Panama Ports shuts down Cristobal Yacht Club

Panama Ports moves to close
the Cristobal Yacht Club

At the time of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties, there was an understanding that the churches, recreational clubs, Masonic temples and other social organizations of the old Canal Zone would get their buildings for nominal sums. Both sides in that binational negotiation expected that many of these groups would close their doors of their own volition as the old American enclave gradually closed up shop, and that did happen in many instances.

For years, however, successive Panamanian governments have been pressuring the institutions that remained. Especially in the case of the old Canal Zone's yacht clubs and marinas, politically connected individuals have long coveted that business. The Balboa Yacht Club resisted pressures to make it move, but the Panama Canal Authority eventually evicted the Pedro Miguel Yacht Club.

And years ago, the PRD administration of Ernesto Perez Balladares signalled its intentions to do away with the Cristobal Yacht Club by setting aside the space that it occupies for the expansion of the Port of Cristobal, to which a management concession was granted to Panama Ports, a local subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa.

After years of pressures and resistance, word came down that the yacht club would have to move in April, forcing the people whose boats had been anchored there to move to Shelter Bay at the old Fort Sherman, with whose notorious owners most of them wanted to have nothing to do.

But it seems that the April date was a ruse. Early on the morning of February 28, Panama Ports moved in to destroy the clubhouse, confiscate such of its contents that it did not break, and block off ingress and egress.

The Shelter Bay monopoly will not endure, as one other Atlantic side marina is under construction and others are contemplated.

Photos by a Cristobal Yacht Club member

economy