Panama enters Colombian war

President Martinelli may be violating Canal Treaties

The time bomb I wrote about for Narco News nine years ago is about to go off.

Attentive observers could already see it coming when Panama announced it would build 11 "counter narcotics bases" and supposedly staff them all by itself: The government of supermarket baron Ricardo Martinelli is on a steady course of dragging the country into the armed conflict between the Colombian government and its allies on one side and the FARC guerrilla group on the other.The pretext is not just the usual counter narcotics spin, but the Panamanians are openly saying they want to fight Colombian insurgents in the border area.

As the official version has it, a small group of FARC members was discovered on January 27th on the border of the Tuira river near Boca de Cupe, which is about a day's walk from the camp the FARC maintains or maintained in the border area. The fronterizas, a special border patrol unit of the National Police, ordered them to stop, which the guerrillas didn't. Then the police opened fire, killing three and capturing two. The three haven't been identified so far. The area has been closed off for journalists, so we may never know what really happened.

The FARC responded with a statement, in which they reaffirm their policy of not attacking neighboring countries and basically asking the Panamanian government to respect the "leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" agreement that has been unofficially in place for decades.

They also allege that Panamanian police forces are working together closely with the Colombian army, up to the point where Colombians are actually in command over the Panamanians.

The Panamanian government, responding to criticism and worries that the small country will become party in Colombia's civil war, said that it will defend the borders "up to the last meter".

To add to the mix, The Panama News then wrote that they had learned that US mercenaries are active in the area as well. Various sources reported that the Panamanian fronterizas had been distributing leaflets in the Darien province naming FARC commanders and offering a reward for their capture.

On February 20st another border incident occurred. A police boat at sea tried to intercept three fast launches near the border with Colombia and, according to the police version, the men on the launches opened fire. One policeman was hurt and their patrol boat damaged.The three launches escaped.

Pro-Martinelli newspaper La Estrella de Panama then revealed several interesting facts.

First, it claimed that a search was started to find the men on their launches. The search was executed by a helicopter and a plane of the new AeroNaval Service, assisted by a US P3 Orion that "helps out in the border area", as the paper put it.

Then, in the same story, La Estrella reported that 93 policemen had just returned from Colombia where they had been trained by the Colombian Army. Actually, in the caption below the photo that was published, they called them soldiers. It was not explained what the training encompassed exactly, given the fact that army work and police work are two entirely different things.

CONSTITUTION AND CANAL TREATIES

Panama's efforts, however, may very well be illegal under its own constitution and a violation of the Canal Treaties with the United States.

First of all, after the military dictatorship of Manuel Noriega was toppled by the US invasion of Panama in 1989, the constitution was changed to say that Panama shall not have an army ever again. Several consecutive governments have tried to push the limits of that provision, mainly by coming up with all kind of creative euphemisms ("fronterizas") and by participating in the bizarre Panamax annual naval exercises, but what passes for Panama's civil society has been very vigilant on this issue and anything reeking of military is usually rejected by the population. Thus, having policemen trained by the Colombian Army - itself tainted by scandals such as the massive slaughters in the "false positives" affair - and then calling them "soldiers" upon their return may very well be pushing it too far.

Second, the Panama Canal Treaties which led to the return of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone to Panama in 1999, explicitly state that Panama shall be neutral to safeguard the neutrality of the Canal. In that respect, Martinelli's current course is reckless at the very least. Teaming up with the Colombian army, notorious for its human rights abuses, and jointly going after the FARC is nothing but an invitation to expand the conflict into Panama. The FARC royally outnumbers the Panamanian police force and, if forced to abandon its policy of not attacking neighbors, the guerrillas may very well hit vulnerable targets deeper inside Panama (the capital) instead of allowing the theater to be limited by the Panamanians to the Darien jungle.

AUTHORITARIAN LEADER

President Ricardo Martinelli's honeymoon with the electorate is, meanwhile, over. The president, whose cousin and former campaign fundraiser is currently in jail in Mexico because of charges he laundered money for the Beltran Leyva brothers drug cartel, is facing increasing opposition to his authoritarian ruling style and blatant disregard for Panama's constitution and separation of powers. In what he himself calls a drive to end systemic corruption, he is going after opposition figures almost exclusively and the credibility of his efforts further eroded when he schemed to have Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez removed from her post by using faux charges against her by a prosecutor who had been caught red-handed running an extortion ring. The case already appears to have cost him ratification of the Free Trade Agreement with the US. His refusal to act against legislators of his own alliance who are involved in funneling millions of dollars from the Social Investment Fund into their own coffers hasn't helped him either, and even his supporters question the effectiveness of his mano dura approach to fight rising crime rates. If he drags Panama into a fourth generation warfare conflict on top of that, it will certainly cost him what remains of his approval rate.