opinion

So they just figured
that one out?
by Eric Jackson

For those who get their information about Panama principally from the worldwide mainstream media corporations, word is now out. Andrew Beatty of Reuters reports that "the lights are off in many of the luxury apartments, new buildings sit empty, and suspicion is growing that Panama's property boom may turn out to be a bubble built by speculators on South American drug money."

Oh, the government denies all --- until the next time that some massive drug ring is busted up (usually at US insistence) and all this real estate gets seized, and then it gets shrugged off. It gets shrugged off even when --- especially when --- the paper trail and witnesses point to politicians being involved in the land transactions in one way or another. The paper trail then runs cold, intentionally so, because Panama's political parties have steadfastly resisted public disclosure of campaign contributions.

Beatty is a fine reporter and his story is an important piece of this country's economic picture. I don't blame Reuters or the other mainstream companies for failing to touch this issue very much over the years. Get deep into this and you start reporting on gangsters who will put you six feet under to avoid attention if they must. This country's economic culture isn't conducive to ordinary business reporting and the corrupt sectors are even less so. The law is rigged to favor the criminals, by making the publishing of a true report of criminal activity the crime of "injuria" --- injury to the reputation of the exposed criminal.

Notice, however, to whom the suspicions that Beatty reports are attributed: "US anti-drug officials say...."

So what's going on?

Uncle Sam is into his tired old cycle, and so is the Panamanian political class.

The US government tends to look the other way about all manner of faults so long as it wants something from the Panamanian government. When the latter can't or won't deliver, then things studiously overlooked before get miraculously discovered.

A new Panamanian administration usually has a bit of subtlety in its first year or two, but as the end of its term approaches from top to bottom its apparatchiki go on a looting binge as they face the prospect of no government job in the next administration. Torrijos is riding well enough in the polls so that one might expect that another PRD administration is possible, but his and the first lady's choice, Samuel Lewis Navarro, would be used to wipe the floor in any primary contest with his cousin the mayor. Now Juan Carlos Navarro may have supporters in common with Torrijos, especially if he becomes the PRD standard bearer in 2009, but he has kept his distance from many of the president's highest profile obnoxious friends and there is an expectation that the administration's lowest-down groveling lackeys wouldn't especially be favored either. In any case, just like the 2009 campaign the end-of-administration looting binge is well underway, having had an early start. What passes for the rule of law and many more institutions are, as is usual in such times, being shoved rudely aside.

And what does Uncle Sam want? It wants a Panamanian government that goes against the rest of Latin America and supports the embargo against Cuba and various destabilization plans against the leftist governments that have been elected across the region. It wants a Panamanian ruling party that doesn't slight US sensibilities by choosing a guy wanted for terrorism by the United States to head Panama's National Assembly. It wants all sorts of other things too, but these two items Torrijos has not delivered and now Washington is noticing things about Panama again.

So is this a victory for Truth, Justice and The American Way?

Well, Ambassador Eaton is telling the truth about Panama's justice system, and the Beatty's US drug agent source is telling the truth about money laundering's distorting influence on the real estate business here. I haven't seen where this has made Panama a more just society. And actually, dependence on The American Way is a trap that has time and again caught Panamanians who would have a more just society.

Even when a US administration has the best of intentions --- which the present one doesn't --- it just doesn't have the knowledge, credibility or public support to make the changes that Panama needs to make for itself. Those are the weaknesses that doomed all sorts of colonial regimes. Those are the reasons that Panama didn't get the changes we needed out of the 1989 US invasion --- by depending on the gringos to rid us this country of a creepy dictator, we left ourselves with a job largely undone.

Andrew Beatty gave us --- and a world that doesn't usually pay much attention to Panama --- a healthy bit of truth. Now it's up to us to get a greater measure of justice, in a Panamanian way.