In rare move, ACLU to oppose Kavanaugh for Supreme Court
by the American Civil Liberties Union
New York, September 29 — In the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sworn testimony of sexual abuse at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh, the American Civil Liberties Union has announced its opposition to his nomination to the US Supreme Court.
As a matter of organizational policy, the ACLU does not support or oppose candidates for political or judicial office. In this instance, the national board held an extraordinary meeting, and has chosen to make an exception to that policy.
“The ACLU’s board of directors, deeply concerned by the allegations raised in recent weeks, has made a rare exception to its longstanding policy and voted to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” said Susan Herman, president of the ACLU.
The ACLU’s national board of directors passed a resolution stating:
“The ACLU opposes the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. There are credible allegations that Judge Kavanaugh has engaged in serious misconduct that have not been adequately investigated by the Senate. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s credible testimony, subsequent allegations of sexual misconduct, the inadequate investigation, and Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony at the hearing lead us to doubt Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
“This is not a decision taken lightly. We cannot remain silent under these extraordinary circumstances about a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land. The standard for such an appointment should be high, and the burden is on the nominee. That burden is not met as long as there are unresolved questions regarding the credible allegations of sexual assault.”
“As a nonpartisan organization, the ACLU does not oppose Judge Kavanaugh based on predictions about how he would vote as a Justice. We oppose him in light of the credible allegations of sexual assault against him,” concluded Herman.
Under its current policy, the ACLU does not take formal positions on judicial nominations. This is the fourth instance in the organization’s 98-year history that the ACLU’s national board of directors has voted to oppose a nominee to the US Supreme Court. Most recently, the organization did not endorse or oppose the nomination of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
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Nicole Smith-Guzmán trabajando en el laboratorio. Foto por STRI.
Una publicación, con frecuencia citada, menciona que un sitio arqueológico precolombino en Panamá mostraba signos de violencia extrema. Una nueva revisión de la evidencia sugiere fuertemente que la interpretación es incorrecta.
Las cuentas de violencia en el Panamá precolombino son exagerados
por Sonia Tejada – STRI
Enterrados vivos. Masacrados. Decapitados. Despedazados. Mutilados. Asesinados. El arqueólogo Samuel K. Lothrop no se ofuscó al describir lo que pensó había sucedido a los 220 cuerpos que su expedición desenterró en el sitio de Playa Venado en Panamá en 1951. El único problema es que Lothrop probablemente se equivocó. Una nueva evaluación de los restos del sitio por parte de los arqueólogos del Smithsonian no reveló signos de trauma al momento de la muerte o cerca de esta. El sitio del entierro probablemente cuenta una historia más matizada culturalmente.
Una revisión “largamente esperada” del sitio en Playa Venado, que data del 500 al 900 dC y está ubicado cerca de la entrada del Pacífico al Canal de Panamá, no encontró evidencia de muerte ritual, comentó Nicole E. Smith-Guzmán, becaria de postdoctorado en el Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI). Las interpretaciones erróneas de Lothrop probablemente se deben a la era de la “arqueología romántica”, las metodologías subdesarrolladas para los estudios funerarios y las interpretaciones literales de los relatos de los españoles sobre los pueblos indígenas después del contacto europeo.
“Ahora nos damos cuenta de que muchos de estos cronistas españoles estaban motivados a mostrar a las poblaciones indígenas que encontraron como ‘incivilizadas’ y necesitadas de conquista”, comentó Smith-Guzmán, agregando que muchas versiones de sacrificio y canibalismo no han sido confirmadas por los registros arqueológicos. “Más que un ejemplo de muerte violenta y deposición descuidada, Playa Venado presenta un ejemplo de cómo las sociedades precolombinas en el área istmo-colombiana mostraron respeto y cuidado por sus familiares después de su muerte”.
El artículo, escrito en coautoría por el arqueólogo de STRI, Richard Cooke, fue publicado en Latin American Antiquity.
Pero el artículo de Lothrop de 1954, “Suicidio, sacrificio y mutilaciones en entierros de Playa Venado, Panamá”, dejó su huella en los anales de la arqueología panameña. Se ha citado más de 35 veces como evidencia de violencia, canibalismo o decapitación como trofeos. Algunos autores han utilizado el artículo para sugerir que Playa Venado es un sitio de enterramiento masivo o una manifestación de conflicto.
En defensa de Lothrop, arqueólogo del Museo Peabody de Arqueología y Enthnología de la Universidad de Harvard, la bioarqueología (el estudio de restos humanos desde contextos arqueológicos), no existía como subdisciplina hasta dos décadas después de que su trabajo en Playa Venado concluyera. Los practicantes del presente también se benefician de los métodos desarrollados en los años ochenta y noventa.
