Martinelli's power plays main feature at Panama City Carnival

Martinelli and Shamah's Panama City Carnival tourist show:

Mace the Nation
by Eric Jackson

So, what to do when the government has ordered that the water stops spraying at 2 p.m., but after the hoses turn off the crowd still wants to enjoy Carnival?

Why, on the afternoon of Carnival Monday on Via España, the procedure was to spray the crowd with pepper gas, in order to, as a nameless Martinelli administration spokesperson told TVN news, "maintain order and avoid violent situations." To show that they meant business, the National Police arrested a number of people for "being under the effects of alcohol." (Imagine THAT, at Carnival of all places!)

So, what about the parades that the government-run Carnival effort put on? There weren't any. And the unofficial Carnival queen's procession? She had to walk. The government denied a permit for her to have a float.

The first three days of Panama City's Carnival have been a display of governmental authority, with repeated raids and bans on activities by the unofficial Carnival Committee headed by Carlos Arias and little in the way of organization of anything other than police by the official Carnival headed by Tourism Minister Salomón Shamah.

As in Carnival Saturday's culecos, where health authorities shut down some of the unofficial spray trucks, and Shamah personally stopped Arias's private operation from charging $1 to defray the cost of spraying water on those who wanted to splash in it. President Martinelli's spray truck arrived later, squirting water and passing out pro-government t-shirts at that day's abbreviated culeco session.

On Sunday several minors were found to be drinking alcohol and were arrested, and when Arias came to see what was going on, he was arrested too. After paying a $200 fine --- not that anyone actually saw him sell or otherwise provide alcohol to a minor --- Arias was released from the corregiduria in Calidonia.

"They, as private entities and as individuals, must adjust themselves," Shamah told RPC Radio. "I am having fun," the Tourism Minister said, adding that the state is the only authority at Carnival.

But the state has hardly any budget has not done much in the way of planning, thus leaving the capital's Carnival celebration to be mainly a matter of people milling around under the ever-present gaze of the National Police, waiting to see if something is going to happen.

Many Panama City residents left the city to celebrate Carnival in the Interior --- where the police changed the traditional rules a bit by beating people for the customary Carnival practice of drinking in public.

So the reason for the Martinelli administration's show of force? You'd have to ask the president and his subordinates, and then decide whether to believe them. (Martinelli himself has been unavailable for comment during the first few days of Carnival.) However, the police violence "to avoid violent situations" very much does correspond to the race and class prejudices of the white aristocracy from whence Martinelli comes, and is exercised at a time when most Panamanians say that crime is at or near the top of their list of concerns.

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