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On July 20, Colombia's national independence day, nearly one million people marched in Bogota to demand an end to the country's long-running guerrilla war and the liberation of the hostages held by the FARC guerrillas. There were rallies, parades and concerts for the same cause in other Colombian cities, and demonstrations by the Colombian communities in about 40 foreign locales, the biggest of these taking place in Paris. Several thousand Colombians and a few Panamanian sympathizers marched through Panama City's San Francisco corregimiento on the occasion.

Panama's census statistics yield inadequate information about the number of foreigners of various nationalities in this country, but the Colombian community is by far the largest of the foreign groups here. Their numbers are counted in six figures. Although Panama has long had a Colombian community --- after all, we were once part of Colombia --- many of the Colombians who live here now came to Panama specifically to get away from the violence in their home country.

A ruse that freed 15 hostages held by the leftist FARC guerrillas, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, has altered political equations and generated various controversies in its wake.

The use of the Red Cross symbol by the Colombian soldiers in the rescue operation has offended the International Red Cross --- in fact the use of the Red Cross for military ruses is a specifically enumerated war crime in the Geneva Conventions. This, however, does not seem to have had cut into Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's popularity. But while Uribe supporters are promoting a constitutional change to allow unlimited presidential re-elections similar to the one that Hugo Chávez promoted and voters rejected in neighboring Venezuela last year, polls are showing that after an era when no other Colombian had much national support compared to Uribe, now Betancourt and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos  are popular potential candidates to succeed Uribe in the 2010 elections.

All across Latin America, with the exception of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, leftist political leaders have called for FARC to release the hostages and end their war. After a long pause, FARC responded to the rescue operation by issuing a communique alleging betrayals within their ranks, declining to end the armed insurgency and offering to negotiate prisoner exchanges with the government. Near the Colombian border with Panama, the rebel group seized and then released eight people who were abducted while traveling on the rivers of Choco department in motorized piraguas. The families of these hostages, who were poor Afro-Colombian farmers, could not have paid any substantial ransom but FARC issued a warning that people in the business of providing water transportation in the area that they would have to pay the guerrillas or be attacked.

And it was precisely this sort of thing that prompted Panama's Colombian community to gather and show their disapproval.