Fellowship of Reconciliation

Pressure for a Military Base Agreement is On
by John Lindsay-Poland

Amid election-year rhetoric about the drug war, the United States is escalating its pressure on Panama to negotiate a new deal for a military presence in Panama after 1999. The increased U.S. pressure follows a proposal in July by Panamanian president Ernesto Pérez Balladares to establish a multi-national counter-drug center on Howard Air Base in Panama.

The Senate passed a unanimous resolution on September 5 -- sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms -- urging the Clinton administration to negotiate a new agreement. Within days, Washington leaked the appointment of John Negroponte as the United States' lead negotiator on the Panama base issue. Negroponte, currently ambassador to the Philippines, is known for his role in imposing U.S. bases in Honduras during the Nicaraguan contra war in the Reagan years. This and other signals from the United States do not bode well for Panamanian sovereignty.

One Washington official told Panamanian Foreign Minister Ricardo Alberto Arias that "we are rapidly approaching the final two minutes of the game" for make a base deal.

"The negotiations should be concluded by June at the latest," according to the daily El Panamá América, "to allow time for the national plebiscite required by the Constitution, and given the approaching political campaign, which will get going in mid-1998."

Base Opposition More Vocal
The calls are mounting in Panama against keeping the U.S. military in Panama -- under any guise. A declaration calling for complete turnover of the canal and bases was endorsed by a broad range of Panamanian figures and organizations, ranging from human rights, leftist and labor groups to former president Guillermo Endara, himself sworn in on a military base during the U.S. invasion in 1989.

The National Coordinating Committee of University Students demonstrated against base negotiations on September 11, saying they were "alert to any decision for re-negotiating the military bases." Sixty- five percent of university students said they were against a new base agreement in a poll taken late last year.

The human rights group COPODEHUPA, which represents victims of the 1989 U.S. invasion before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, condemned the Helms Senate resolution, while labor leader Gabriel Castillo said it would be "catastrophic" if Panama gave the United States free use of Howard Air Base.

The ruling Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) continues to be sharply divided over military bases. The party's leadership met with Foreign Minister Alberto Arias August 7 to consider the issue, ending without a consensus and with the party's president, Gerardo González, visibly upset as he left the meeting room.

Former foreign minister Raúl Mulino said that Pérez Balladares has boxed himself into a corner, and that "what he has to deal with now is a political problem." The problem, he said, is "how to disguise the genuine and unilateral decision of the United States to stay, and that -- for a torrijista and PRD government is a tremendous problem. They can't eat their words now."

The PRD was founded by then-Colonel Omar Torrijos, who negotiated the Canal Treaties that give Panama sovereignty over the canal and U.S. bases by December 31, 1999. Pérez Balladares ran his 1994 presidential campaign as the political heir to Torrijos' legacy.

Panama has undertaken a national consultation process -- the Coronado process -- with political parties and organizations from a wide spectrum of civilian society to reach consensus on the future of U.S. military facilities in Panama and canal operations. This process is critical, since the PRD government was elected with only 33% of the popular vote. A poll in April showed that less than half of all Panamanians want the bases to stay if the United States gives no economic compensation for their use. On September 25, Coronado III studied the master plan for land use in the canal area and rejected continued military bases, declaring them an "obstacle" to national development.

Cold War Response
But the consensus was dismissed by U.S. Ambassador William Hughes, who was quoted as saying that it is "normal in a totally democratic country that there are groups and sectors who come out in favor or against a given issue."

The new U.S. coordinator of base negotiations with Panama, John Negroponte, has a history as a Cold Warrior. As Henry Kissinger's assistant in during Paris Peace Talks in the early 1970s, he resigned his post because he disagreed with the Paris Peace Agreement that cinched U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War. As diplomatic coordinator of the contra war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he supported a strategy that targeted economic development projects for destruction and aimed at the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, not to mention the militarization of Honduras' political process.

Counter-Drug Base Boosted by Southern Command...
Pérez Balladares' hope for a way out of his political problem seems to lay in "converting" Howard into a multi-national center for surveillance of the "air bridge" used by drug traffickers in Central and South America and the Caribbean. If the base is "multi-national," then Pérez Balladares can try to neutralize popular demands for Panamanian sovereignty, as well as for economic compensation for continued occupation by U.S. military forces.
For their part, the Clinton administration and Republican-lead Congress have vied with each other to fuel the military drug war, especially since former Southern Command chief General Barry McCaffrey was appointed the nation's "drug czar" last January. In September, Congress approved a $213 million request from President Clinton for the international anti-narcotics account, with a strong accent on Latin America -- nearly $100 million more than last year's budget.

