Panama's Long Goodbye

...Most of the ranges are located far away from developed areas, so their potential for alternative use is low...

...Since 1978, when the ten-mile strip on either side of the canal passed to Panamanian control, the surrounding rainforest has undergone a drastic deforestation, thanks to a massive invasion of landless peasants pursuing slash-and-burn agriculture...

...Alas for Torrijos, Panama, and perhaps even President Carter, "history" has not turned out the way it was supposed to...

...Some fungible products such as oil can be "exchanged" by proximate suppliers rather than actually shipped from one end of the globe to the other...

...For students and politicians alike, the name of the game is "more-Panamanian-than-thou," and nobody wants to be caught short...

...As one Panamanian environmentalist has put it, "Regardless of their class or level of education, Panamanians consider their natural resources to be inexhaustible...

...Today the problem of silting is so serious that it threatens to close down the canal for days at a time while the locks are dredged...

...STAY—JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER The Carter-Torrijos treaties established a 22-year-period of transition both to defuse political opposition in the U.S...

...The Panamanians claim the Pentagon is hiding the facts, but they seem not to have scrolled through the 23 CDs of data the U.S...

...as if our mere presence in the Canal Zone obliged us to feed and clothe three million Panamanians...

...Such action has been called for by no less a person than Julio Linares, Endara's foreign minister...

...But if it does, Panamanians may someday wake up breakfasting with the 82nd Airborne Division.3 Paradoxically, the most serious security threat in Panama these days is one that more immediately affects the Panamanians than the United States...

...Panama's struggle to free itself from the American embrace turns out to be a hollow victory indeed...

...During the last five years these areas have been subject to extensive review by a state-of-the-art technology, roughly similar to that employed by the Pentagon in the continental United States...

...It has only been in the last four or five years that it has suddenly begun to dawn on Panamanians that we actually are departing...

...In 1978 some 67 percent of Panamanians voted in favor of the treaties in a national plebiscite...

...There was never any possibility of this idea materializing...

...36 October 19 9 9 - The American Spectator of a characteristically misleading "6o Minutes" segment...

...The ugly truth is this: The last thing any Panamanian government really wants is former U.S...

...Bush does not put it past the United States to work in collusion with the Colombia paramilitary forces to stage an incident that would create a demand in Panama for U. S. bases...

...More than anything else, this vote of confidence in the U.S...

...The matter is rather serious because once the air conditioning is turned off in a building, Panama's famous humidity takes over, and within a matter of years areas carved out from the jungle will be reclaimed by nature...

...By no means do these people represent the totality of the country's population...

...to the idea of acquiring the canal, they were conspicuous by their silence...

...Some 15 percent are in tropical rainforests where, cleanup is both impractical and potentially environmentally destructive...

...Without further adieu, the MCC died an inglorious death...

...His list included Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil...

...In the protocols attached to the Carter-Torrijos treaties, the United States obligated itself to take "all measures to ensure insofar as may be practicable that every hazard to human life, health and safety" was removed from its former firing and bombing ranges...

...The reasons why are largely pragmatic — mainly the dollars Panama receives from American soldiers and their families, followed by a greater sense of security that they provide...

...Clashes between the FARC and its adversaries have lately become so common that Indian communities in many of the small villages have fled their homes...

...Today its sidings are overgrown with grass, and many of its cars lie disabled on their sides, pillaged for scrap metal or parts...

...Indeed it does, though "truncates" or "limits" would be more like it...

...As in many of the smaller Latin American countries, in Panama politics with a capital "P" is something restricted to a few districts of the capital city, the universities, and the media...

...In effect, Panama is experiencing one of the largest real estate transfers in recent Latin American history...

...The Carter-Torrijos treaties promised Panama not only the canal, but its adjoining lands and facilities...

...Southern Command, acknowledged as much in a recent congressional hearing...

...properties have been slowly reverting to Panama since 1978...

...The first facility to be turned over was the old Panama Railroad...

...Its parlous condition is merely one more example of Panamanian politicsas-usual in the country's troubled public sector, namely, padding payrolls with unnecessary employees and hiring expensive "consultants" with good political connections...

...Ten years later the canal opened to world-wide ocean traffic, benefiting the U.S...

...34 October 199 9 The American Spectator IN 1978, MOST PANAMANIANS FAVORED TAKING BACK THE CANAL...

...Some of the more desirable housing near Panama City has already passed into the hands of important politicians and their friends...

...Air Force, with the rest drawn from other Western hemisphere countries—if they could be persuaded to join.2 In effect, Balladares had figured out a way to have his cake and eat it too...

