And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:05:35 -0500 (EST)
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Panama News)
>Subject: 1997 news story about the Arcenio Bacorizo case
>
>Murder case splits Arimae
>by Douglas Crouse
>(The Panama News, Aug. 30, 1997)
>
>Franklin Bailar�n had been missing just a few hours when his wife set out
>into the night to question neighbors. By late the next morning, March 27,
>1995, Bailar�n still had not showed up, though by then residents of the
>small Darien village had some clues that he never would.
>
>For the previous three days, the community had been in a celebratory mode,
>welcoming visitors from Panama and around the world to an appropriate
>technologies summit. At least two of those visitors, however, may not have
>come to swap ideas.
>
>Witnesses say they couldn't see the faces of the men who stood chatting
>with Bailar�n near midnight on March 26. The two dim lights that lined the
>dirt path were far away, they say, and besides, it seemed a relaxed
>conversation. A short while later, all agree, the men slowly descended the
>path towards the point where it meets the Pan-American Highway.
>
>It was 50 meters from that point on the following day where an Arimae
>resident discovered an empty wallet next to a patch of blood-stained
>sawgrass. Several hours later and another 50 meters away, searchers found
>Bailar�n's bruised and contorted body flung onto the bank of a small
>stream.
>
>Today, residents say the day marks not only the demise of a man, but an
>entire community. Talk of "the death" colors daily life as sure as the
>brown river that courses through the town.
>
>"People who aren't from this town believe everything here is peaceful,"
>says Alipio Opua, an Arimae leader. "That's not the case at all. They don't
>understand the situation that exists, the situation we are living. The
>murder has changed everything."
>
>From the mystery of who killed Bailar�n have sprung accusations and
>division. Three suspected collaborators await a hearing in the La Palma
>jail, while the village's cacique, Arcenio Bacorizo, has spent every day
>and night since July 15 in a cement building in La Joya prison. The four
>imprisoned men maintain their innocence, and by all accounts little
>evidence ties Bacorizo or two of his co-defendants to the crime.
>
>The extent to which Arimae's political and social fabric had come unwound
>became clear to outside observers on July 23, the day members of the
>Embera-Wounaan-Drua Indigenous Organization of Collective Lands (OITCEWD)
>held a press briefing in the cramped basement of a Panama City human rights
>center. In a two-page denunciation, they accused the heads of a newly
>elected indigenous congress---whose jurisdiction includes Arimae---of
>delivering Bacorizo to the authorities in the wake of Bailar�n's murder.
>
>Bacorizo's sons Alci and Yuri, who now head the OITCEWD, say there was a
>time when the two played at the river's edge with the same men who they
>today claim plotted to depose their father while he was out on bail last
>year. Leonardo Tuecama and Mario Cabrera, respective general cacique of the
>area outside the Embera-Wounaan comarca and president of the indigenous
>congress, say the elections which brought them to power---held twice---were
>legitimate and that Bacorizo refused an invitation to participate. They
>have called OITCEWD's accusations that they sought Bacorizo's imprisonment
>slanderous.
>
>In Arimae, many residents have come to support Cabrera and Teucama, more
>out of a need for order than consensus regarding Bacorizo's guilt or
>innocence. As a result, Bacorizo's family members find themselves the
>targets of gossip and frequent hostility. Since the murder, 23 families
>have left Arimae for "political reasons," according to Opua, who was the
>village's former cultural director and now serves as president of the local
>agrarian association.
>
>"Since the death, most people have slowly been separating from Cacique
>Arcenio," says Opua. "They saw that he was not in a position to move things
>along as he should. There was a perception that his 'trouble' prevented the
>community's progress."
>
>That trouble began the morning after the murder, when four men and one
>woman set out in a piragua from Arimae for a neighboring village. The boat
>and motor belonged to Arcenio Bacorizo. The key suspect in the murder, Sa�l
>Tocamo, was one of the passengers. Despite Tocamo's contradictory testimony
>to authorities regarding key details of the trip, suspicion has grown tha
>some alliance may have existed between Bacorizo and Tocamo.