La cuidadosa documentación de Lothrop y la preservación de los restos hicieron posible la reevaluación. Los restos de más de 70 individuos de Playa Venado se encuentran en el Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Smithsonian, enviados allí por Lothrop para una evaluación osteológica.
Tras el examen, Smith-Guzmán encontró heridas que mostraban signos de curación mucho antes de que las personas murieran, incluyendo golpes en la cabeza y un dedo dislocado. Varios de los huesos rotos y restos desarticulados descubiertos por Lothrop probablemente se explican por procesos normales de descomposición y entierro secundario de los restos, que se cree tenían una práctica común de veneración de ancestros en el Panamá precolombino.
La evidencia sugiere que los restos de ciertas personas fueron preservados por largos períodos de tiempo antes de ser enterrados en contextos rituales. “En Playa Venado, vemos mucha evidencia de adultos enterrados al lado de urnas que contienen restos de niños, enterramientos múltiples incluyendo un entierro primario y uno secundario, y perturbación de tumbas previamente hechas para sepultar otro individuo por asociación”, comentó Smith-Guzmán.
“El posicionamiento uniforme del entierro y la ausencia de trauma perimortem (alrededor del momento de la muerte) están en contradicción con la interpretación de Lothrop de muerte violenta en el sitio”, comentó Smith-Guzmán, quien también utilizó evidencia de otros sitios arqueológicos en Panamá sobre ritos funerarios como parte de la investigación. “Hay bajas tasas de trauma en general, y las bocas abiertas de los esqueletos que Lothrop notó se explican más fácilmente por la relajación muscular normal después de la muerte y la descomposición”.
La reevaluación de Smith-Guzmán y Cooke de los entierros de Playa Venado sugiere que las ideas sobre la violencia generalizada en el Panamá precolombino deben ser reconsideradas. La investigación es parte de un nuevo análisis mayor e interdisciplinario del sitio que será publicado por el Museo Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.
Uno de los dos casos de golpes en el cráneo curados, encontrado en las excavaciones de Playa Venado. La mayoría de las pruebas de violencia fueron interpretadas por el arqueólogo de Harvard, Samuel Lothrop, basándose en el posicionamiento del cuerpo en las tumbas en el sitio. La becaria posdoctoral del Smithsonian, Nicole Smith-Guzmán, no encontró ejemplos de traumas que ocurrieran cerca del momento de la muerte entre los esqueletos de la colección. Foto por Nicole Smith-Guzmán, STRI.
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If you are an American living abroad, you stand by her by ordering your ballot and voting. Get started online at votefromabroad.org OR fvap.gov OR overseasvotefoundation.org. Christine Blasey Ford testifies. US Senate Judiciary Committee pool photo.
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A bright spot in a generally dismal economy: the Atlantic Side bridge over the canal is just about ready to open. Even with expensive pieces yet to come before it’s part of a Caribbean coast road from Colon to Bocas del Toro, it will immediately make crossing the canal faster and safer than it ever was. Photo by the Presidencia.
A slow if not paralyzed economy here
by Eric Jackson
Sunday:
The Chamber of Commerce is calling for an unspecified boost for the nation’s tourism sector. The organization claims that over the past two years some 25,000 tourism sector jobs have been lost.
Got rid of the permanent tourists? Check. Put the brakes on Venezuelans coming in? Check.
Those two things did not directly wreak all of the complained-of havoc, probably not even most of it. But the intangible figurative “unwelcome” mat has its consequences, too. How many Americans who for some reason or another could not get or chose not to get permanent resident status here nevertheless had homes here, which they left every so often to then re-enter on a new tourist visa, and meanwhile had family and friends come visit during our dry season and the northern winter, said visitors registering as ordinary tourists but now no longer visiting here?
Tourism figures? Those gather in several categories. Including business travelers. Figure that economic hard times across much of Latin America mean less business at the Colon Free Zone, so fewer buyers coming to visit. But the loss is not just a cyclical thing. Why come to Panama, taking the risk that some criminal at customs or immigration at the airport will notice a declaration of a lot of money to buy things in Colon, and pass word on to armed robbers working on the outside? Why do that when it’s safer, easier and cheaper to do shopping, buying and shipping arrangements online? Structurally, the Internet is suppressing our business tourism sector. A new convention center on Amador is not going to make a huge difference there.
The usual rabiblanco emphasis on the one-time big score — that ultra-rich tourist who doesn’t mind getting cheated and isn’t too annoyed by inferior service — remains the dream of people who should not be in the tourism business but may find themselves owning expensive but largely empty hotels or resorts. Such folks often sell out to foreigners who know the business. The wonderful and not too expensive retail services that get carried by word of backpackers’ mouths? Said downscale visitors sometimes come back a few years later when richer and with families in tow, prepared to spend more money, but the proprietors of the sorts tourist enterprises that cater to them are often disdained.