...The other reason is more abstract and yet more immediately security-relevant...

...As a result, a search began for some method to keep us there without seeming to do so...

...Now not only would the U.S...

...Linares has discovered—quite late in the day, it would seem—that the Neutrality Treaty "mortgages our sovereignty...

...others are being negotiated...

...According to the Department of Defense, of the almost 5o,00o acres involved, 41,000 will be cleared for unlimited use and about 8,000 acres consisting of remote forest will not be cleared and will therefore need to be restricted...

...After all, over the years we have provided them with a marvelous scapegoat for their country's deficiencies...

...firing and bombing ranges returned squeaky-clean and loo percent ordnance-free, as if such a thing were possible...

...In fact, the Rio Group, the largest diplomatic coalition of Latin American nations, flatly rejected it, and a summit of hemispheric defense ministers held in Bariloche, Argentina, in 1996 was hardly less enthusiastic...

...Located on the Atlantic side of the canal, formerly an attractive complex of administrative buildings and barracks, it began to rot almost as soon as it was handed over to the government of President Guillermo Endara in 1991...

...Yet at midnight on the last day of this year that canal, and the adjoining lands and facilities, will pass to the government of Panama under the Carter-Torrijos treaties, ratified by the U.S...

...However, there is no great rush to snap these properties up right now...

...But that—and much else—is about to change...

...same organization claims the existence of "mass graves" and demands an investigation of "atrocities committed [in Panama] by the U.S...

...Indeed they would...

...Presumably the resources for this will come from tolls, but here, too, Panama is discovering new and unexpected limitations...

...As things turned out, the Panamanian president was too clever by half...

...Today most Latin American countries, far from wanting to distance themselves from Washington, are clamoring for closer and more advantageous relationships...

...It is whether the U. S. government of the day has the will to enforce obligations to us undertaken by other countries...

...The prospect of U.S...

...As it turns out, the canal itself is an old facility that will require increasing maintenance in coming years...

...MORE RECENTLY, 76 PERCENT WANTED THE U.S...

...Dana Rohrabacher are right, we could end up with both entries to the canal, at least indirectly, subject to the dictates of the Chinese military...

...THE CHINA CONNECTION At the time the treaties were up for ratification in the United States, the principal concern of doubting senators and much of the American public was whether U. S. The American Spectator • October 1999 security interests would be adequately addressed once Panamanians took control...

...Some of the efforts are frankly bizarre...

...According to Al Santoli, one of Rohrabacher's aides, a special law ("Law Number 5") has been passed by the Panamanian National Assembly enabling Hutchison to assign the pilots who take control of ships and steer them through the canal...

...some seven people have already been killed at Rio Hato...

...Many are located within the canal watershed, which further limits their potential for development because of the need to protect those areas from silting, and also to assure Panamanian cities of an adequate water supply...

...By one calculation, the total value of the military installations themselves is $2.9 billion...

...The United States is shutting down its operation on the isthmus, and the many corollary benefits of its presence, including relatively secure boundaries and territorial waters, will greatly diminish or even disappear...

...The fact that the Carter people believed many of these things as well only confirmed the Panamanian dictator in his exotic notions...

...There is talk of hotels, tourist centers, educational facilities, retirement condominiums for Americans and others, and so forth...

...Now that every dog and cat in Panama finally knows that the U.S...

...reflects the dyspeptic view most Panamanians have of their kleptocratic governments, military and civilian—that, and the awareness that most of the public works (roads, schools, etc...

...to the transfer, and to give the Panamanians a chance to work their way into key positions in canal management...

...Paradoxically, the Republic of Panama is as much as anything else a creation of President Theodore Roosevelt, who, tiring of the dilatory diplomatic tactics of Colombia, connived with insurgents and foreign adventurers in what was then a distant and neglected northern province to hive off a client-state with whom the United States could more readily do business...

...in the country's remoter provinces have been built over the years by U.S...

...U.S...

...To substantiate the charge of land mines, it has brandished some rather unconvincing pieces of scrap metal, which could be anything...

...One example is the recent attempt by something called the National Human Rights Commission of Panama (CONADEHUPA) to send "victims" of the 1989 invasion to Washington to press for $z5o million in compensation for alleged "deaths, wounds, mutilations, people psychologically traumatized, extrajudicial executions, and the use of nonconventional, experimental chemical warfare...

...approve Noriega's choice for his replacement...

...Critics in the United States, particularly in the business community, have complained about the "unorthodox" bidding process surrounding the awarding of the contract...

