Panama’s Plummeting Prospects

[Judi Lynn]

Panama’s Plummeting Prospects
Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 1:20 pm
Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs
President Martinelli Takes on Bernal Amidst Panama’s Plummeting Prospects to Finally Democratize

by COHA Director Larry Birns and COHA Research Associate Kaycie Rupp

• Martinelli establishes his credentials as being worthy of Olympic gold when it comes to being a first-class boor and an authoritarian bully when the issue is democratic dialogue
• At stake: An ill-merited free trade agreement with Washington
• Panama excels in the world of drugs, crime, money laundering and tainted rule
• Bernal case: A test of Panama’s human rights record and capacity for good governance, which the president seems to be rapidly losing
• Eisenmann, Brannan, Jackson and Bernal inevitably will outlast Martinelli in terms of patriotic inspired leadership
• Panama is a poor prospect for free trade because a corrupt Supreme Court will prevent the attainment of a level playing field required by the international business community

Accusations of corruption and a hard veer to the right have caused considerable consternation among U.S.-based Latin American specialists, as local Panamanian civil groups and good government bodies have expressed their concerns abroad regarding the country’s ability to engage in democratic practices under the recently inaugurated, controversial president, Ricardo Martinelli. In recent weeks, Panamanian NGOs have been expressing their concern over the country’s swift move to the totalitarian right, now being witnessed almost daily under Martinelli. He has been accused by a widening circle of critics for having sanctioned corrupt behavior and of being guilty of various human rights infringements. In office for less than a year, Martinelli continues to further blemish a record that already was beginning to appear shabby upon his inauguration.

Patriotic Panamanian Reaches for his Lance

One of the president’s most lethal foes is patriotic grandee Roberto Eisenmann, Jr., who, as much as any Panamanian of his generation, was one of the many reasons why Panama today is even marginally democratic. For those with too short a memory of the 1980s, when General Noriega was ruling the nation, Eisenmann (who, like Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal, had to flee the country at the peril of his life) indefatigably pounded the corridors of the U.S. Senate, to maintain a dialogue with that body throughout that decade. His success came in the form of a resolution condemning the Noriega regime for its anti-democratic behavior.

Although Eisenmann continuously worked to have a resolution passed as a beginning, he condemned General Noriega for drug trafficking, human rights violations and totalitarian tactics. Eisenmann by no means tried to persuade Senators Dodd, Kennedy or Leahy to win over President George W. Bush to use U.S. troops to invade Panama to rid the country of the dictator. No, he felt that such a task would be patronizing to his countrymen and should be undertaken by Panamanians, not Americans, which was not a particularly popular idea at the time. The fact that Panama even manages to be the lame democracy that it is today, is to a huge extent Eisenmann’s crowning achievement.

Just because Panama is a very small and a relatively unimportant nation, its guardians, as we shall see, look upon their profound role to protect its institutions and uphold its honor, as a sacred mission. Nor should their country, they insist, be a trash collector for the detritus of other nations, like the Shah of Iran and General Raoul Cédras, who headed Haiti’s military junta against President Aristide. Nor should President Mireya Moscoso have been forgiven by her nation for shamefully allowing Luis Posada Carriles, Latin America’s single most heinous human rights figure to flee the country, surely at a price. In a recent explosive column in Panama’s leading daily, La Prensa, of which he was the publisher for most of a decade, Eisenmann once again made use of his faultless credentials as a great warrior on behalf of Lady Democracy. He blasted the ugly aspects of the Martinelli regime and lamented the country’s now poor prospects for civility, pluralism and its inevitable fading capacity in the country to tolerate a free circulation of ideas.

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1005/S00222.htm

[naaman fletcher]

1. It's a little more complex than this:

I spend a LOT of time in Panama. The Martinelli election was widely heralded, as the PDR thugs had corruptly run the government since Noriega. Panama has been booming for the last decade, due largely to the balboa being 1 for 1 to the US currency. As a result, basically every wealthy central and south American has a bank account and a condo there.