For now. With Chinese business, and Chinese tourists, on the way, will the famous Chinese retail ethic take a strong hold on Panamanian tourism? There would be complaints but overall it would probably grow the industry.
Monday:
It was a bank consolidation, after a pause from the rash of those a few years ago. In a ceremony in Costa del Este, Global Bank bought Banvivienda for $245 million.
It’s actually hard to say with great precision who is “local” in the financial sector these days, but by all accounts Global Bank is one of those and with this acquisition it is now number two in the nominally Panamanian banks, behind Banco General.
How much of the money in these institutions is in the name of anonymous Panamanian companies owned by foreigners is always an interesting question, but since the 1989 US invasion Panamanian bankers have been averse to dealings that make them look like money launderers — leave those up to the State of Delaware or the City of London. The bankers here would just as soon go along with OECD transparency demands, unlike the Panamanian law firms that organize corporate shells in many jurisdictions for the rich and famous.
Does bank consolidation mean fewer options and less service for most Panamanians? Not really. The great majority of Panamanians do not have bank accounts. The majority of Panamanian businesses are informal and can’t have bank accounts. A few banks will issue accounts to lower-end depositors, but there appears to be an agreement among banks not to compete for this business.
Global Bank gets some 39,000 depositors with this deal. Banvivienda was headquartered in the upscale and heavily Venezuelan Costa del Este. The crackdown on Venezuelans has not especially meant raids and deportations there — the Venes who got out early and brought a lot of money with them are well settled, except that those with professional skills can’t practice professions here and a lot of Panama’s creole aristocracy doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. Those sorts of rabiblancos especially do not want their kids dating Venezuelan kids. But for now Costa del Este seems like less of a growth area so the absorption of their neighborhood bank would seem natural.
The owners of Banvivienda take a five percent stake in Global Bank according to the terms of the deal.
Overall across the sector, new bank loans and bank revenues are down a bit this year in Panama. The uninsured banking industry here is not so heavily regulated but its member banks generally do not survive government interventions. Thus their policies tend to be conservative. Wild swings, novel swindles and government bailouts are not common parts of the banking scene here.
Tuesday:
National Assembly president Yanibel Ábrego was annoyed. She lashed back at her critics. “This is a campaign against the National Assembly,” she declared. “It’s a campaign of the economically powerful against the political class of this country!”
See, she and her colleagues had been on a little shopping trip and Panamanians heard about it over the weekend. Ábrego used $213,000 of the legislature’s budget to rent eight luxury SUVs for the less than one year that the current officers will be such. Eight vehicles for the use of three elected officials, Abrego and assembly vice presidents Leandro Ávila and Carlos Motta. Plus another $4,000 for the legislature to buy its very own drone. She and her colleagues were getting bad mouthed about it.
WHAT? The economic powers-that-be turning on their old hirelings, the men and women who make our laws?
Well, yes. MOVIN, the Independent Movement, is generally associated with business mogul Stanley Motta and it wants to see a generalized ouster of this crop of politicians. We can argue about whether it is a matter of annoying corruption or just displeasure with who gets the plums. Certainly that part of the Motta family didn’t get a port concession at Corozal that they reportedly wanted because the ACP could not line up the votes.
But let us be less assuming, more charitable, more reasonable, less willing to depart from the known facts of history. Many business leaders here share the public fears about what may happen in an economy going bad and figure that they and the country just can’t afford the extravagant spending, kickbacks from overpriced and often unnecessary in the first place public contracts and appropriations of private and public assets by the politicians and their families.
The politicians are a permanent CLASS now, she says? Not just a grasping caste, looking to by hook or crook make rabiblancos of themselves? The hereditary aristocracy, and those who have actually made or enhanced fortunes by doing reasonably legitimate business, are not amused? The horror! The horror!
Wednesday:
Public sector doctors in Veraguas who treat patients with blood cancers (various sorts of leukemia, lymphomas and a long list of others) denounce management for “genocide,” given that the system has run out of the medications that their patients need to be treated and perhaps to live.
This all comes amid a great hue and cry about the Social Security Fund (Seguro Social or CSS), one part of which is an old age and disability pension system, another part the insured side of a bifurcated public health care system alongside and in cooperation with the Ministry of Health’s facilities and work forces. (There is also a private health care sector, generally staffed by doctors with public sector jobs working on their off hours.)
The cherry picked media hit stories are about outright theft of medicines and supplies from Seguro Social, which also acquires those things for the health ministry’s operations. In the more daring investigative reports in the corporate mainstream media — daring because there is an entrenched CSS board that in scandal after scandal over many years professes to have been caught by surprise and who can be expected to bring in private prosecutors for criminal defamation prosecutions if ever it gets reported that there was no suprise on high — there is talk of “mafias” in the medicine and equipment purchasing departments.
