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Volume
13, Number 23 |
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Also
in this section: Martín's
militarism By training, and because the man's warped, President Martín Torrijos's proclivities toward militarism form part of not only his own personality, but also of his government's policies. Thus, since his ascent to power on September 1, 2004 the consolidation of many of militarism's own actions and practices has never ceased to increase. It's not just the growing number of appointments of high and middle level functionaries with career military backgrounds and the adoption of regulations that aren't acceptable from the human rights point of view. At the behest of the Martín Torrijos administration Panama is progressively backtracking into legalizing the suppression of fundamental guarantees and democratic liberties that are essential attributes of the rule of law. The coming approval of the law that will put a defunct Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) into the hands of the National Police service is an aberrant and unsupported act whose product will be impunity. The atrophy of constitutional consciousness has taken hold of the nation's social body. Citizens' absurd and alarming indifference to the blows against the most elemental civil liberties has become a principal source of the authorities' fatal attractino toward a police state. In his valuable work "Enciclopedia Política," Rodrigo Borja defines "militarism" as "the abusive interference of the armed forces, as an institution, or of its members individually, in the political guidance of a state.... But militarism is more than this: it's the craving for poltical power, for social command and for privileges. It considers the military to be the essence of the state itself and gives the power of command and decision to the soldiers. It raises military spending and promotes exaggerated armament. It implies the transposition of specifically military principles and forms of behavior in other social contexts in which they are strange or inadequate. Thus militarism isn't solely the taking of power but also the imposition upon society of military values and ranks. Martín's militarism is sketched out day by day in ever greater detail in constitutional abridgments, permanent violations of due process, wiretapping, terrorism against habeas corpus, manipulation of information (lately to attack and discredit the doctors), total control over the Electoral Tribunal and the National Assembly, corruption (of which the FECE scandal is but a tiny part), impunity (as with the SPI cases), the militarization of the Ministry of Government and Justice and a long train of abuses against the true interests of democracy, justice and freedom. Also
in this section:
Make
the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://ww.executivehotel-panama.com
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©
2007 by Eric Jackson email: editor@thepanamanews.com or phone: (507) 6-632-6343 Mailing
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