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Number 20, Summer 1997

Panamá Update Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean 2017 Mission St. #305, San Francisco, CA 94110 Tel: (415) 495-6334, Fax: (415) 495-5628, E-mail: forlatam@igc.apc.org

Editorial
Persistence and the Road Ahead

This September 7 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Panama Canal Treaties in 1977. The treaties and their ratification by the U.S. Senate marked an important commitment to decolonizing U.S. relations with Latin America, perhaps more radical than the recent transfer of Hong Kong from Great Britain to mainland China, because in Panama the canal and the military bases on its banks are to be turned over not to another superpower, but to the people who live there and run the canal.

At the time the treaties were signed, many Panamanians opposed the treaties, because the Neutrality Treaty permits the United States to intervene to "protect canal operations," even after troops are due to withdraw from the isthmus by December 31, 1999. It was this clause of the Neutrality Treaty that George Bush cited when he ordered 25,000 troops to invade Panama in December 1989, although the invasion was the only time in the canal's history when the canal was closed from human causes.

Today, an unrepentant State Department and a Panamanian government prostrate before Washington's revived military complex are negotiating a continuation of U.S. military bases in Panama after 1999. As retired General Ruben Dario Paredes wrote recently, "U.S. Generals [Barry] McCaffrey and [Wesley] Clark and Ambassador Hughes, whenever the chance presents itself, tell the media that the idea of a 'counter-drug center' which includes soldiers came from the Panamanians... [They are] telling the world and international opinion: 'We want to honor the treaties and go, but the Panamanians won't let us!'" Paredes continues: "We Panamanians have a proclivity for... fantasies about the North Americans that aren't real but persist in our minds, for example, that in all key decisions in national life, the 'gringos' have the last word."

Many people in our country believe the same: if the Pentagon or Jesse Helms want something, they're going to get it.

In the Fellowship of Reconciliation, we have refused to believe this. We persist in the belief in that utopian call: "The people united will never be defeated." The belief that U.S. relations with Panama and the region will be healthier if the State Department and Pentagon release themselves and the rest of us from the drive to control people and lands to the South. That the destiny of Panama is in fact in the hands of Panamanians. That drug addiction and economic dependence on narcotics traffic can best be treated through public health care and alternative development in coca-growing areas, not more guns and armies acting with impunity against the poor. That empire is intrinsically unstable and one day will fall.

Based on these convictions, we organized high-level meetings with policy-makers in Washington in February. ("You certainly got their attention," one experienced activist said of our meeting with nine officials at the State Department. "I've never seen them bring people over from the Pentagon for a meeting before.") We have uncovered evidence of the use of depleted uranium, nerve agent and chemical weapons in Panama, and released our findings to the press, causing an uproar in Panama during the first week of July. We have collaborated with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Grassroots Panamanian Human Rights Coalition (COPODEHUPA) on a study of the United States' obligations to clean up contamination on military bases in Panama.

As this issue of Panamá Update goes to press, we are preparing a delegation to Panama that will include religious leaders and activists from the United States, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Bolivia, and will participate in public for a organized by both the Panamanian government and Panamanians grassroots groups. Delegates range from a researcher who has documented the drug war's human rights abuses in the Bolivian Chapare, to a peace and justice leader struggling against the proposed transfer of troops from Panama to Puerto Rico, to an expert in citizen participation in military base clean-up in the United States.

This linking of efforts is key to addressing problems common to people affected by militarism and environmental contamination, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Panama City to the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, two thirds of which is occupied by the U.S. Navy. The conversion of military budgets and installations to programs that benefit the world's poor majority, and the clean-up of toxics and explosives generated by decades of military war exercises are no small challenges. The Fellowship of Reconciliation intends to persist, and hope to work together with you along the way.