[A-List] US imperialism: Panama

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Washington Post / Some Panamanians want the gringos back / Scott Wilson in
Panama City



Some Panamanians want the gringos back

Moves for return of US troops as the economy sags

Scott Wilson in Panama City

The homes sit mostly empty now in Quarry Heights, the imposing hillside
neighborhood where the head of the U.S. Southern Command and the governor of
the Panama Canal Zone once lived. On the flatlands below, Howard Air Force
Base is empty. Row after row of apartment buildings, community centers,
bowling alleys and baseball diamonds languish in the tropical dampness.

The whiff of imperial America still hangs heavy over the Panama Canal Zone,
the 360,240-acre strip that split the country from ocean to ocean and marked
it as a quasi-U.S. colony for almost a century. The only thing missing from
these neighborhoods are the Americans, who pulled up stakes almost three
years ago in a bittersweet departure.

Now a growing group of Panamanians wants to change that. Motivated by a
sagging economy and nostalgia for the security that the U.S. bases offered,
a coalition of rich and poor citizens has begun appealing to Washington to
send back thousands of troops and civilians at a time when much of the world
is suspicious of America's foreign ambitions.

The movement is being organized by a group of wealthy business leaders, who
recently hired a lobbying firm to carry the invitation to the State
Department and Capitol Hill. But it has yet to receive the blessing of
Panama's government, and U.S. officials have made clear that the idea is
wishful thinking.

"We've been clear with the Panamanians that there is zero chance of the
United States returning with bases or anything like that," said a U.S.
official here.

That has not discouraged the Panamanian group. They say they represent a
majority of the country's 2.8 million people and have only begun their
campaign to change minds here and in Washington. Octavio Vallarino, a
successful developer and leader of the new Foundation for the Future of
Panama, whose agenda is to bring America back, said: "The thing is that no
one wanted the United States to leave. You pumped money into the economy.
You kept us secure. We felt good with you here."

The unofficial invitation is being extended as Panama prepares for a civic
celebration of its centennial next year. A flurry of books, university
forums and newspaper columns is preceding the anniversary of independence
from Colombia, and much of the discussion involves interpreting the central
role that the United States has played in the country's political life since
then.

After construction of the Panama Canal began in 1903, the United States
controlled roughly 10 percent of the national territory, maintaining 40,000
U.S. troops and civilians here. The zone - a five-mile-wide buffer running
along both sides of the 51-mile-long canal - was administered by a
U.S.-appointed governor. The U.S. Southern Command operated a number of
military bases in the zone.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaties with Gen.
Omar Torrijos and set in motion a 22-year process that eventually left $4.5
billion worth of property in Panamanian hands. The inventory included 3,800
homes, 11 schools, 10 gas stations, three airports and two hospitals. It
also included the canal itself, much to the chagrin of conservatives in
Washington who argued that it had cost the United States $350 million and
thousands of lives to build.

In 1989, U.S. troops deposed Panama's military dictator, Manuel Noriega. The
invasion disrupted the transfer preparations, partly by eliminating the
Panamanian military that was in line to get much of the land.

"The mid-1980s was when the transfer was really supposed to be hashed out,"
said David Hunt, a retired Air Force colonel who served as director of the
Center for Treaty Implementa tion and now heads the American Chamber of
Commerce here. "Instead, you end up with Noriega, hostility between the
governments and then all-out war. So we essentially started the whole
process over again in 1992, and it was very rushed."

Up until the moment on December 31, 1999, when the United States officially
handed over the canal, even the Americans living in the former zone were not
convinced it would happen.

The departure removed an estimated $350 million from the economy, a small
fraction of its $10 billion gross national product but an amount that was
immediately felt by Panama's poor who worked on, or in support of, the
bases. Coinciding with a regional economic downturn, the U.S. departure has
been difficult for many Panamanians to overcome.

Mario Archer, once the leader of a 10,000-member union, now oversees a local
that exists only on paper. He said that less than 1 percent of his former
members, who cooked, cleaned and mowed lawns on the bases for wages
averaging $10 an hour, have managed to find new jobs - and none that pay
that much. "The United States has always been on the side of the poor," he
said. "Only a small group is against their return. Ninety-eight percent -
I'll bet it - want the gringos back."

In the waning days of the canal transfer, the United States canceled a
program that brought thousands of reservists and National Guard troops to
rural public-works projects. It is going to be restarted in January, with
the arrival of the first group of 3,500 Marine reserves and National Guard
troops. They will build schools, roads, houses and wells. Not a single
protest followed the announcement earlier this year of the program's return.

"The United States has never left Panama," said Jose Miguel Aleman, Panama's
foreign minister. "They remain very present, just in a different form. Also,
on the part of the United States, I don't think they have much interest in
returning."

The Guardian Weekly 10-10-2002, page 29