The same day as Panamanians called the bases an obstacle, U.S. military officials gave Panamanian reporters their first tour ever of the radar facility on Howard Air base. The facility is used to track unauthorized planes in the Andes and Caribbean; that information is then passed to the corresponding country's air force, which is theoretically prepared to shoot the planes down.
"There's no better country than Panama strategically," Colonel Thomas Fleming told Panamanian reporters. "There are facilities here that the budget of the United States or of any other country could not re- create," Fleming said. The center already has officials from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela who live permanently in Panama and act as liaisons with their countries.

The Southern Command has stepped up the pace of military activity in Panama this year. "The largest joint anti-drug operation to date," called "Laser Strike" was launched by the Southern Command and the militaries of Colombia and Peru in April, according to Southern Command chief Wesley Clark, with 680 U.S. troops participating. In August, U.S. Navy SEALs carried out training on the Pearl Islands, while Army Special Forces trained troops from Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay in October. One observer, who returned to Panama after several years' absence, said there was more military activity than he could ever remember.

General Clark gave his blessing to the proposed counter-drug base in Howard, saying, "It is an interesting proposal, and ever since we heard about it we have supported it." General John Sheehan, chief of the Atlantic Command, said in June that he expected 4,000 U.S. troops to remain in Panama after 1999 to fight the drug war.

Panamanian Foreign Minister Alberto Arias said that if negotiations occur, they are likely to focus on Howard Air Base. "If in fact there are no economic benefits for Panama from the presence of any military bases beyond the year 2000," Alberto Arias said, "and the United States has gotten tired of saying they will not pay rent -- then we believe the only offer of interest to us is President Pérez Balladares' proposal for the conversion of Howard." Alberto Arias emphasized that Howard should be under civilian control, though sources familiar with the Pentagon's position doubt that it will yield control of the equipment on Howard to civilians.

...But Multi-National Base Rejected by Latin Americans
But most Latin American governments have been cool to the idea from the beginning, some because they see it as elbowing into their sovereignty, some because they would rather leave drug control to police forces.
The multi-national center proposal was nixed by Latin American Defense Ministers when they met in Argentina October 7-9. U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry "irritated encrespó most of the Latin American countries, especially Mexico and Brasil, by enthusiastically supporting Panama's proposal for hosting a multi-national center to control drug trafficking," reported the Argentine daily La Voz del Interior. The meeting's final document excluded any reference to the proposal and to anti-drug activities.

Mexico reportedly opposes Panama's proposal because it wants to set up a regional anti-drug center of its own. Only Colombian Attorney General Alfonso Valdivieso has spoken strongly in favor of the proposal, but conditioned its success on every country carrying out its action plan.

Pérez Balladares reacted angrily to the defense ministers' rejection of his proposal, saying they "read between the lines," in reference to fears expressed by the defense ministers that the center would be used to carry out raids that will violate sovereignty in Latin America. He said that Panama does not have the $200 million a year needed to run the anti-drug base.

The widespread expectation of economic compensation for the bases may send the proposal sinking. Even pro-Yankee rightist political parties in Panama demand that the PRD negotiate rent for the bases or obtain indirect compensation -- such as a free trade agreement. The White House has insisted that the United States will not pay direct or indirect rent, but that revenue from several thousand troops ought to satisfy Panama.
In a mock negotiation session staged by the Army War College in April, U.S. negotiators demanded that troops be quartered in "secure" areas, probably on Fort Clayton. Panamanian planners, however, envision Clayton as the future "downtown" of Panama City. The Panamanian side in the staged negotiations (lead by former U.S. Ambassador to Panama, Ambler Moss) insisted that U.S. troops can live in civilian housing, just as DEA agents do around the world.

"The United States should stop seeing Panama as a security sphere or a launching pad and start seeing it as a regular country," said a participant on the Panamanian team in the mock negotiations.

Sources: La Prensa 7/8, 9/10, 9/16, 9/22, 9/26, 10/9, 10/10; El Panamá América 9/26, 9/27, 10/5, 10/13; Miami Herald 7/19/96; La Voz del Interior, 10/8/96; interview with mock negotiation participant.