Previous Panama News Briefs, through February 10

Panama News Briefs, through February 10

Fire routs 78 Colon families

A fire that began in the pre-dawn hours of February 3 swept through four wooden tenement buildings on Avenida Amador Guerrero between Calle 15 and Calle 16 in Colon's Barrio Norte left 78 families homeless. The Ministry of Housing left the 284 individuals who were burned out to fend for themselves on their own and their families' and friends' resources, as Housing Minister Balbina Herrera, who's running to be president of the PRD and mayor of Panama City, has made no provisions for emergency housing in Colon. The residents got out uninjured, but had virtually no time to save any possessions. Several of the bomberos, whose work was hampered by the lack of water pressure in the fire hydrants, suffered smoke inhalation injuries while fighting the blaze.

RP assumes UN Security Council presidency

As a non-permanent member of the 15-country United Nations Security Council, Panama's turn to preside over the body came on February 6. In this country's shift in the presidency the council will consider what to do about maritime piracy in the Indian Ocean, world reactions to climate changes, international accords about the welfare of children and the many ongoing armed conflicts in different parts of the world. President Torrijos, the first lady and Vice President and Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis Navarro headed the Panamanian entourage to New York to be at UN headquarters for the event.

Panama rejoins Inter-American Defense Council

After the 1989 US invasion Panama abolished its military forces and later passed a constitutional amendment to ratify that. As a practical matter, the army became a police force and the National Police that were formed after the invasion became an army. Now the government has taken another step toward remilitarization by having Panama rejoin the Inter-American Defense Council, a US-sponsored outfit that throughout much of its history has had more to do with promoting military coups against governments that Washington didn't like and selling American-made war material throughout Latin America and the Caribbean than actually defending the Americas from any external threat. The two men most responsible for Panama's official demilitarization, former President Guillermo Endara and former Vice President Guillermo Ford --- both of whom seek to be the 2009 standard bearer of a united 2009 opposition slate --- have blasted the move. Billy Ford told La Prensa that "continental security is one thing but armies are something else."

Voting address changes end more than a year in advance

In another move to rig the 2009 elections, the PRD-controlled Electoral Tribunal has decreed that citizens must update their voting addresses by April 30, 2008 in order to vote in the May 2009 national elections. The tribunal has already stricken more than 90,000 people off of the voting rolls and is running an ad campaign threatening criminal prosecution of anyone who tries to vote at the wrong precinct. The ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has a rock-solid base of about one-third of the Panamanian electorate and despite disarray in the opposition's ranks it appears that due to public discontent about a number of things and the lack of a leader who captures the public imagination it will not have an easy time expanding its share of the vote much beyond that. In 2004, due mainly to an incompetent, flagrantly corrupt and widely reviled Moscoso administration, the PRD-led coalition garnered some 47 percent of the vote, the best PRD showing ever.

More time for 2009 independent candidates

In 2004 Mireya Moscoso and Martín Torrijos made a constitutional deal, and one of its points was that independent candidates for legislature would be allowed. However, the election laws aren't set up to give independents much of a chance and the regulations adopted by the Electoral Tribunal are specifically designed to reserve political offices for the party machines. However, the spurious promise appeared a bit too flagrant with the regulation that independent legislative candidates would have to gain the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in an assembly circuit in a two-month period. Now the tribunal, two of whose three members are PRD members and the other a Panameñista, has decided to double the petitioning time to four months. The signature gathering time will run from October 3, 2008 through February 3, 2009. Even then, none of the signers may be a member of a political party, and the parties will be able to sabotage any independent candidacy by having one of their members sign a petition, thus voiding all the legitimate signatures. A couple of leftist groups are seeking to register new political parties but it's unlikely that they will be successful. They may, however, decide to join forces to field independent candidates. Miguel Antonio Bernal is running an independent campaign for mayor of Panama City, but it appears certain that he will will get the Vanguardia Moral nomination for the office and probable that one or more other parties will also endorse him, thus allowing him to circumvent the Electoral Tribunal's obstacles against independents.

Just over 1,000 registered to vote from abroad

In 2009 there will be absentee voting by overseas resident for the first time in a Panamanian presidential election. However, it seems as it this will not be as popular as some thought it might be. So far only 1,018 citizens living outside of Panama, most of them in the USA, have signed up to vote.

Snipes beats main charges, 'expat leader' not so lucky

On February 1 actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of felony tax fraud charges but convicted of three misdemeanors. He faces up to three years in prison for allegedly short-changing the US taxman of some $58 million. Not so lucky was Snipes's tax resistance mentor, one Eddie Ray Kahn, who faces many years in prison. Kahn and his wife fled to Panama one step ahead of an indictment and quickly became self-styled leaders of the "expat community." There they ran a series of expat social events that became controversial when Kahn conducted a Christmas party prayer service in a casino that some found strange and then defended against critics with a vitriolic religious-based attack. That, in turn, led journalist Okke Ornstein to look into Kahn's background as a tax protester and, following reports on Ornstein's website and this one about that subject. The stories about prior convictions and ludicrous claims led the Kahns' associates and supporters in the American community here to on the one hand cut ties with them and to deny that they had ever existed, and on the other hand to lash out at Ornstein and The Panama News. Then the indictment came down against Snipes, Mr. Kahn and a third co-defendant. Eddie Ray Kahn, facing likely expulsion from Panama, returned to the United States to face trial. Kahn is one of a long line of hustlers whom a gullible and hyper-materialistic right-wing element of the American community here has embraced.