...This point is far from academic for two reasons...

...Within weeks looters had stripped the buildings of even plumbing and wiring...

...35 Rather, it would be governed by a committee of foreign ministers of participating countries...

...The canal also faces serious environmental problems...

...Unfortunately, it is extremely short on hard evidence...

...One poll even found support for joint operation of the canal...

...and Panamanians alike...

...3 General Charles Wilhelm, commander of the U.S...

...invasion in 1989, Panama's new national police force is too small and too ill-equipped to adequately meet this challenge...

...A WHITE ELEPHANT The ironies do not end there...

...Meanwhile, there are rumors of favoritism, sweetheart contracts, and outright graft...

...Rio Hato has not been an American base for many years...

...As columnist Georgie Anne Geyer reported, "Panama peremptorily closed the bidding, secretly changed the rules, and simply awarded the country to Hutchison before the American or other firms could even know what was happening...

...presumably he carried them with him to a premature grave in 1981 when he was killed in plane crash...

...Senate...

...Although he said nothing that could not be surmised by any observer, his incidental revelation that the Pentagon was drawing up contingency plans for just such an eventuality caused a sensation in Panama, leading Foreign Minister Jorge Ritter to denounce the general and the U.S...

...air freight is cheaper than it used to be, and thanks to a device to allow the double-stacking of conex containers, so is rail transport...

...In 29 surveys reported in the Panamanian press since March 1991, public opinion has been consistently favorable to the notion of some permanent American military presence in the country, in many cases by majorities as high as 76 percent...

...Bush, "Panama should be so lucky...

...If critics like Senator Trent Lott and Rep...

...American products, American television, American consumer habits are even more widespread here than elsewhere in the region...

...Others simply underscore the deep dissatisfaction on the part of some Panamanians that as of next year their employer will not have pockets anywhere near as deep as Uncle Sugar's...

...Army engineer battalions rather than by their own government...

...Article VI of that document goes even further by guaranteeing the United States "expeditious transit" through the canal in times of conflict, which has generally been interpreted to mean that in an emergency its warships would be sent to the head of the line...

...Others, like PRD legislator Miguel Bush, deny that there are guerrillas on the border at all, insisting that the whole story "is part of a sensationalistic campaign by the United States government with the objective of altering the reversion of the Panama Canal...

...The answer is exceedingly complex...

...surrender of the canal was the first of a series of victories by the Third World, or "nonaligned" countries, against the industrialized West, and particularly the United States...

...For many years one of the principal themes of Panamanian The American Spectator • October 1999 political discourse was that the United States was secretly planning to remain—in violation of the treaties if necessary...

...negotiators tried to reach agreement on the MCC, Perez Balladares was constantly attacked by the opposition parties for trying to subvert the canal treaties by reintroducing American troops under the fiction of "multilaterality...

...As a result, some Panamanian politicians are calling for foreign assistance—in the form of (imagine...

...Some contracts have been signed...

...military provided them months ago...

...Although new environmental laws have been passed, and a program of reforestation tentatively begun, it remains unclear whether either will be adequate to compensate for two decades of heedless destruction...

...Nobody can say how many millions of dollars changed hands under the table to allow HPH to trump other potential bidders, but this is the way government business is often conducted in Panama, and nobody who knows the country should be surprised that in a contract of this size there were some glaring irregularities...

...did all this merely as a pretext to overturn Carter-Torrijos...

...If this is an unpleasant eventuality, it is one that Panamanians should have thought about before they kicked the United States out...

...1 Under the Carter-Torrijos treaties the U.S...

...It was closed for a single day after U.S...

...Not only Perez but other Panamanians have suffered from gross administrative neglect on the part of their own authorities...

...Even if they did, there is no assurance that the money would be spent for its intended purposes...

...The Carter-Torrijos treaties are merely their definitive consummation...

...The real issue, in fact, is not what the treaties do or do not authorize, but how the particular administration in power in Washington chooses to interpret our residual treaty rights...

...Balladares is smart, tough, cool—and imaginative...

...departure —although truth to tell it is not at all clear that deep down they really wish to see us leave either...

...The canal has the potential to be a money-making proposition, but only just barely, and only with prudent and careful management...

...The successful redevelopment of "reverted areas" — as these properties are called—is crucial to Panama's future financial well being, because they must replace the infusion of $35o million a year spent locally by the U.S...

...8o to 90 percent of the personnel would be from the U.S...

