Inter-American Human Rights Court condemns Panama for disappearance

The Torrijos administration fought the case all the way, and now that the judgment has been issued Vice President and Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis Navarro says that --- in lieu of respecting and obeying it --- the government is “analyzing” it.

No, the president, a bastard himself, sent his minions with law degrees to insult the victim's family by arguing that since Heliodoro Portugal was never formally married, the victim's de facto wife is not entitled to any compensation for loss of companionship or, more onerously, for having to raise the children as a single mother, and that the victim's children have no legal status as such and are also not entitled to compensation. (Never mind that Panamanian law does not and never has recognized the concept of an “illegitimate” child.)

Torrijos also asserted a classic --- and rejected --- Nazi technical argument. It was, of course, legal under Hitler's laws to gas Jews, and the Nuremberg Principles were adopted by the allied powers after most of the crimes of the Nazi regime had been committed. “Ex post facto,” the concentration camp boys' lawyers argued, and they even got a Republican senator from Ohio to back them. It didn't work at Nuremberg and ever since Chilean disappearance guys asserted it before them the Inter-American Human Rights Court has consistently rejected such arguments too, but that didn't stop Martín Torrijos from sending in his lawyers to defend the actions of hit men sent by his father, General Omar Torrijos, to take out labor activist Heliodoro Portugal.

The facts that Martín so carefully avoided? Those were fairly well expounded by the Truth Commission report:

Heliodoro Portugal, 36 years of age, “united,” father of a son and a daughter. Typographer. Identified with the ideas of the left.

The disappearance of Heliodoro Portugal took place on May 14, 1970, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, a family member said. “He was in the Coca-Cola Cafe across from Santa Ana Park, when a taxi, a red station wagon, stopped in front of the cafe. Two men, dressed as civilians, got out of the car. They took him, they forced him into the car, and once everyone was in the car, they took him away.” Nevertheless, a relative recalled, about a month after the disappearance a police officer came to their house, telling them that the victim sent him to tell them not to worry, that he was in Tocumen and he was going to get out. That was the last thing that Heliodoro Portugal's family heard.

An informant said that he was being detained in the Casa de Miraflores, an illegal detention center, and was interrogated and tortured by Melbourne Walker and Luis Del Cid, and that in the room contiguous to his was Heliodoro Portugal, who was being interrogated about his friendship with Floyd Britton, and after that he was tortured. From there they were taken blindfolded to the Tocumen Barracks, to a conference room, the 9th or 10th of October. The following day he saw Heliodoro Portugal, who asked him to tell his family. The informant was transferred to the La Chorrera Jail and afterwards knew nothing more of the victim.

A witness testified that, in the month of June 1971, he was present at the burial of a person at the Tocumen Barracks, specifically in the motor pool area. On September 22, 1999, he guided judicial authorities to the site and they found human remains at said site, which they presumed to be those of Father Héctor Gallego. Later, on August 21, 2000, it was proven that they belonged to Heliodoro Portugal.

With the Panamanian government making no effort to dispute these facts, but defending by way of challenging the jurisdiction of the court over something that happened in 1970 and 1971 because Panama only accepted the court's authority in 1990, and by way of casting aspersions upon the Portugal family, the court made due deliberations but had a rather easy case to decide.

It was held that Panama had violated Heliodoro Portugal's liberties as set forth in Article 7 of the Pan-American Human Rights Convention. With the passage of decades, the degradation of evidence and the lack of an eyewitness or compelling physical evidence the court said that it could not find sufficient proof to conclude that Portugal was the victim of an extrajudicial execution, although it did note that his death while in custody was well enough demonstrated.

The court ordered the payment of $120,000 in damages to be equally divided among Heliodoro Portugal's widow, his daughter and his son. The court also awarded an extra $50,000 to the daughter, Patria Portugal, for her expense and aggravation of pursuing the case of her father's disappearance all the way through the Panamanian court system and up to the court of last resort in such cases, the Inter-American Human Rights Court.

There's nothing much to analyze about the judgment. There's quite a bit more to analyze about Panama's record of compliance with the judgments of the Inter-American Human Rights Court, which is not very good. The present administration is unlikely to pay.

Such is the prevailing sense of honor in high places that Martín Torrijos is also not likely to apologize to the Portugal family for the crude and vicious insults thrown at them by lawyers on his behalf during the course of his defense of the untenable.

But now, maybe for the benefit of members of the US Congress upon whom the Torrijos administration's "progressive" and "democratic" credentials are being urged, maybe only for the benefit of a future generation of Panamanian historians, there is this snippet of truth duly entered into the international record.

Also in this section:
Major art theft scandal unfolds
Evo Morales visits the University of Panama
Bolivian crisis explodes, Latin America rallies behind Morales
Inter-American Human Rights Court condemns Panama for dictatorship-era disappearance
US "patriot" militia shill and offshore hustler's case against The Panama News dismissed
White House on drugs
Democrats Abroad campaigning here
Home-grown Darien kidnappers thwarted
Panama News Briefs

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