Meanwhile there is another outcry about the pension fund on the verge of being broke (again). The Chamber of Commerce immediately warned that Panama Canal revenues should under no circumstances be used to cover any pension shortfall. The last hue and cry transferred much of Seguro Social — pensions for those under 35 at the time — to Panama City’s private banks. Ask any labor leader who’s not a company union thug and she or he will tell you of the financial sector’s contrivances, of employers who deduct for Seguro Social from their employees’ paychecks and pocket that deducted money, of businesses on the edge of dissolving into informality but trying to preserve an existence that state institutions will recognize which have only theoretical payrolls or payroll deductions. Ask an honest and competent economist who has studied the problem and she or he will tell you of some genuine actuarial problems that might be managed reasonably enough within the public CSS system.
The Seguro Social pension issue that nobody “respectable” will mention is that the fund has been and is being looted on a massive scale by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country. Take, for example, the Ciudad Hospitaliaria, a half-billion-dollar construction project being paid for with funds taken from the CSS. Might it be a rousing success and repay the pension funds so handsomely that there will be no problem? Fat chance. In the numbers we are fed, that money is just gone.
The project was a brainchild of Ricardo Martinelli’s kleptocratic regime, wherein the whole deal was big overpriced public works contracts with part of the overcharge kicked back by construction companies to corrupt politicians who steered the contracts their way. The sales pitch — but not to pensioners present or future, who had no say — was that this medical center would have a few CSS offices and facilities but in its overwhelming majority be dedicated to private sector health care oriented toward “medical tourism.”
Health care for North American and European retirees as they get into the health issues of their declining years? Those people tend to return to their countries of origin for that stuff. Private and public health insurers in their countries know better than to deal with Panamanian companies in that sector and with only a few exceptions just won’t do it.
Health care for all the rich Venezuelans and Colombians who settled here to escape the woes of their homelands? The Colombians were called “scum” in the National Assembly chamber. The South American immigrants were vilified in most of the press and when Vene bondholders swayed La Prensa into becoming their mouthpiece of opposition to the Chavistas thousands of Panamanians stopped reading that paper. Neofascist anti-immigrant groups popped up. Martinelli’s plans to bring in foreign professionals to beat down the wages of Panamanian ones collapsed. So did the plan to legalize the many foreigners who were here illegally, purportedly because of abuses in that program but also very much due to the opposition of immigration lawyers who were left out of the process.
Varela, along with many of the corporate media, caved big-time to the xenophobes. The “permanent tourists” who owned homes, ran businesses and often worked without proper permits while coming in and out on a series of tourist visas that could have been and in many cases were years-long chains, were thrown out. Did Panama get a “better grade” of foreign resident? Actually, what we see are all these empty condo units with no buyers or renters.
The door was slammed on Venezuelans in particular and generalized nastiness toward all foreigners became socially and governmentally acceptable on Varela’s shift. Still didn’t win Zulay Rodríguez the PRD presidential nomination but the word is out and we are getting fewer foreign visitors and less foreign investment here.
So much for a hospital city oriented toward foreigners and their money, but construction continues on a mission that has failed. The banks that took a large and increasing share of the pension fund back in 2006 and the construction interests that are living off of “investments” like the Ciudad Hospitalaria think that it’s Panamanian working people who ought to pay, because those without the right surnames, political connections and assets always do.
Thursday:
La Prensa readers are told that the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is looking for new sources of revenue — again.
This time it’s a Liquid Natural gas storage and bunkering facility on the west side of the canal’s entrance at Farfan; a cruiser port and water park in Gatun Lake; and a tourist-oriented cable car over the Miraflores Locks.
THIS TIME. But the ACP has been looking for new revenues for a long time, even as they have assured us that the canal expansion has taken care or its economic problems and will do so for a long time to come.
Two key truths of the matter:
1. It is not possible to predict the world economy, the shape of industries to come and thus the precise shipping needs that the canal may serve many years in advance.
2. Down the rungs of its management, the canal has people who know how to run a canal and its traditional ancillary businesses, but there isn’t much evidence of any competence at any other enterprise in that organization.
Theme parks and cable cars, ‘just like Disney World,’ to rescue the finances of Panama’s principal industrial asset? Sounds like a jobs program for some young rabiblanco who went to Disney World a lot as a kid and got an MBA in getting blasted out of his or her — probably his — gourd at a forgettable US regional university. We have seen such hustles come and go so many times. Remember the Ancon Hill to Amador cable car, with the theme park atop Ancon Hill? Remember the purported dolphin park in San Carlos? Remember Colon 2000, which actually was built and does exist but has not been and is not the tourism salvation of Colon?
The banking and construction people who dominate the ACP board would surely find profitable angles to the proposed new initiatives, which in any case would not happen before the canal authority has a new administrator (shortly) and Panama has a new president (by July of next year). Might they be trying to set their boondoggles in concrete now, before anything changes? To be believed when seen.