...For some years now the province of Darien, which borders Colombia, has become a staging area and rest haven for the Colombia's FARC guerrillas...

...He saw that certain sectors of the U.S...

...Since the United States did not then recognize the de facto Panamanian government (Guillermo Endara had been elected but never allowed to take office, and spent most of his time hiding in the residence of the U.S...

...or invade...

...Several months ago a certain Kelvin Perez was seriously wounded by an unexploded 37 millimeter anti-aircraft shell at the former Rio Hato air base...

...as it is, the canal's locks are too narrow to admit the new supertankers...

...Additionally, under the DeConcini reservation, the United States reserved to itself the right to intervene ("to take such steps as it deems necessary...including the use of military force in Panama") if and when it appeared that the canal itself was about to be closed or threatened in some way...

...While the charges of Lott, Rohrabacher, and other conservatives may be overblown — Panama is presently far outside of the strategic reach of the People's Liberation Army, and after all, HPH and the Panamanian government have a vested interest in keeping the canal open to ships of all countries—they and other Americans cannot he reassured by the sudden eruption of editorials and op-ed articles in the Panamanian press calling for the country to unilaterally abrogate the Neutrality Treaty...

...the matter of range cleanup in Panama—though not the specific case of Kevin Perez has already been the subject PANAMA'S TWO KEY PORTS ARE OPERATED BY A HONG KONGBASED COMPANY WITH CLOSE TIES TO THE CHINESE MILITARY...

...Sensing lately that the Perez case is not lighting any fires in the U.S., the Panamanian government has come up with even more sensational charges—that it has discovered unexploded land mines, Agent Orange, and Sarin nerve gas on the ranges...

...In the old days Panama's deficiencies were irrelevant as long as the United States was there to run its most valuable resource...

...So far except for Rev...

...Though its executives deny it, HPH has close relationships with the Chinese government and very particularly with the People's Liberation Army...

...PANAMA'S POLICE CANNOT KEEP OUT COMMUNIST GUERRILLAS, OR THE TROOPS CHASING THEM, FROM NEIGHBORING COLOMBIA...

...In theory President Bush could have cited the Neutrality Treaty (in its post-DeConcini version) to justify his invasion of Panama in 1989...

...This was surely the case in 1978, and was apparently ratified by our invasion in 1989...

...A case in point is the announced plan of the Association of Organized Canal Area Workers (allegedly representing 25,000 of the canal's work force) to file a $4 trillion lawsuit against the United States to collect bonuses and other labor benefits supposedly due to them...

...The fact that Noriega's puppet National Assembly declared war on the United States, and that his "dignity battalions" imperiled the lives of American civilians, made invasion the most politically palatable choice...

...The big question for the United States, however, whether deal-Mg with third-party interference in canal operation or any other security-related issue in Panama, is not so much what the Neutrality Treaty authorizes...

...The 22-year period of transition is almost concluded, and whether Panama is ready or not, one of the world's most crucial waterways will come under the management of a government that historically has been notable for its disorganization, inefficiency, and corruption...

...While untrue, it expressed a deeper sentiment: the notion held by Panamanians of all classes that the United States would never leave, come what may...

...As the conservative daily El Panamoi-America has tartly observed, "If indemnization were arranged, the government of the day would move on after its term of office, the money would run out, and the bombs would be with us still...

...Nor is it true that the United States has done—as the Panamanian government claims—the "minimum possible" under its treaty obligations...

...But what makes it really different is a huge, manmade ditch—the Panama Canal—which slices the country in two, linking the Pacific at the southern entry with the Atlantic at the northern...

...In that event, its case is bound to be weak...

...today Coco Solo is an overgrown squatter's camp...

...ambassador), Washington's choices were to violate the treaties and continue with a U.S...

...What is particularly ludicrous about the present moment is that— as Americans are packing their bags—Panamanians are still refusing to take yes for an answer...

...If there were any Panamanians actually opposed AIR FREIGHT AND RAIL TRANSPORT ARE CHEAPER THAN THEY WERE, AND THE CANAL'S LOCKS ARE TOO NARROW FOR THE NEWER SUPERTANKERS...

...I was lectured not along ago by nine members of Panama's National Assembly on how selfish the United States had been—how little it had given to Panama over the years...

...Every day that a ship waits in line to pass through raises the unit price of the goods it carries...

...As a result, there have been numerous incursions across the border by Colombian army units and also free-lance paramilitary formations searching for the insurgents...

...But in a land whose democratic political culture is hardly skin deep, what importance do ordinary Panamanians have...

