-Caveat Lector-
December 13, 1999--NYTimes
Panamanians Have Mixed Feelings
About Canal Transfer
By DAVID GONZALEZ
PANAMA CITY, Panama -- With the zest of salesmen
and the zeal of patriots, Panamanian officials tout
ambitious plans to convert sprawling acres of formerly
off-limits properties along their famous canal into bustling
commercial hubs and tropical tourist oases.
Smooth and practiced, they vow to create more jobs than
the U.S. military presence here ever did, eagerly projecting
millions of dollars in revenue to benefit social programs in
health, education and housing.
But for a nation about to receive what amounts to a $5
billion bonanza, there have been few outward signs of
celebration leading up to what on Tuesday will be the
symbolic transfer of the canal and the thousands of
buildings, airstrips and military installations along the
waterway's 50-mile route from U.S. to Panamanian hands.
Banners and billboards proclaiming the fulfillment of the
1977 treaty signed between President Jimmy Carter and
Gen. Omar Torrijos to hand over the canal are noticeably
lonely sights, reflecting Panamanian ambivalence and
skittishness over the loss of U.S. jobs and money, and
skepticism about their own government's ability. It is
Panama's singular version of the Y2K glitch: how to deal
with a day that people once thought would never come.
"It's 'Gringo, stay home,"' said Guillermo Sanchez
Borbon, a Panamanian writer who was exiled under the
regime of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. "The
Panamanians don't trust the politicians to keep this thing
going. Now the gringos are going, and if anything goes
wrong, we have to fix it. And people are terrified. They
don't trust the Panamanian government. They don't trust
themselves."
The occasion is without question a landmark in Panama's
path toward transforming itself from a nation both nurtured
and overshadowed by the United States into a fully
sovereign state intent on proving to both its people and the
world that it can succeed on its own.
And government officials here speak with confidence and
the coming-of-age emotion of a son leaving his father's
house -- an image that incidentally was also used when
Panama declared its independence from Colombia in 1903.
But they know that full control of the canal and its
properties brings with it enormous challenges and
responsibilities for a country where corruption and partisan
feuds have marked much of its political history.
While most of the properties, except for the canal itself,
have already been handed over and real control over the
canal will not come until noon on Dec. 31, Panama will
soon have to develop its own national security plans and
foreign policy to protect its borders and the canal.
And although the canal is already operated by an almost
entirely Panamanian staff and will be overseen by an
agency insulated from government meddling, officials must
still seek to reassure the canal's users from all over the
world that the operations of one of the world's most
crucial passageways will remain safe and above board.
More mundane, but equally important, they will also have
to start attracting tourists to a place that most travelers had
merely passed through, and where those who stopped did
so mainly for business or banking.
Ambivalence over the hand-over has also been reflected in
the United States, where conservatives have lambasted the
"loss" of the canal and raised alarms about Panamanian
ventures with Chinese firms. Fears of a backlash may have
prevented President Clinton and Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright from attending Tuesday's events, but
they have still expressed confidence in Panama's ability to
manage the enormous trust it is inheriting.
"Panama truly steps into a class of countries that have
international responsibilities, because the canal is an
international asset," said U.S. Ambassador Simon Ferro.
"How they manage the canal will in large measure dictate
how they are viewed by the rest of the world. It is going to
be a very interesting future for Panama and the United
States."
Canal administrators said they had been preparing for
years to make the transition as seamless as possible for the
14,000 ships that pass through the canal's locks on their
route over the continental divide.
Most of the employees who run the canal have been
retained. They have begun to modernize the fleet of
locomotives and tugboats that guide ships through the
passage, and to replace ancient electric motors with
hydraulic systems to open the gates. They are also
completing a widening project that will allow bigger vessels
to pass and will lead to a 20 percent increase in traffic.
Sensitive to fears of corruption, patronage or reliance on
the canal to cover government spending, the agency will
have its own labor laws, procurement procedures and
fiscal controls to safeguard its financial independence.
Annual payments to the Panamanian government will be
held for a year, to ensure that enough resources are
available to maintain and operate the canal.
"The pinata attitude is not there," said Roberto Eisenmann,
an adviser to President Mireya Moscoso. "This is not just
a government entity that politicians can fight over to see
who can get the spoils. It is a business. It depends on the
confidence of its customers. A lot of other countries have
a stake in what happens here."
Alberto Aleman Zubieta, the deputy administrator of the
Panama Canal Commission, said the measures were also
vital if Panama was going to make the best use of the canal
and its properties.
