Panama wants to stay out of the drug war

Fearful of walking in the footsteps of Thailand during the Vietnam War, officials in Panama want to stay out of the U.S. offensive in Colombia.

By Mark Schapiro

Aug 30, 2000 | As President Clinton stands in Cartagena Wednesday to formally launch the United States' $1.3 billion anti-narcotics offensive in Colombia, top political figures in neighboring Panama appear to be taking a lesson from history.

"We do not want to become the next Thailand," says Marco Ameglio, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of Panama's National Assembly. Ameglio, like others in the Panamanian government, fears that the coming U.S.-funded offensive will drag his country into a war in much the same way that Thailand was dragged into the Vietnam War: as a staging area for U.S. troops and a destination for refugees.

The U.S. anti-narcotics offensive, known as Plan Colombia, will provide military training, helicopters and surveillance to the Colombian military as part of an effort to cut off the world's biggest source of illegal drugs into the U.S. While the U.S. insists the anti-drug push is not a military offensive, critics say the line between fighting drugs and fighting leftist guerrillas is dangerously blurred. Many critics also point to troubling human rights records on the part of the Colombian military, which will be receiving the bulk of the U.S. funds.

Only nine months ago, the last American troops left Panama as part of the final turnover of the Panama Canal. Now the State Department is demanding that Panama allow U.S. forces back in. Since mid-May, acting undersecretary of state for Western hemispheric affairs Peter Romero has been shuttling to this capital city to pressure the government to sign a visiting forces (Fuerza Visitante) agreement that would return U.S. troops to Howard Air Force Base, the former headquarters of the Army's Southern Command, as well as other now-vacant U.S. military installations.

Ameglio's fears about Panama's role in Plan Colombia are shared by practically the entire political spectrum in Panama -- including the major opposition parties and the president, Mireya Moscoso. She has thus far resisted pressure to sign an agreement that would permit U.S. troops to use the country as a support zone for its operations in Colombia.

Official State Department policy is not to speak about the specific provisions of the Fuerza Visitante proposal. Public statements thus far are limited to invitations to join in the war on drugs. Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy in Panama issued a statement explaining that the agreement would involve "joint anti-drug maneuvers and training, a program that would assist the security of the United States, and the enforcement of international conventions [against narcotics]." U.S. Ambassador Simon Ferro has expressed impatience and incredulity with the Panamamians' resistance. He says the agreement would only "benefit" Panama by "improving their capacity for joint [anti-narcotics] exercises."

Panamanian officials familiar with the negotiations discussed some of the details of the U.S. proposal with Salon News. They say the country would become a staging and rest area for troops rotating into Colombia to train and assist the Colombian military and national police. Military airstrips in Panama would be used for anti-narcotics surveillance flights, and training would be provided to the Panamanian police (the country has no standing army).

Most controversially, the proposed agreement sets no limits on the number of troops to be stationed here; and demands that U.S. forces be subject not to Panamanian legal jurisdiction, but to U.S. military law. That proviso hits a raw nerve in a country which only 11 years ago was invaded by U.S. troops. Panama has a long history of what Carlos Lopez Guevara, a former ambassador to the U.S. who helped negotiate the Panama Canal treaty, calls a "regimen de capitulation" with the United States. (The country's declaration of independence in 1903 was provoked partly by Theodore Roosevelt's desire to dig the canal through what was then a province of Colombia. The country's first ambassador to the U.S. was a Frenchman who negotiated the sale to the U.S. of the French Panama Canal Company).

The Fuerza Visitante comes at a delicate moment, when obtaining control over the canal has spurred a process of redefining Panama's national identity. "For Panamanians, it's a whole new story," says Ameglio. "Starting January first this year, we are rewriting our story as a nation. Now the U.S. wants permission for an unlimited amount of military forces to come here at anytime with diplomatic status. The Plan Colombia, that's almost a declaration of war against the guerillas, or the narco-traffickers. I don't think their plan will be successful. But it will affect our country."

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