...Not coincidentally, these people represent those segments of the society least likely to suffer from a U.S...

...After all, with the Americans there in force, nothing too strange would ever be allowed to happen in Panama —and in fact, so far, nothing ever has...

...In fact, what he really meant was countries he was interested in having as a political fig leaf...

...and confirmed by the U.S...

...Since then, and particularly since the death of General Torrijos and a nearly a decade of rule by his equally dictatorial (but less charming) military cohorts, Panamanians have begun to have second thoughts about the whole business...

...ARK ME last two decades...

...Where areas are inaccessible or pose grave safety risks to clearance personnel, the parcel was marked for contain-and-control measures to keep people away from unexploded ordinance...

...Over the years the country has been known largely for mob actions and rent-acrowd activities, both of which have traditionally mesmerized American liberals and our electronic media...

...In fact, they represent a tiny fraction of the assets being turned over to the Panamanian government...

...The 2 Perez Balladares used to talk about countries that were "interested" in the idea...

...To "mothball" these facilities while waiting for conversion is estimated to cost $20 million a year...

...These figures, however, are only potential, for all these properties must be converted to civilian uses to realize their full financial possibilities...

...But the centerpiece of the shakedown is the controversy over cleanup of the U.S...

...It used to be one of the three key Latin American countries for the United States, one that could count on our undivided attention and our limitless patience because it was home to our canal and our bases...

...The new Panamanian administrator was to be nominated by the president of the U.S...

...administrator of the canal and his Panamanian deputy were supposed to change places on January 1, 1990...

...A World War Thera facility acquired by the United States in 1942, it was turned back to Panama in 1970 and therefore does not fall within the purview of the Carter-Torrijos protocols...

...One feels like telling Mr...

...The results so far are less than inspiring...

...forces landed, but only at our initiative...

...On the subject of chemical weapons, it is even more demure...

...Panama's late dictator, however, always cast the matter in grander terms...

...In subsequent years the facility became an officer training school for the (now defunct) Panamanian army...

...These fears were presumably addressed by the Neutrality Treaty, which promises that the canal will remain open during times of peace and war...

...The participation, however, would be rather skewed...

...As the nationalist rhetoric rose to new heights, Balladares tried to trump his critics by upping the ante with the United States...

...treaties are not, as the Clinton administration would seem to think, automatically self-enforcing...

...MILITARY TO STAY...

...aid over the years, and most Panamanians seem to know it...

...As one of them explained, "People from other Latin American countries are astounded when they come to Panama and see poverty—this, after 90 years of association with the United States...

...presence there were 10,000 troops permanently stationed on the isthmus...

...This would presumably make it the object of an indemnity, one that would be large to start with and remain open-ended...

...He also says that the Chinese company "can block passage of ships to meet its business needs...

...There is no more Soviet Union, and the United States now stands as the sole surviving superpower...

...The Panamanian government and media are currently trying to dramatize their case by exploiting a tragic accident...

...The American Spectator • October 1999drama, which ran for seven decades, with squabbles punctuated by riots and street violence — conflicts over concessionary payments, commercial privileges, even the height at which the flags of the two countries should fly over installations in the American-controlled Canal Zone...

...would wait upon treaties to invade if it thought such action was necessary...

...International investors are waiting to see how things are after the Americans leave...

...military and their families...

...38 October 1999 - The American Spectator...

...With great brio the Panamanian government now claims that the United States has defaulted on its treaty obligations, and even threatens to take its case to the Organization of American States, the United Nations, or the World Court...

...During the months that Panamanian and U.S...

...The best it could hope for was a gentlemanly accommodation to the rising aspirations of colored peoples, who—united across the globe —were at last standing up for their rights...

...So will Panama's importance...

...Even more than most Third World countries, Panama is less a nation than a geographical expression...

...means business, there has been an undignified rush to shake it down for as much as possible before its departure...

...Even more dramatic has been the fate of the Coco Solo military base...

...negotiators proposed—but three with the possibility of subsequent renewals...

...No casualties, no soil tests, not even a stray canister or two...

...In that sense, the turnover of the canal to Panama is the last episode in the postwar drama of world-wide decolonization...

...Now, however, the "special relationship" is ending, and with it our solicitude...

...Unfortunately, the Perez accident ill-serves the purposes for which it has been conscripted...

...The first has to do with the recent granting of a long-term concession to operate the country's two key ports—Balboa on the Pacific side and 37 Colon on the Atlantic coast—to Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), a Hong Kong-based conglomerate (sometimes known as Hutchison-Whampoa...