Alleged mastermind of New Year's bank job nabbed

On February 2 police arrested one Erick Allen, 36, outside a Colon Free Zone warehouse and accused him of being the intellectual author of a January 1 heist from a BANISTMO branch in El Dorado. The thieves, allegedly with inside help from a security guard and at least one bank employee, bored a hole in the ceiling of the bank's vault from an upstairs office and took cash and valuables worth at least $500,000. Allen, who has already served time for bank robberies, had been on the run since shortly after the theft and an earlier raid on his house allegedly turned up some of the tools used and some of the cash stolen. Police are still looking for several alleged accomplices.

High court sends PECC file to USA

The paper trail rather clearly shows that former President Ernesto "Toro" Pérez Balladares and the number two man in the old National Port Authority during his administration, Rubén Reyna, received kickbacks in connection with a contract with the US-based Ports Engineering & Consultants Corporation (PECC) to maintain the nation's lighthouses and buoys. Toro appears from apparent dividend checks deposited a Cayman Islands account of his to have had an ownership stake in the company, while the Reyna family got contracts with PECC. There are also allegations, but much less of a paper trail to back them up, that the head of the authority at the time, President Torrijos's cousin Hugo Torrijos, was also paid off. Despite all that the courts held that Toro had immunity and through him so did any accomplices in the alleged acts of corruption so a plethora of criminal and civil cases were thrown out by the pro-corruption Panamanian Supreme Court. Ah, but the events described as such have every appearance of amounting to a criminal violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by PECC's CEO, a Mr. Charles Jumet, and he finds himself the target of a Virginia federal prosecutor's investigation. Many months ago the US authorities requested copies of the Panamanian court files for their proceedings against Jumet, but a response had been delayed. Now, however, the high court has a new presiding magistrate, Harley Mitchell, who promises to root out corruption. Moreover, Toro is in a power struggle for control of the PRD with President Torrijos. And so the stall appears to be over. Pursuant to a mutual legal assistance treaty, Panama's Supreme Court has sent a copy of the file to the prosecutor in Virginia.

Gómez asks high court to discipline judge

Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez has petitioned the Supreme Court to begin disciplinary proceedings against magistrate Juan Francisco Castillo of the Superior Tribunal for Cocle and Veraguas for trying to manipulate a negligent homicide investigation. On January 10 a 12-year-old boy was killed in a rollover accident in Pese while riding as a passenger in a vehicle driven by his grandfather. Castillo, until the end of December an alternate magistrate on the Supreme Court, allegedly tried to pressure the local personera not to order the driver's arrest.

Anti-corruption czarina may not be off the hook after all

Electoral Prosecutor Orlando Barsallo had asked the Electoral Tribunal to throw out charges against anti-corruption czarina Alma Montenegro de Fletcher, who gave a "Balbina Herrera for mayor" speech at a Ministry of Housing - funded luncheon for 700 women, based on the theory that there was no illegal use of public funds for political campaigning because Housing Minister Balbina Herrerra is not an officially registered candidate for mayor. The ruling was met with scorn from anti-corruption groups and opposition political figures, but in any case it may not stand. Despite the novel legal theory urged by Barsallo, Electoral Tribunal magistrate Eduardo Valdés Escoffery has urged ordered him to continue with the case and take Montenegro de Fletcher's deposition about the matter.

Opposition deputy beats the rap

Héctor Aparicio, a MOLIRENA legislator from Veraguas, may or may not have illegally used government funds to campaign for re-election in 2004. However, the Supreme Court held that the Electoral Prosecutor looked into complaints that he had while the deputy was protected by legislative immunity and only after it seemed like there might be a case moved to strip him of that protection and begin a formal investigation. The magistrates ruled that the informal preliminary glance was an illegal investigation and as such prevents a proper investigation from being made. Thus on procedural ground Aparicio is permanently off the hook, unless perhaps the voters decide to take it out on him if he runs again in 2009.

Police major beats drug charge, won't get job back

Former National Police Major Óscar Eraso, busted this past November on allegations that he took part in laundering the proceeds of drugs seized by police from one batch of racketeers and then sold to a rival gang of traffickers, has been cleared of those charges by Third Penal Court judge Manuel Correa. However, as the Torrijos administration says that he had several other disciplinary cases pending against him at the time he was accused of drug trafficking, he's not going to get his old job back. Five co-defendants were also let go by the judge, also for insufficient evidence.

Former MICI official goes to prison

Former Ministry of Commerce and Industry official Débora Susana Tang has been sentenced to four years and two months in prison for falsifying documents and bribing other public officials in order to get Chinese citizens into Panama under the false pretense that they were doing business here in the special export processing zones. Such immigration scams are common and old forms of corruption in Panama, but generally this racket has been the jealously guarded property of people at Migracion, the Ministry of Government and Justice and the Presidency.

Noriega won't be sent to France while appeals are pending

So far former Panamanian dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega has lost at every step in his battle to avoid being sent from the United States to France to face money laundering charges in the latter venue. However, Noriega's appealing those adverse rulings and on January 31 US federal judge Paul Huck ruled that he could not be sent to France while his appeals, first to a US circuit court of appeals in Atlanta and then possibly to the US Supreme Court, are pending. It may well mean that the decision will be drawn out until there is a new administration in the United States, which might have different ideas than the current one about what to do with Noriega. The erstwhile strongman does, however, run the risk that he may win his fight to be sent to Panama rather than France and then come here to find a new administration disposed to treat him as a garden variety murderer and throw him into a place like La Joya Penitentiary.

These briefs were compiled on February 10

News \| Business \| Editorial \| Opinion \| Letters \| Arts \| Review \| Community \| Fun \| Travel Unclassified Ads \| Calendar \| Outdoors \| Dining \| Science \| Sports \| Español \| Front Page Archives	Volume 14, Number 4 February 17 - March 8, 2008

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