>
>"Why wasn't he more responsible about lending his boat to those men, some
>of whom he didn't even know?" asks Marcelino Ortega, a local schoolteacher
>who led the search for Bailar�n's body.
>
>Bacorizo's first arrest on May 20, 1995 came after a two-month on-and-off
>absence when many of his neighbors say he was attempting to evade
>authorities. Because unknown community members had already lodged
>complaints against him, members of Bacorizo's family say he feared further
>conflict.
>
>In a November 1995 meeting, community leaders, including Yuri and Arcenio
>Bacorizo, Grajales and Teucama, planned an April 1996 conference to discuss
>ways to heal Bacorizo's tainted reputation. When, one week later, the
>Bacorizos withdrew their support, the other committee members continued
>according to the signed agreement. Meanwhile, the community stood still.
>
>"The congressional authorities outside the comarca agreed we should support
>(Bacorizo) as long as this benefitted the organization and our
>communities," said Abigail Grajales, secretary of the organization. "But it
>worried us that the government saw OITCEWD as a subversive organization. We
>said to Arcenio: 'Why don't you resign until this situation is cleared up?'
>It isn't that we threw him out. He never listened to us. He believed at
>every turn that we wanted to take his position from him."
>
>One year later, the first elections were held. Arcenio Bacorizo complained
>that the new leaders had violated tribal laws. In March of this year, a
>second set of elections were held. Bacorizo again abstained. When Teucama
>and his new congress secured identification cards and official recognition
>as a governing body from the Ministry of Government and Justice, members of
>OITCEWD increased their criticism. Bacorizo's detention in La Joya on July
>5 further weakened the organization.
>
>At this point Arcenio Bacorizo's fate is largely out of OITCEWD's hands.*
>In an attempt to ensure a prompt hearing for the elder Bacorizo, his sons
>and four other OITCEWD members have taken their appeals to the
>marble-pillared hallways where Panama's prosecutors and judges work. As of
>this writing, no hearing date has been set.**
>
>One element of the murder case has so far eluded investigators: a motive.
>While some Arimae residents say they believe Bacorizo and the other three
>men were somehow involved in the murder, they are at a loss to explain why.
>Bailar�n, according to Ortega, an acquaintance of the dead man, was "never
>a troublemaker and came from a good family." Alci Bacorizo calls Bailar�n
>"active and hard-working," though he says Bailar�n had offered to sell him
>and other community members drugs and that the Colombian native made
>frequent trips to his home country to try to free his father from jail.
>
>Bailar�n's widow, Salina Sotello Pipigay, and their infant son left Arimae
>shortly after his death. Sotello could not be reached for comment, though
>she---among others---declared under oath that Sa�l Tocamo wore the same
>blue shirt on the night of Bailar�n's death that was found ripped and
>blood-stained next to Bailar�n's body the next day.
>
>Administrative Prosecutor Alma Montenegro de Fletcher says Tocamo is the
>only suspect against whom a case will be pursued, and did not explain to
>OITCEWD members why Arcenio Bacorizo is being detained. A court decision on
>the cacique's appeal for release is pending.***
>
>Most of the information about the case is scattered in court files, police
>departments and law offices from La Palma to Panama City, leaving Arimae
>residents to speculate about the details. Arcenio Bacorizo says he is
>"completely free of guilt." Some in his town say he belongs in prison.
>
>Others say that whether or not the cacique deserves a prison sentence is
>immaterial. "There will be no chance for peace in Arimae if Arcenio
>Bacorizo is released from jail," said the owner of a small stand that sells
>beer, sodas and groceries who refused to give his name. "As long as he is
>there, we can try to forget our past."
>
>
>* And largely in the hands of his Panama City lawyer, Rafael Rodr�guez. To
>contact Rodr�guez with questions or offers of help, call his office at
>(507) 269-4703.
>
>** Arcenio Bacorizo's trial starts in Panama City on February 5, 1999.
>
>*** And more than a year and one-half later, still is.
>
>
>
>PS: Feel free to forward this message
>
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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