The cable car might be interesting, depending on where it goes, and not terribly expensive to build. The survivors of the Islamic State may be researching their chances of a drive-by shooting on the Panama Canal as you read these words.
The Colon theme park on the water might be an idea that could come to fruition, not under present ACP auspices but by some private contract. You know, board member ________ has a cousin who has a company that could hire the right people to do that. But HEY! — that’s in Colon province and it’s the _____ family’s turf! Such are the usual obstacles.
There is a promise of new customers. Are there enough Chinese-speaking Panamanians to take degrading, low-paid jobs in which they dress up in ridiculous costumes for the Asian tourists?
Oh, it’s going to be for Americans after all? Do they have good US tort defense lawyers to defend after the first death or injury in a crocodile attack? But wait — aren’t crocks MiAmbiente’s business, except that they are not allowed to step on the ACP’s turf, which the lake is? And just because decades ago the Canal Zone Police had a special patrol to kill the lake’s larger reptiles to make it safe for recreational purposes, you wouldn’t expect PanCanal management to return to such colonialist practices, would you?
The truth of the matter is that the entire senior management boasts that it’s a different canal than it was at the end of the 20th century. Yes. These folks rose through the ranks as the canal was abandoning and destroying almost all recreational uses of Gatun Lake and many other side businesses that the canal ran under the old US administration. They’re great at office politics and have some engineering and maritime knowledge. There is no reason to believe that they have the skills or business judgment to run a theme park or to pick someone other than one of their pompous cousins to develop and run such a thing.
The bunkering of liquid natural gas? With new international maritime rules, diesel is going to quickly give way to that stuff as the fossil fuel of preference for ships. It’s a no-brainer to have that alongside the canal.
Electric ships? Energy conserving ships? Manufacturing and shipping decisions make with low carbon footprints in mind? Those are coming, we don’t know when and to what extent.
It’s not an easy call to say that gas terminals are going to save the finances of the Panama Canal. Nor is there any special reason why the ACP rather than the Maritime Authority or the Ministry of Economy and Finance ought to have dibs on that business. But there is going to be a need for gas bunkering over the next few years and that demand will probably hold for at least a few decades.
So, when is the ACP’s new Corozal – Diablo port happening? That was their last big effort toward conglomeration. However, it ran into families arguing over who gets it, was located in the wrong place and moreover was touted at a time when the world shipping container business was slow to begin with, so it has not happened. They did run the boat shed people out of Diablo and reduce the recreational uses of that whole area.
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Here we have the Lineated Woodpecker, the first one I have spotted in this area that I have patrolled for the last three years.
Aquí tenemos el Carpintero Lineado, el primero que he visto en esta zona que he patrullado durante los últimos tres años.
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Rescue at sea. US Navy photo of the formerly Panamanian flag vessel the Aquarius.
No high principle for letting people drown in the sea
There are practical and geopolitical reasons why the Varela administration has caved to pressures to cancel the Panamanian registry of the rescue ship Aquarius II. Let us not, however, hear any nonsense about Panamanian neutrality or international law.
Leaving distressed people to drown in the sea violates the most ancient customs of maritime law. It’s toxic to Panama’s long term interests as a maritime nation to allow this ancient principle to die.
Leaving those fleeing from war-torn Africa to that fate is taking sides. Can Panama deny a stand in favor of NATO countries’ interventions on that continent? Or can we blame it on international jihadi groups’ interventions? There is plenty of blame to go around. If many of those who are trying to cross perilous seas to more prosperous lands are driven mainly by economic aspirations rather than the direct terrors of war, they also come from a continent whose economy has been laid waste by wars.
Can it be reasonably said that societies into which these migrants desire entry are not able to properly take them in? Every racist and xenophobe would make that claim in every situation, but there are limits to what countries can do. Just like after World War II, the world had to address a major set of displaced person crises. There were camps for such refugees then, too.
The world needs to build and support some refugee camps for those fleeing from Africa and the Middle East. These camps should not be designed to punish but to allow some semblance of normal life until people can be resettled or returned. They should be camps with schools, with hospitals, with economies of their own.
But much more than those stopgaps, the outside warring parties – the US Africa Command, European forces, jihadi groups – need to withdraw. African countries need to enforce order on their own continent. The world needs something akin to the Marshall Plan to restart the economies of a vast continent that has been afflicted by so many wars for so long.
If Panama chooses to abandon its modest traditional roles as mediator, peacekeeper and place of refuge, the pros and cons of that ought to be debated. We actually can’t take everybody in. But let’s not misrepresent that as neutrality, nor as international law. It’s just the Varela administration caving to outside pressures.
Kavanaugh’s disgrace goes way beyond
Just a sexual indiscretion as a teenager? More like being deeply into a rape culture, with a rich boy’s expectation of impunity.
