news special

The president's party suggests a conspiracy. Photo by Aris Rodriguez Mariota

The strange case of Valentín Palacio
by Eric Jackson, mostly from other media
 
 
 
 

Why would Dr. Mauro Zúñiga, a prominent physician who was a leader of the Civilista movement against the Noriega dictatorship, suggest that a man who had gone missing during anti-government protests may have been decapitated?

There is some history behind the suspicion. National Police director Gustavo Pérez was in Noriega times the number two man on the organization chart in the dictatorship's Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (UESAT). (In effect he was number three, because the person who ran that show for Noriega was one Mike Harari, a thug on loan from the Israeli Mossad.) Although Pérez says he was out of the loop, UESAT kidnapped US citizens during the 1989 invasion, killing two. UESAT is also among the suspects in a number of other crimes of the dictatorship that have never been fully solved --- including the kidnapping, murder and decapitation of dissident Dr. Hugo Spadafora. Dr. Zúñiga himself was abducted and tortured by agents of the military dictatorship.

So Dr. Zúñiga expressed fears for the worst on August 13 when he was part of a group representing 30 different civic organizations that filed a habeas corpus action at the Supreme Court. The papers that were filed alleged that 38-year-old Changuinola resident and father of two Valentín Palacio was last seen on June 8, apparently in the custody of police agents, and demanded that Gustavo Pérez produce him or account for his whereabouts.

The groups that filed the habeas corpus motion included the nine-member Alianza Ciudadana Pro Justicia, whose executive director is attorney Magaly Castillo, whose president is business leader Víctor Lewis of the National Private Enterprise Council (CoNEP) and vice president is labor leader Samuel Rivera of the General Workers Center of the Republic of Panama (CGTP), and whose member organizations include the Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission. A number of other professional, indigenous, environmentalist, labor and community organizations joined the Alianza in filing the motion.

On August 16, Palacio turned up in National Police custody and was flown to Panama City. His face showed signs of a beating, and prosecutors said he was being subjected to an indagatoria. A questioning by prosecutors of a person when no charges have been filed is a diligencia, whereas an indagatoria is the questioning under oath of a person when criminal charges have been filed. Palacio has remained in police custody, but the government has never specified which charges have been brought.

With Pérez by his side, Palacio told a confused tale of being abducted and beaten by two black men (whom police have not located or identified) and of being taken by police to a Seguro Social clinic in Almirante where he was unconscious for a week. The reverend of the church where the Palacio family attended --- also being held in police custody --- was said by police variously to have found Palacio working at a sawmill and to have found him at the clinic in Almirante. La Prensa and other news organizations checked with the clinic, whose director refused to comment. However, clinic employees speaking on condition of anonymity said that they didn't remember Palacio being there and that there is no record of his presence. At the behest of the government Valentín Palacio's father, Samuel Palacio, filed a complaint that contrary to what was alleged in the habeas corpus motion, he had not gone to the anti-government protests with his son.

Palacio remains in police custody, held incommunicado from the press, his family and the groups that filed a habeas corpus action on his behalf. Through police and prosecutors, at least seven different versions of what happened have been given. Now President Martinelli's Cambio Democratico party has offered a $5,000 reward for "whoever provides information that identifies the persons in charge of originating false information that attempted to involve the national government in the alleged arrest, disappearance and decapitation of Valentín Palacio."

Continuing the prosecutorial and public relations counter-offensive, the Martinelli administration:

Meanwhile, protests against Law 30 are relatively small, but more than 60 percent of Panamanians say that they want to see Law 30 repealed. Different pollsters have different methods --- the biggest variations depending on whether they allow those surveyed to express a neutral rather than a favorable or unfavorable opinion --- but by any measure the president's popularity has plunged in the wake of Law 30 and the bloody confrontations that it sparked in Changuinola.

In his weekly opinion column, attorney and human rights activist Miguel Antonio Bernal said that he's not at all surprised. "They have said many things, but the damage has been done. Authoritarianism and autocracy are taking over thanks to media manipulation."