opinion

Let's have a single standard for dual citizenship
by Eric Jackson

Like President Martinelli and (maybe) Mayor Vallarino, I am a dual citizen. I was born that way and the Panamanian constitution distinguishes that status from that of somebody who's born Panamanian and then naturalizes as a citizen of another country. I don't particularly feel superior to somebody who took another citizenship, but I wouldn't personally care to take an oath to renounce either my Panamanian or American citizenship. I choose to live in Panama and exercise my rights as a Panamanian, but I lived in the United States and served in offices in which I swore to defend the constitution and I did so. My worst days as a dual citizen were in 1989, when people from my two countries were killing one another and I quite frankly can't identify with anyone who considers that a liberating experience.

Bosco Vallarino solemnly swore off his Panamanian citizenship, repeatedly lied about it, concealed documents to obstruct court procedures about it, and got rescued --- maybe --- by a decision by the National Assembly to retroactively restore his rights as a citizen that were constitutionally suspended by his voluntary renunciation of his Panamanian citizenship. The legislators and President Martinelli didn't restore any other person's citizenship rights. They just passed a law purporting to retroactively restore the rights of one man.

I have a friend who first came here as a soldier, married a Panamanian woman, moved to the States where she took on US citizenship, and then came back here to retire. According to Yolanda's boys at the Electoral Tribunal, she has no rights as a Panamanian citizen. Because of that someone might challenge my friend's right to be here as the husband of a Panamanian. Somebody might challenge her right to run her business because she's not a citizen. The Yolanda Pulice wannabes in the Electoral Tribunal already threatened her and countless others with imprisonment if she voted last May.

So there we have it, at least three grades of citizenship in Panama: citizen, someone who gets a special dispensation, and someone in a citizenship limbo. Add the people who live so far from government services that they never got a proper birth certificate --- rural and mostly indigenous people are in this category --- and you have at least four. Apply the racial standards used at some nightclubs and that were historically approved by Panameñistas (although many members of that party are over this) and you have five or more.

Now you might take a poll of first class citizens only in Paitilla and La Cresta and find a majority in those places in favor this situation. But maybe not, because there are plenty of wealthy Panamanians who are duals in various ways, and some of them have family and friends who are not in the same situation but who sympathize.

As The Crossroads of the World, it would be natural that Panama would have people of all sorts of nationalities, and natives who have gone all sorts of places and then returned. We are also open to all sorts of influences --- not all of them good --- from all points on the compass. For example, we have British subjects who have taken out Panamanian citizenship and, whatever oath they may have taken to whatever country, are forever considered British by the United Kingdom. We have people from other Latin American countries that reciprocally have easy attitudes about dual citizenship with Panama. We have Panamanians who are Italians by virtue of ancestry like Ricardo Martinelli.

And how did Alberto Vallarino get his dual Panamanian-Costa Rican citizenship? Should we start an investigation of him, and of countless other Panamanians? Should we give the Yolanda's boys an expanded budget to do that?

Well, there's a better idea. People who were born Panamanian could be recognized as forever Panamanian, just like the those born British are forever British, and while they may lose certain rights and privileges while living abroad as citizens of other countries, regain full rights when returned to Panama.

The retroactive change in citizenship rights for one person only is constitutionally fishy, but even if it's upheld after all of the appeals are over, the issue isn't resolved. Thousands, probably tens of thousands, of Panamanians have their citizenship suspended and others lie to retain certain rights.

Let's put an end to that. Let's set aside the sordid, long-standing and far-reaching practice of legislation with names and surnames attached. Let's have across-the-board legislation that restores the rights of all dual citizens who are living in Panama.