That was then? Present tense, the guy employs and uses women as ornaments, in his job as a judge and in the ongoing Senate hearings.
And now we have the lawyer for Trump’s best known hooker, telling us that there is a third witness, and probably there are more.
Used to be, conservatives were for the prohibition of pornography and liberals were fore tolerating it. How did we get to the point of the central discourse in US public policy being so pornographic, both in the original and modern senses?
It’s about a rapacious power elite, and although Donald Trump has become the crude “reality TV” modern image of it, we can go way back in the Anglo-American Common Law, to the abuses that assembled the knights on the plain at Runnymeade to force King John to sign the Magna Carta. Arrogant dispossession of common people? Check. Forced marriages of widows, so that their property could be seized? Check. Conversion of the ancient public commons into the private hands of grasping usurpers with access to political power? Check. Read the Magna Carta and recognize an ugly side of human nature, and ancient versions of the selfish abuses of today’s Republican Party. You can go farther back and read it in the holy scriptures of most of the world’s religions, too. A new low? Caligula and Nero would beg to differ.
Of course they see no big deal about a member of their aristocratic clique taking liberties with women, or for that matter taking just about anything else. The basic issue with Brett Kavanaugh and the Republican Party is neither perversion nor drunkenness, but abuse of power with a presumption of entitlement.
Bear in mind…
We are going to free ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.
Marcus Garvey
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
Marie Curie
In Greece we’re too poor to go to psychiatrists — we have friends instead.
Melina Mercouri
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La Ciudad Hospitalaria es un proyecto cuya misión declarada ha cambiado varias veces, aunque no haya finalizado. Originalmente iba a ser un centro de “turismo médico” en su mayoría privado, pero luego vino el clamor de los xenófobos sobre los extranjeros, de modo que menos vienen aquí como turistas o para vivir. Ese plan de turismo médico fue demasiado grandioso desde el comienzo. El propósito constante y no declarado es que se trata de una transferencia del fondo de pensiones a la industria de la construcción, dominada por empresas que repetidamente han sido encontradas pagando comisiones ilegales a políticos o partidos políticos por contratos sobrepreciados para proyectos de obras públicas. Gráfico por FCC y la Caja de Seguro Social.
Caja de Seguro Social, mitos y verdades
por Olmedo Beluche
Una invitación a un foro sobre la Caja de Seguro Social, organizado por la Sociedad Panameña de Ingenieros y Arquitectos (SPIA), en el que departimos con la exdirectora y actuaria de la institución, Dra. Marianela Morales, con la que coincidimos en algunas ideas y divergimos en otras, nos ayudó a establecer los múltiples síntomas de la crisis de la entidad, descartar los falsos diagnósticos y señalar el verdadero “vector” responsable de la enfermedad: la corrupción rampante del sistema capitalista panameño.
La crisis de la Caja de Seguro Social es un tópico sobre cuyos síntomas todos hablan: desabastecimiento crónico de medicamentos, déficit de camas hospitalarias y de especialistas en el interior, infecciones nosocomiales recurrentes con decenas de muertes, envenenamiento masivo con dietilenglicol, externalización constante de cirugías, fallecimiento de 21 neonatos en julio pasado, déficit del programa de IVM.
La primera alerta que debemos tener es que algunos sectores malintencionados sostienen una campaña de denuncias sobre estos problemas, pero su objetivo no es la solución para beneficio de los asegurados, sino promover algunas medidas que conduzcan al desguace de la institución y la privatización de sus servicios, mirando con avidez los fondos del programa de Invalidez, Vejez y Muerte. En este sentido, varios gremios han advertido sobre la manzana envenenada de la propuesta de la Cámara de Comercio de dividir la institución.
También se señalan falsos culpables para recortar los beneficios de la atención de salud. Uno de los mitos más extendidos es que, supuestamente los dependientes de los cotizantes son demasiados y esa es la causa del colapso del sistema. Falso. En 1998, con la mitad de los actuales cotizantes, los dependientes equivalían al 59,68% del total de los beneficiarios de servicios de la CSS, y esa cifra ha descendido al 50,77% en 2016. O sea, ha habido una disminución de casi el 9% en la proporción de dependientes del sistema.
Otro mito es que hay menos cotizantes. Falso: en 1998 habían 712.512 cotizantes y en 2016 estos alcanzaron la cifra de 1.490.101, es decir, aumentaron en 52,18%. Además, creció enormemente el monto de las cotizaciones que, en 2007, eran poco más de 976 millones de balboas, y en 2017, alcanzaron los 3.648 millones de balboas, un incremento del 73,24%.
Para justificar la reforma de los programas de jubilación, un mito muy extendido en la reforma de 2005, fue alegar la supuesta inversión de la pirámide poblacional, es decir, que el número de viejos ya sería mayor que el de la población joven y en edad productiva, lo que haría inviable el programa “definido” o solidario. Lo cierto es que los datos del INEC muestran que a la fecha esa inversión de la pirámide no se ha producido, ni se producirá de manera inminente. La absoluta mayoría de la población, más del 60%, tiene menos de 40 años de edad.
