a raise. The first lady's office, which is a funded government department here, will be getting $3.9 million in the 2008 national budget, up half a million bucks from 2007.

Balbina on sick leave

Housing Minister Balbina Herrera, having just returned from a trip abroad, had surgery on November 1 to correct a spinal problem and will be on sick leave for at least two months.

La Joyita warden fired

After 20 escapes in two and one-half months, Eric Jaén is out of a job as director of La Joyita Penitentiary, as are two other administrators there. There are suspicions that guards were involved in assisting these escapes, but none of the officials who were fired are accused or apparently seriously suspected of that. It's just that too many people walked out of the institution, and whatever Jaén and his staff did, they didn't prevent these escapes.

Netanyahu visits

On October 30 Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's right-wing opposition Likud bloc and its probable candidate in the next elections for prime minister, flew into Panama for private meetings with President Torrijos and Canal Affairs Minister Dani Kuzniecky, a tour of the Miraflores Locks and a meeting with Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro, who gave him a key to the city. If there was any practical purpose to Netanyahu's visit it was not disclosed.

American wanted in Spain dies here

On October 21 Juan Manuel Rosillo Cerrejón, also known as John Rosillo, was found dead in his room in Panama City's Hotel Ambassador. A Mexico City  native, he moved to Texas as a young boy and became a naturalized American. Rosillo was wanted by Spanish authorities (and thus INTERPOL) for tax fraud in excess of $8 million in conjunction with the Diagonal Mar urban development project in Barcelona. He was also wanted for negligent homicide for an accident in which he hit a Spanish pedestrian while driving his Bentley. The Diagonal Mar development was part of the improvements to Barcelona for the 1992 Olympics, and while the verdict may still be out as to its qualities as a residential area the commercial part of the project appears to be a dud. Rosillo was accused of falsifying documents in the purchase of the land so as to avoid paying taxes. He fled to Panama in 2001 and Spain requested his extradition, but Panama does not extradite for tax crimes. For some reason Spanish authorities never sought extradition on the manslaughter charge, for which Rosillo was given a four-year sentence in absentia. The cause of Rosillo's death has yet to be determined by medical examiners.

Roosevelt medals in space

NASA Astronaut Scott Parazynski took two Roosevelt medals with him for his mission on the space shuttle Discovery. The medals, awarded to the Americans who worked for at least two years on building the Panama Canal, mean something to him because one of his ancestors was the famous engineer Colonel David DuBose Gaillard. Parazynski will present one of the medals to the Panama Canal Authority and the other to the Panama Canal Museum in Seminole, Florida.

FER-29 wins elections at Instituto Nacional

Forget all that stuff about silent majorities who just want to study. On October 31 the leftist FER-29 group won the student elections at the elite flagship of Panama's public school system, the Instituto Nacional. It appears that the tradition of blocking traffic in front of the school several times a year is not about to die anytime soon.

Also in this section:

Two bomberos electrocuted, five others injured, in Colon Free Zone blaze
Police open fire with shotguns, arrest 97 in Kuna protest

Martín Torrijos on the campaign trail

Miguel Antonio Bernal on the campaign trail

Partido Alternativa Popular on the campaign trail

Méndez fights charges that he tried to set up a shooting incident
Panama News Briefs