"Obviously, our society has to understand as we do the
tremendous importance of what we are doing here and use
this route to make Panama what I think it will be," said
Aleman Zubieta, who will head the Panama Canal
Authority. "It is our destiny to become the major and most
important hub for transshipment of containerized cargo in
all of Latin America."
If it is to achieve that goal, however, Panama must first
deal with its recent past. Colombian guerrillas have made
repeated incursions into the dense jungle to the south and
drug lords have settled into comfortable surroundings in
the capital, where gleaming towers are home to
condominiums and banks.
There are also worries about the canal being unprotected
by U.S. troops, admittedly more of a psychological
deterrent in recent years because of their decreasing
numbers as bases closed.
Panamanian officials said they had adopted U.S.-style
security plans for the canal, although they had yet to reach
an agreement with the United States on sharing information
about ship traffic. They have also drawn up a national
security plan that is aimed at balancing all their concerns.
"We have lived 20 years with border problems," said
Winston Spadafora, the minister of government and
justice. "But how long could Panama live without the
canal? So we have prioritized the security of the canal and
will then gradually develop the other areas of security."
Questions about security have been raised by critics of
Panama's decision to award two port concessions to
Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong company that also
runs the largest container port in England. The move was
met with alarm by conservatives who claim the company
will be a puppet of the Chinese army and could block U.S.
ships from entering the canal.
But Panamanian officials and their U.S. supporters dismiss
the claims, noting that the ports have no control over entry
into the canal and that the transfer treaty allows for U.S.
intervention if the canal's neutrality is threatened.
"The anti-Chinese sentiment is based on a simple and
profound motive," said Robert Pastor, a political scientist
at Emory University. "At the simplest level, there are
people who have not been informed that the Cold War is
over and we won it. China is a very large country and
extraordinarily poor. It is simply not in our league."
Running the canal may prove easier than the gargantuan
task of converting drab and utilitarian military bases into
attractive money-making ventures. Already hundreds of
homes have been sold at prices that are often lower than
residences elsewhere in the city.
Still, the transformation is evident, and sometimes jarring,
in an area that for several generations was the exclusive
domain of the Americans who ran the canal and the bases.
Construction crews are busy adding new windows, doors
and rooms in what used to be the homes of high-ranking
officers, while couples are moving into low-slung
cinder-block duplexes, and Panamanian flags flutter on
lawns.
"This was our land but it was used by other people," said
Francisco de Leon, a physician who moved his family into
a three-bedroom house in Curundu. "All the history of
Panama with the United States is here. Now we have a
piece of that history, too."
The real money and challenge, however, lies in the
development of the largest facilities, especially the former
Howard Air Force base, where several companies have
already expressed interest in converting the base into a
regional transportation hub or aircraft maintenance facility.
Elsewhere, the government has been soliciting proposals
and bids for projects like manufacturing sites, ports and
eco-lodges, some of which have already been built.
The former airstrip at Albrook Field, for instance, has been
turned into a civil aviation facility, and a cavernous
shopping center is rising next to it. Officials also talk of
using the land around the canal to stimulate the creation of
maritime and environmental businesses and institutes like
the City of Knowledge, a research park planned for Fort
Clayton.
"This is where we hope to bring the Intels of the world,"
said Nicolas Ardito Barletta, who was president of Panama
in the mid-1980s and is currently the regional authority's
general administrator. "We know it is an ambitious project.
It will take 20 years to develop, but it has begun."
But ambition may also be a handicap. Ricardo Arias
Calderon, who was vice president of Panama in the early
1990s, said the nation had been given too much to soon,
making it difficult to hold on to the properties until a
potential investor could afford to buy into the grandest and
most expensive projects. He thinks the regional authority
has pinned its hopes onto too many big and uncertain
projects.
"It's like you are being sent a Chinese banquet with all the
plates at once," he said. "There is pressure to carry things
out rapidly. To do that, we have to be less sanguine about
what we can get in money for what is developed."
Big plans were far from Orlando Cordoba's mind a few
days ago, as he took a break from his bus-driving job and
sat under a tree near Balboa High School. A few feet away,
dozens of tiny Panamanian flags had been planted on the
grass, in memory of protests for the right to fly the national
colors along with the Stars and Stripes in the areas ringing
the canal.
The protests climaxed in January 1964, when several
Panamanian students were killed during a confrontation
with police protecting the Americans at the high school.
"That was a long time ago," said Cordoba, who was born
that same year. On the verge of seeing his country attain
the goal that cost the lives of those students, he was left
wondering about the price of nationalism. Christmas was
not looking good. The millennium remained uncertain.
"I do not understand," he said. "Panama will be cleaned
out, without money or anything. That was all the gringos
produced. You know how many people worked in there?
When they go, what's left?"
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