¿Quiénes son los verdaderos culpables de la crisis de la CSS? La corrupción y un modelo económico neoliberal que ha permitido situaciones como: una “morosidad”, que en realidad es un robo de las cuotas, por empresas privadas e instituciones públicas de cientos de millones de dólares (B/. 236 millones); un manoseo contable de B/. 300 millones, entre funcionarios y empresas, aprovechándose de un cambio en el sistema informático de la institución; un sistema de “Panamá Compra” ineficiente que encarece los medicamentos; verdaderas mafias entre proveedores y funcionarios; inversiones inconsultas e innecesarias, como los B/. 500 millones de la “Ciudad Hospitalaria”.
Ahora resurge la amenaza sobre el programa IVM, que la reforma de 2005 partió en dos, separando a los menores de 35 años de edad, que fueron enviados a un sistema “mixto” (un sistema solidario para salarios inferiores a B/. 500 y un sistema de ahorro, como el SIACAP, sobre esa cifra), y dejó sin aportes de las nuevas generaciones al sistema de cuentas “definido” o solidario, que recibimos los que teníamos más de 35 años de edad al momento de la reforma, con lo cual se le conduce al colapso hacia el 2025, al decir de la Dra. Marianela Morales.
Cuidado que la crisis del programa de IVM será usada por los mismos que promovieron la repudiada reforma de 2005 para volver a proponer: aumento de la edad de jubilación y las cuotas, y la transferencia de los fondos a entidades privadas como la Administradoras de Fondos de Jubilación y Pensiones (AFJP).
A nuestro juicio las soluciones son de dos ámbitos: primero, no reelegir en 2019 a los corruptos de siempre, pues son los responsables centrales de la crisis; lo segundo, volver a un sistema de cuentas definido o solidario, que puede ser sustentado por un crecimiento de cotizantes y cotizaciones en los últimos años. Esto también requiere, para que sea sostenible en el tiempo, un modelo económico que no sea neoliberal, es decir, que promueva el empleo juvenil bien remunerado, lo que tiene como precondición el proteccionismo a la agricultura y la industria, reales creadoras de riqueza y empleos.
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Desde que se revocó su registro panameño, el barco rescató al menos a 47 personas del mar Mediterráneo.
La Administración Marítima panameña ha iniciado el proceso de Cancelación de Oficio del registro de la nave “AQUARIUS 2”, ex “AQUARIUS”, con número IMO 7600574, con primer registro de Alemania y registrado en Panamá bajo el Registro Especial Fletamento, Patente de Buques Fletados No. 50857-PEXT-F, propiedad de la sociedad MV AQUARIUS GMBH & CO. KG., y cuyo fletador es la sociedad LIETZOW SHIPPING INC., debido a los reportes internacionales recibidos, en los que se señalan que la embarcación está desatendiendo los procedimientos jurídicos internacionales en materia de inmigrantes y refugiados auxiliados en las costas del Mar Mediterráneo.
La principal queja dimana de las autoridades italianas, quienes han reportado que el Capitán de la nave se ha rehusado a devolver a los inmigrantes y refugiados auxiliados a su lugar de origen.
Investigaciones realizadas por el Registro Panameño de Buques reportan que la embarcación fue expulsada de la Administración Marítima de Gibraltar, que no dio permiso al “Aquarius” para actuar como barco de rescate y que incluso, en junio y julio de este año, le solicitó formalmente que “suspendiera sus operaciones” y volviese a su estado de registro original como “buque oceanográfico”.
De acuerdo a la Ley No. 57 de 6 de agosto de 2008, artículo 49, numeral 1, constituye causal de cancelación de oficio del registro de las naves la ejecución de actos que afecten los intereses nacionales, facultando a la Dirección General de Marina Mercante de la Autoridad Marítima de Panamá a proceder en consecuencia.
Italia presiona a Panamá
para frenar los rescates
por Médicos Sin Fronteras
Domingo 23 de septiembre de 2018 — SOS Méditerranée y MSF se muestran tremendamente impactados por el anuncio de la Autoridad Marítima de Panamá (AMP), que ha declarado haberse visto obligada a revocar el registro del Aquarius debido a la brutal presión económica y política a la que les estaba sometiendo el Gobierno italiano. Este anuncio condena a cientos de hombres, mujeres y niños que buscan desesperadamente un lugar seguro en el que refugiarse, a morir ahogados en el Mediterráneo. Asesta además un duro golpe a la misión humanitaria del Aquarius, el único barco de búsqueda y rescate no gubernamental que sigue tratando de salvar vidas a día de hoy en el Mediterráneo central. Ambas organizaciones exigen a los Gobiernos europeos que permitan al Aquarius seguir adelante con su misión, dejando claro a las autoridades panameñas que las acusaciones hechas por el Gobierno italiano no tienen fundamento, o que inmediatamente emitan una nueva bandera bajo la cual el barco pueda navegar.
