editorial

Ditch the rule of law, for what?

In 2004, the Panamanian constitution was amended to eliminate the position of alternate Attorney General (suplente de la Procuradora General). Now, in an attempt to gather control over all of the institutions of government into his hands, Ricardo Martinelli is on his own personal writ attempting to override that constitutional amendment so as to put an undistinguished loyal cog in Ana Matilde Gómez's place.

The means by which this is being done? Martinelli and his people on the Supreme Court are taking advantaged of the case brought by one Arquímedes Sáez, a former prosecutor caught red-handed using his office to run an extortion racket. And so once again Martinelli, who has supported a Panama City mayor who double-billed the public for travel expenses that were not properly payable out of public funds in the first place; who seeks to put a lid on some well documented allegations of abuses of the Social Investment Fund (FIS) by politicians of his own coalition; who refuses to say or do anything about Panama's role as a refuge for international criminals and our use as a platform for international Internet frauds; demonstrates his allegiance to the corrupt practices of the past. Martinelli's "change" is about more personal power for himself, not less corruption and certainly not leading in the direction of more democracy.

Soon we will see Martinelli's moves to formally amend the constitution. They will include attractive features, and there will be an expensive but vacuous ad campaign to promote them. But when the Martinelli constitutional proposals come before the voters, there will be a couple of very good arguments for the "no" side, whatever Martinelli may propose:

• He has already shown that what the constitution says means nothing to him, and he should not be allowed to have it both ways; and

• Panama has lived through dictatorships and we don't need any more of that, even if it's by a supermarket baron rather than an army officer.

Obama needs to shed old myths

After a year of the Obama administration, we have seen that there is very little change in US policies toward Latin America and the Caribbean.

The "Washington Consensus" economic policies that have devastated the economies of this region command no consensus in Latin America or the Caribbean, yet they are at the core of Obama's policies toward the region.

The "War on Drugs" is a total failure, and "Plan Colombia" has just meant that drug lords aligned with right-wing paramilitaries and President Uribe's political faction have gained the upper hand within Colombia over drug lords aligned with the FARC guerrillas, while Mexican drug lords have expanded their power at the expense of their Colombian counterparts. Yet the "War on Drugs" remains a cornerstone of US policy toward Latin America.

US support for democracy in Latin America is not there. The Obama administration played along with the Honduran coup, when it could have effectively reversed it. The Obama administration considers Hugo Chávez a dictator for having changed Venezuela's constitution to allow for repeated presidential re-elections, but refuses to apply the same standard to Colombia's Álvaro Uribe. Washington fails to recognize that part of the reason for Mexico's instability is due to the illegitimacy of its president, who holds his office by virtue of massive election fraud. Obama's implicit message to the Americas is that coups, election frauds and double standards are acceptable.

It's still early in a presidency, and things can change. One step toward a better set of policies in the region would be for the adminstration to listen more to Democrats living in Latin American and Caribbean countries, and less to lobbyists representing corporations with special interests here. Another step would be the realization that the State Department's role of conducting diplomatic relations requires certain niceties and certain things being left unsaid, that official visits to other countries only convey the impressions that the host governments wish to convey, that military and intelligence operatives tend to portray things in terms of struggles against defined enemies, and thus that Washington's usual sources of information about the region are flawed, both individually and collectively, and need to be supplemented.

Most of all, Obama ought to level with the American people about how bad the economic crisis is at home, and should begin to consider what any real solution to the crisis implies abroad. The United States will not be able to successfully re-industrialize with newer, greener technologies within the job-exporting old paradigms of NAFTA-style free trade and the WTO as we have known it.

Let's have transparency in US Haiti policies

Has Barack Obama sent the US military on a hunt for former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who had been held in Haiti's National Penitentiary as a political prisoner without charges since the 2004 coup by which George W. Bush had elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide deposed, until the earthquake broke the prison apart and all the inmates escaped?

What orders has Barack Obama given the US military custodians of Haiti's international airport with respect to the export of children --- not only those with properly documented legal adoptions pending but also those Haitian kids who were snatched from hospitals and their families in order to be disposed of on the international adoption market?

President Obama decided that a 20,000-troop invasion of Haiti had priority over international relief efforts and now, even though aid groups are allowed to come in through the airport, the US government ought to be transparent about the actions and policies of the troops that were sent in.

Bear in mind...

Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom. She has been a force for conservatism... to ward off threats to her own security and influence.

How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?

A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism.