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Panama News Briefs

Colon Agrarian Reform director assassinated

On February 15 the director of Reforma Agraria for Colon province, Irving Saurí, was shot by an assailant outside that governmental entity's offices and later died of his wounds. Reforma Agraria is a part of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, and theoretically was set up for the purpose of giving land to landless farmers. Actually, however, it has notoriously for many years been in the business of transferring beach front properties and other choice lands to the rich and politically connected, often forcing families who own their land by valid squatters rights off of farms they have worked for decades. In Colon there have been various complaints of abuses during the Torrijos administration, but although his colleagues told television reporters right after the shooting that they suspect that the assassination was related to a land dispute, police and prosecutors have identified no specific suspect or motive. Irving Saurí was the brother of Iván Saurí, the PRD mayor of Capira, who called for divine justice against his brother's killer.

Cops and FARC shoot it out at sea

Somewhere near the Panamanian - Colombian maritime border in the waters off of Panama's Darien province and Colombia's Choco province on February 22, a Panamanian border patrol vessel approached a boat that gave the appearance of having a broken down engine --- or was faking it in order to spring an ambush --- and was met with a hail of automatic weapons fire. By some published reports this encounter happened in international waters, by others in Panamanian territorial waters off of Jaque district's Playa de Muerto. In any case three of the stricken boat's six occupants were wounded, as was one cop. Police say that the boat that broke down was carrying a half-dozen members of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) --- five men and a woman --- belonging to that leftist guerrilla group's 57th Front, which dominates the Colombian territory just across the border from Darien province. The Colombians are all being held, some in a hospital prison ward, the others in places of detention.

Mitchell calls for action on "historical cases"

Presiding Supreme Court magistrate Harley Mitchell says he wants to clean up Panamanian justice, and he may just mean it. He's calling for quick action on 54 petitions to open criminal investigations against 33 legislators or members of the Central American Parliament who enjoy legislative immunity and under a long-existing tacit mutual non-aggression pact between the high court and the National Assembly have seen the petitions to lift immunity for things ranging from civil matters through bribery and embezzlement all the way up to big-time drug trafficking and murder. Many of these petitions have been lying dormant for years.

Suplente busted with 50 kilos of heroin

Fausto Misselis González, the alternate legislator (suplente) for Enrique Garrido (Panameñista - Kuna Yala) was arrested on February 21 along with two other men, a Panamanian and a Colombian, with 50 kilos of heroin, eight kilos of cocaine and an amount of marijuana that the police would not specify. The two alleged accomplices were taken away for interrogation, booking and incarceration, but González was released because his public office protects him from investigation or prosecution for crimes. The Supreme Court might lift that immunity, but there have also been rulings that when a legislator commits a crime in league with a non-legislator, the legislator's immunity extends to protect the non-legislator accomplice. According to a report in El Panama America, González transported the drugs in his four-wheel-drive SUV with assembly plates, which can't be searched by police due to his immunity.

Assembly committee debates criminal procedure

The legislature is not in session, except that the National Assembly's Government and Justice Committee is going over a 516-section proposed new code of criminal procedure. Allegedly the reforms would reduce court dockets by allowing easier dismissal of charges and having more in-person trial testimony by witnesses, among many other changes.

Blasser running for mayor

Businessman Iván Blasser announced on February 16 that he's running for the Union Patriotica party's nomination for mayor of Panama City. That makes him the fourth declared candidate, along with independent Miguel Antonio Bernal (who looks likely to get the Vanguardia Moral nomination and maybe others) and PRD hopefuls Balbina Herrera and Noel Riande.

Electoral Prosecutor loses another one

Electoral Prosecutor Orlando Barsallo has again been blocked in an attempt to legalize the use of public funds to promote the PRD's election chances in 2009. He had petitioned the Electoral Tribunal to drop charges that Vice Minister of Agricultural Development Adonai Ríos had used public funds for political purposes, but the magistrate in charge of the investigation, Gerardo Solís, insisted that the probe continue and that Ríos's sworn deposition be taken. Barsallo was similarly rejected in cases involving anti-corruption czarina Alma Montenegro de Fletcher and Vice Minister of Housing Doris Zapata using public funds to promote the political ambitions of Housing Minister Balbina Herrera.