El sábado 22 de septiembre, el equipo del Aquarius recibió con sorpresa la noticia de una comunicación oficial de las autoridades panameñas dirigida a Jasmund Shipping, el propietario del barco, en la que se afirmaba que las autoridades italianas habían instado a la AMP a tomar “acciones inmediatas” contra el Aquarius. El escrito de la AMP detallaba que, “desafortunadamente, es necesario que el Aquarius sea excluido de nuestro registro, ya que esto supone un problema político para el Gobierno panameño y para la flota panameña que llega a los puertos europeos”. Este comunicado fue emitido a pesar de que el Aquarius cumple con todos los estándares marítimos y con las rigurosas especificaciones técnicas exigidas para poder navegar bajo bandera de Panamá.
SOS Méditerranée y MSF denuncian enérgicamente las maniobras y presiones del Gobierno italiano y afirman que esta acción es solo una prueba más de su determinación para garantizar que miles personas vulnerables sigan muriendo en el mar y para que no haya testigos presentes que cuenten los muertos.
“Los líderes europeos parecen no tener reparos en implementar tácticas cada vez más abusivas y perversas para servir a sus propios intereses políticos, sin que les importe la pérdida de vidas humanas que conlleven estas acciones”, afirmó Karline Kleijer, la responsible de emergencias de MSF. “Llevamos dos años escuchando a los líderes europeos decir que las personas no deberían morir en el mar, al tiempo que han seguido adelante con sus políticas inhumanas y de desinformación, lo cual ha servido para agravar aún más la crisis humanitaria en el Mediterráneo central y en Libia”. Esta tragedia tiene que terminar, pero eso solo puede suceder si los Gobiernos de la UE permiten que el Aquarius y otras embarcaciones de búsqueda y rescate continúen brindando asistencia para salvar vidas y sigan dando testimonio de lo que ocurre.
Desde el comienzo del año, al menos 1.250 personas se han ahogado al intentar cruzar el Mediterráneo Central. Aquellos que emprenden esta ruta están tres veces más expuestos a ahogarse que quienes hicieron el mismo viaje en 2015. Y es probable que el número real de muertes sea mucho mayor, ya que no todas las muertes o ahogamientos son presenciados o registrados por las autoridades o agencias de Naciones Unidas, como quedó reflejado en el naufragio de principios de septiembre frente a la costa libia, en el que se estima que se ahogaron al menos 100 personas.
Mientras tanto, la Guardia costera libia, patrocinada por Europa, continúa haciendo un número cada vez mayor de intercepciones, negando a los supervivientes su derecho a desembarcar en un lugar seguro, como exige la Ley Marítima Internacional y la Ley de Refugiados. La realidad a día de hoy es que todas estas personas vulnerables son devueltas a centros de detención libios que se encuentran en unas condiciones deplorables, muchos de ellos afectados por los fuertes enfrentamientos en las zonas de conflicto de la ciudad de Trípoli.
“Cinco años después de la tragedia de Lampedusa, cuando los líderes europeos dijeron ‘nunca más’ e Italia lanzó su primera operación de búsqueda y rescate a gran escala, la gente sigue arriesgando sus vidas para escapar de Libia mientras la tasa de mortalidad en el Mediterráneo central se dispara”, explica Sophie Beau, vicepresidenta internacional de SOS Méditerranée. “Europa no puede darse el lujo de renunciar a sus valores fundamentales”.
La notificación de la AMP llegó al Aquarius mientras sus equipos estaban inmersos en una operación de búsqueda y rescate en el Mediterráneo Central. Durante los últimos tres días, el Aquarius prestó auxilio a dos embarcaciones en apuros y cuenta ahora con 58 supervivientes a bordo, muchos de los cuales tienen necesidad de atención psicológica debido a las terribles experiencias sufridas tanto en Libia como en el intento de cruzar el mar, y que deben ser desembarcados con urgencia en un lugar seguro, de conformidad con el derecho marítimo internacional. A lo largo de la presente misión de rescate y durante todas las operaciones de rescate previas, el Aquarius ha mantenido una transparencia total, operando siempre bajo las instrucciones de todos los centros de coordinación marítima y siguiendo las convenciones marítimas internacionales.
SOS Méditerranée y MSF exigen a los Gobiernos europeos que se permita al Aquarius continuar con su respuesta humanitaria, asegurando a las autoridades de Panamá que las amenazas hechas por el Gobierno de Italia son infundadas o emitiendo inmediatamente una nueva bandera bajo la cual el barco pueda navegar.
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