Panama

The US has continued since the Spanish-American War of 1898 to occupy the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. And ever since Alfred Thayer Mahan highlighted the crucial strategic importance of a transisthmian canal in the 1890s, the US was determined to assure itself of predominant influence in Panama and to exercise sovereign control over any canal that might be constructed. In 1903, ardent Panamanian nationalism against Colombian rule provided the opportunity. The US helped the Panamanian revolution but exacted a price: control of the future canal. Herein lies the crux of Panamanian history in the twentieth century. Ostensibly independent and sovereign, Panama was little more than a US colony for six decades. Panamanian nationalism was inflamed by the country’s lack of sovereignty in the Canal Zone and by the extensive rights the US exercised over its economy and its foreign policy. It was ruled by a wealthy and corrupt oligarchy of the kind common in Latin America but one that was also required to accept a client relationship with the US. If popular riots occurred, US troops intervened to suppress them. In Panama too, the United Fruit Company enjoyed extensive land and rights. Payments made by the US for use of the Canal Zone were an important prop for the economy, at times providing a third of Panama’s

Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama, 2000

National income (bananas and sugar are other important resources). President Roosevelt’s attempts to construct a ‘good neighbour’ policy could not convincingly reconcile Panamanian nationalism, resurgent in the 1930s, and US interests. The 1936 Canal Treaty was wonderfully ambiguous. ‘The Canal zone’, it stated, ‘is territory of the Republic of Panama under the jurisdiction of the US.’ In the 1950s and 1960s popular resentment against the US grew, and 1964 saw widespread riots.

After 1968 the political oligarchs lost power to Panama’s National Guard. Any pretence at even a corrupt democratic constitutional process was abandoned and General Omar Torrijos emerged as the undisputed authoritarian leader. He inaugurated harsh labour laws but also a radical programme of land reform with a populist promise that he would help the poor. He also gained support by adopting a stridently nationalist stance on the issue of the US-controlled canal and canal zone. After thirteen years of negotiating with successive US administrations, carefully controlling the pressure of mass nationalism and antiAmerican feeling, Torrijos in 1977 concluded a new canal treaty with the Carter administration, which was ratified by the US Senate in the following year only with considerable difficulty and the addition of reservations. In stages the canal passed under the control of Panama in 2000. Yet the US is guaranteed passage of the canal in perpetuity for its merchant ships and warships, and it is entitled to use force to protect these rights after the year 2000 if Panamanian troops fail to do so. Panama secured something less than total sovereignty.

The 1980s saw the nadir of Panamanian-US relations. Torrijos died in an air crash in 1981, which may have been arranged. General Manuel Noriega, an unscrupulous and brutal soldier, soon took his place. He had been recruited by the CIA, which was anxious to make use of his contacts to uncover the drug trade passing from Colombia to Panama and on to the US. Embarrassingly, Noriega himself drew huge profits from the drug trade; indeed, in corruption and brutality no previous Panamanian dictator compared. He transformed the National Guard into the Panama Defence Forces, with new powers, to act as his tool of repression. Even so, GNP per capita (the population was 2.3 million) rose to $2,240 in 1987. The elections of 1984, which allowed his nominee to become president, were a farce. The US now tried to rid Panama of the general. In 1988, Noriega was indicted for drug trafficking in the US. He countered by beating the anti-American nationalist drum. President Reagan’s pressure and economic sanctions were not enough to topple him, nor two attempted military coups which enjoyed US goodwill. In May 1989 Noriega held elections again, but when the leader of the opposition, Guillermo Endara, gathered most votes despite intimidation from Noriega’s thugs, the results were falsified. On 20 December 1989, President Bush cut the Gordian knot and 24,000 US troops descended on Panama City to arrest and overthrow Noriega. He fled to the Embassy of the Vatican but gave himself up in January 1990. He was tried and sent to prison. Guillermo Endara was installed as president of Panama.