Panama ponders motives of U.S.

Drugbusting plan just a ploy, detractors say

By Linda Diebel
Toronto Star Latin American Bureau

PANAMA CITY With the deadline for Washington to hand over the Panama
Canal still two years away, controversy is growing over whether the U.S.
military really intends to leave the isthmus.

The problems surround a proposal to turn sprawling Howard U.S. Air Force
Base here with its stateoftheart military hardware and 2.6kilometre
runway into an international centre to fight drug trafficking throughout
the hemisphere.

In Panama, and among several of its Latin American neighbours, the proposal
has opened old wounds over the 1989 invasion of Panama, raised concerns
about U.S. intervention elsewhere and hit all the hot buttons over American
involvement in Latin American drug wars.

MILITARY EXCUSE

``Nobody is telling us anything about (the antidrug centre). It's shrouded
in secrecy,'' says Mireya Moscoso, president of the centrist opposition
Arnulfista party.

At party headquarters here, she argues the antidrug centre is a thinly
veiled excuse for a continuing U.S. military presence in this crucial
strategic zone between the Americas.

The U.S. military already has begun the huge pullout of troops, base
closings and handing over of property to Panama that precedes the turnover
of the canal on Dec. 31, 1999.

``Who pays for this centre? Who runs it?'' continues Moscoso.

``We believe there are going to be at least 2,000 American soldiers at this
antinarcotics centre, with their AWAC airplanes, helicopters,
communications and everything else . . . I'm sorry, call it what they will,
that's a military base.

``And, this wasn't Panama's idea,'' she adds. ``We think it came
behindthescenes from the Americans, although we can't prove it.''

The genesis of the project has been confusing, at least publicly.

To date, it's unclear who would run and staff the centre, whether personnel
would be military or civilian, whether it would be an international
antidrug centre or even if it's a viable option.

Americans and Panamanians had been holding meetings on the idea for months,
but it was officially raised by Panamanian President Ernesto Balladares at
a Latin American conference last year.

DISCUSS IDEA

Two years ago, however, when Balladares met with U.S. President Bill
Clinton in Washington, Panamanian Foreign Secretary Gabriel Lewis told
reporters the U.S. wanted to discuss the idea.

``We are waiting to sit down with the U.S. representative to find out what
is the area of interest they have . . . they will have to make the first
presentation,'' he said then. ``Panama expects some economic benefits if we
are to consider this continued U.S. presence.''

Washington has played it cool on the proposal.

Clinton's top antidrug official army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former chief of
the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, has said the U.S. doesn't need a
Panamanian base in order to monitor drugtrafficking.

However, options appear to have been left open.

``Nothing prohibits the stationing of U.S. troops in Panama after 1999,''
says Col. David Hunt, U.S. cochair of the joint committee coordinating
the return of American military bases to Panama.

``(But) we will stay as guests.'' Hunt recently told U.S. journalists here.

In other Latin American nations where the U.S. takes an active role in
fighting drugs selling military hardware, sending in Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) agents, advising governments and monitoring
communications critics worry about the Panamanian proposal.

``It's obvious the United States doesn't want to leave Panama,'' says
Mexican university professor Luis Astorga. He also thinks Balladares, from
the Democratic Revolutionary Party, was used as a mouthpiece for an
American idea.

``It's also clear the communist enemy has been replaced by
drugtraffickers. Now that the Cold War is over, the U.S. needs a new enemy
so they can keep building and selling their military machinery,'' says
Astorga, who has written several books on the narcotics trade.

``The U.S. needs to keep a watch on the strategically important area of the
Panama Canal, but now the enemy is organized international crime, and
specifically drugtraffickers. In my view, the importance for Washington in
having an enemy whether it be the communist enemy or the drugtraffickers
is simply a strategy to control the Western Hemisphere,'' he says.

CONCERNS EXPRESSED

Opposition groups in other countries have expressed concern about U.S.
involvement in the drug wars, including Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

One of the touchstones of the Latin American debate is the argument that
the U.S. really isn't serious about fighting drugs. Critics base their
arguments on the poor U.S. record in reducing the demand for illegal drugs
at home.

``There is always going to have to be a war against drugtrafficking,''
says Norberto Corella, a Mexican federal senator from the opposition
National Action Party and a member of the Senate's defence commission.

``But I absolutely believe that what must be addressed is the reduction on
the demand side, and not supply,'' he told The Star.

``The fight against supply has fallen on its face, and I think there must
be something wrong in the thinking of the Americans when they want to
continue to concentrate on the supply side.''

Panamanian politician Moscoso also argues the proposed antinarcotics
centre has more to do with strategic and geopolitical interests,
specifically the Panama Canal into the next century.

``We think Washington wants a military presence over security,'' she says.
``Their military interest goes beyond Panama, however, and includes Central
and South America. It's not just the canal, it's the region.''

However, Panama itself certainly has an interest in keeping an American
presence after 1999.

The country stands to lose 16,000 jobs and $330 million (U.S.) in annual
wages a full 8 per cent of the country's gross domestic product after
the American pullout.

Late last month, the U.S. closed Albrook Air Station and began the transfer
of its Southern Command, which coordinated the 1989 invasion, to Miami.
The U.S. has 4,400 soldiers in Panama, down from 10,500 in 1994. The
withdrawal is supposed to be complete by the end of next year.

Marco Gandesegui, director of the Centre for Latin American studies in
Panama City, is suspicious of the antinarcotics centre.

Moreover, he argues, far more important projects exist for Panama right
now. He believes the Panamanian people are going to lose again, just as he
says they did in the 1989 invasion to oust corrupt dictator Manuel Noriega.

``(With the invasion) the Americans broke us,'' Gandesegui says. ``We had
no economy left when it was over.

``They talk about a drug centre and about the Panama Canal, but there are
no plans for real benefits to Panama. . . .

``If you look at the composition of social forces in Panama, you will see
that we are a mess. Only 15 per cent of the workforce is actually producing
anything,'' Gandesegui says. ``There must be a plan for the people of
Panama and with all the talk about so many other things that simply
does not exist.''