Torrijos support slips, PRD back to base

The methodology that the reputable Dichter & Neira polling firm used for the PRD-aligned La Prensa was weird, but 14 months before Panama goes to the polls the bottom line of the results doesn't look good for the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). First, President Torrijos's public approval rating slipped more than eight points in a month, down to 51.3 percent. Second, when the question was posed one way 37.3 percent of voters said that they would vote for an opposition candidate next year, against 38.7 for a candidate for the ruling party. Notoriously, however, in Latin American polling "undecided" usually means against the ruling party but fearful to say that to anyone. By another methodology wherein Dichter & Neira asked voters whom they supported among a grab bag of political figures, some of whom say they are not running, 44.4 percent supported possible opposition while 34.9 percent supported possible PRD candidates. Historically the PRD is a disciplined block of about one-third of the Panamanian electorate, which has sometimes expanded that base and won on pluralities but has never won a majority in a national election.

Cedulas go missing

A few opposition political figures are beginning to comment on circumstances that may point to rigged 2009 elections. Earlier, more than 90,000 names were stricken from the voter rolls, including --- in an embarrassing mistake --- some incumbent PRD politicians in Colon. Then there are the several ongoing controversies about use of public funds for PRD political activities. Then there is the new election schedule, wherein people need to get their voter registrations in order at the proper addresses by the end of April 2008 in order to be able to vote in May 2009. Now a package of about 100 cedulas --- according to an anonymous Electoral Tribunal source cited in El Panama America --- has gone missing. Those identity cards, necessary for voting, are for people in Chiriqui province. Officially, the Electoral Tribunal has nothing to say about it, as it is said that the police are investigating. The proffered excuse is that the cedulas went missing in the possession of a courier service.

Rapper Danger Man slain

On the evening of February 21, as he was leaving his cousin's house in Don Bosco, regueton singer Alfonso Blackwood Drakes, known professionally as "Danger Man," was slain by two gunman who had stalked him and, after shooting him at least four times, fled in a gray sedan. Blackwood was 35 years old and is survived by a two-year-old daughter. As these briefs were written, no suspects had been identified by police or prosecutors to the public. Regueton, a music form that has its certain roots in in the dance hall offshoot of reggae but is best defined as Spanish-language hip hop, has its analogue to gangsta rap, of which Danger Man was a noted exponent. The singer's cousin and manager, who had been meeting with him to design a website moments before the crime, were held by police for questioning and then released. Blackwood had been receiving death threats for more than a year before his murder.

Tighter curfew for minors

As of February 18 the curfew on minors was tightened. Now kids under 18 who are found out of their homes after 9 p.m. are subject to arrest. The curfew applies to Panama City, San Miguelito and all of Colon province.

Colon Free Zone customers robbed

The modus operandi is banal. Buyers carrying large amounts of cash are driving, usually on the Transistmica, to the Colon Free Zone. Robbers who know who their targets are force the cars in which their chosen victims are riding to the side of the road and, brandishing automatic weapons, rob these buyers. It happened on February 17, when two Nicaraguan businessmen were robbed of $16,000. It happened again to a Dominican businessman, who was robbed of $3,000 and his credit cards on February 19. In both instances the victims were riding in taxis. Collusion with the taxi drivers? A stalking operation involving a number of people other than the gunmen? The knowledge that taxis from the capital driving toward Colon are probably going to the Free Zone? However it's done, this sort of crime is threatening one of Panama's main sources of income and the police don't seem to be very effective at fighting it.

Noriega beats a murder rap

Except that he was General Omar Torrijos's top enforcer, the man who was in charge of such things --- or as the late Torrijos called him, "my gangster" --- there really wasn't much reason to believe that Manuel Antonio Noriega was involved in the 1969 disappearance and murder of activist Luis Antonio Quiroz Morales. At least, that's the way an appeals court saw it, and thus this particular murder charge against Noriega has been thrown out. General Noriega has several convictions rendered in absentia and a number of other pending cases against him here in Panama, but President Torrijos and the National Assembly have passed a law that would allow Noriega to serve any time that he may have to do under house arrest if he comes back to this country.

These briefs were compiled through February 24.

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