Chavez has been quite good to Panama, and over the last few years there has been a boom in the number of Venezuelans coming in.

However, that same time period has also seen massive amounts of Mexican drug money come in. That is what is financing most of the new construction. That being said, the drug lords tend to lay low in Panama... they don't want to shit in their safe haven.

Anyway, people were fed up with the corruption of the PDR thugs, as well as some silly crime laws. For example, juveniles basically don't get punished, so a gangster can hire a 15 year old to commit a murder and nothing will really happen.

So, in the midst of a progressing panama, the middle classes finally demanded tougher crime control as well as less corruption, which Martinelli promised. NOTE: Most panamanians generally believe in the liberal marketplace as opposed to marxist ideology, so that was not really in the cards - sorry folks.

Anyway, when Martinelli came in he was stuck fighting the corrupt PDR judges, and they were doing some outrageous things. In any event, weather it was because he is naturally a tyrant, or felt besieged, he has really lost it and is simply ignoring the judical system. As the same time Panama City is going downhill because of a bad mayor. The city is much dirtier than it was even two years ago.

On the plus side, Colon is actually improving as Martinelli is trying to break the PDR stronghold by actually helping the people there rather than taking them for granted.

I will say that the "corruption" charge against Martinelli, while probably true, is laughable coming from the PDR.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "Most panamanians generally believe in the liberal marketplace as opposed to marxist ideology"??

Yeah, if you put it like that--the lovely liberal marketplace with all its wares and colorfulness and fun--versus that dreary beaten horse, "Marxist ideology"--most people on earth would favor the former.

But if you were to ask them about MONOPOLISTIC capitalism--about the banksters and the predatory, anti-true-marketplace corporations, or about war profiteers disguised as business people--or about health care for all, or about decent wages, or about free college education for the poor--what would their preference be?

Also, you say "most panamanians." Do you mean those you talk to? Describe that demographic. Did you really talk to "most panamanians" about "the liberal marketplace" vs "Marxist ideology"? Any reliable polls you can cite?

[protocol rv]

3. That's right

Most people don't care for communism. This is why communists can't run for elections calling themselves communists, and why Chavez lied when he ran the first time, criticizing Castro and communism, to change his colors later. Communism is a cancer which commmunists innoculate society with, using stealth and deception. ;-)

[protocol rv]

4. Somebody has to pay for all that

Patriot, there's a limit to what can be accomplished. For example, I have posted the controversial idea that, to provide decent wages for the working poor, the USA should close the borders to illegal immigrants. This of course causes pain, and somebody pays the broken plates. If you give the common man the choice, but can't explain the consequences, the long term costs, and so on, then you are just being another populist du jour. And that's the problem with extreme left wing ideas, they are very populist, but they fail. Why do they fail? Because they are based on unsound or weak understanding of economic principles.

Furthermore, nobody I know of advocates monopolistic capitalism, or is supportive of predatory bankers and so on. The liberal market place does work a lot better than commmunism and similar ideas I see advocated here. I sure hope you do realize by now, although you may not admit it, that Chavez has done a very good job destroying Venezuela's economy. Castro did the same in Cuba. Communist China was a disaster until they changed and started becoming capitalist. And on and on and on. Face it, these left wing extreme ideas you guys seem to advocate are failures. Chavism is a flash in the pan, soon he won't have the cash to pump into Ecuador, or Bolivia, or Cuba. Venezuela is becoming a basket case. We'll be red alright, because I doubt the elections will even take place. But this place will be ruined. And the example it sets for the world, showing how communists never get it right, will help set it back again. Hopefully someday it will land in the dustbin of history, with slavery and human sacrifice.

[naaman fletcher]

5. By and large,

Panama does not have the landed fascists vs. marxist fight that many LA countries have had, and some continue to have. Most Panamanians means most Panamanians. There are two major political parties, and neither one of them is Marxist. The PDR was not as free market as the new administration, but they are the ones who have run the country since Noriega, where it has had low taxes and bank secrecy.

That is simply fact and reality.