...For Torrijos and his minions, U.S...

...Why, then, do Panamanian politicians continue to play the anti-American card...

...In Torrijos's view, the U.S., having been defeated at the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam, was finished as a great power...

...These comprehend roughly 364,000 acres and 7,000 buildings...

...In the best of cases most of its profits will probably have to be plowed back into just keeping the facility open...

...It is only a matter of time before the entire affair is given ample ventilation on National Public Radio...

...AMERICA'S EXPLOSIVE LEGACY Enter President Ernesto Perez Balladares...

...Quite the contrary, what it prefers is a permanent problem with no possible resolution...

...The economics of water transport have changed over the 33 AS THE UNI TED STATES PREPARES TO HAND OVER THE CANAL FOR GOOD, PANAMANIANS ARE WONDERING WHETHER THEY REALLY WANT US TO LEAVE...

...The Third World has turned out to be a chimera, and without polarities, "non-alignment" has lost its meaning...

...For Washington this was a nonstarter, virtually guaranteeing a semi-annual exercise in extortion—a repetition of the unproductive exercise from which we had finally freed ourselves in the Philippines...

...Generations of Panamanians have been taught by their politicians and intellectuals that the canal was a kind of cornucopia—a bottomless pit of resources that had the potential to support the entire population in the style to which it would like to become accustomed...

...Panama must take its place in line behind Ecuador and Paraguay, or at least behind Costa Rica and Nicaragua...

...Army...

...The figure of $5oo million has been bruited about by officials and the media in Panama, though it is unlikely that if the United States actually took the bait the country's claims would end there...

...government wanted to retain Howard Air Force base for anti-drug flights, and dangled the possibility before Washington...

...What he came up with, however, was a curious hybrid—a "multinational" anti-narcotics center (MCC) that, he insisted, would not be a base and would not be commanded by an American officer...

...The streets of the capital by turns suggest Miami or Los Angeles, and the pedestrians generally seem more prosperous and self-assured than their counterparts in nearby San Jose (Costa Rica) or Cartagena (Colombia...

...Perhaps not surprisingly, almost immediately the locals forgot about what they owed to the Americans, and began to agitate for a greater share of the spoils...

...Given to periodic eruptions of nationalist hysteria, it nonetheless has had a long-standing and intense relationship with the United States...

...Senate and approved by a Panamanian national plebiscite in 1978...

...military presence helped to "guarantee political stability and democracy in Panama...

...He chose not to do so, and in any event, on that occasion the canal itself was not in peril...

...At this point he is facing serial surgical procedures, and his case is dragged daily across the front pages of the Panamanian papers as Exhibit A of the government's case against the United States...

...As a result, we have the spectacle of Panama's politicians cowering in fear of university and secondary students, who have all the time in the world to take to the streets and distribute bloodthirsty proclamations to the press...

...have to pay the bills for the privilege of participating in a "multilateral" enterprise, not only would American airmen be subject to the authority of a committee of foreign ministers headed by Panama's own, but the lease itself would be not for twelve years—as the U.S...

...At the peak of U.S...

...Two-thirds of this territory is unimproved, but the other third is made up of military bases, administrative facilities, and a large firing range and munitions depot...

...The responsibility to protect Panamanians from potential death or injury on its grounds therefore falls directly on the local government, which should regularly patrol the area and arrest trespassers...

...presumably those who voted against them did so because they regarded them as excessively generous to the United States...

...Although President Bush dispatched American troops there to capture drug-running General Manuel Noriega, and also to depose the latter's puppet government, with whom it would have been impossible to proceed with the Canal turnover,' conventional wisdom in Panamanian nationalist circles held the U.S...

...with everything else thrown in—computers, high-tech medical equipment at Gorgas Hospital, and assorted machinery and immovable stock—the figure comes closer to $5 billion...

...departure has therefore made the country's political class understandably nervous...

...Grandiose plans have been hatched for the use of these properties...

...today the number has shrunk to less than a thousand, and by midnight of December 31 of this year —as established by the Carter-Torrijos treaties—only Panama will be permitted to "maintain military forces, defense sites and military installations" in the country...

...The turnover of the canal, Torrijos told his people, was an act of "historic reparation" — as if the facility had been built by Panamanians and then subsequently seized by Americans, rather than the other way around...

...military...

...a multilateral military force under the aegis of the United Nations...

...One unexpected consequence of the long goodbye, however, has been a sea change in Panamanian public opinion...

...administrator...

...There were many installments in this unlovely MARK FALCOFF is resident scholar at the American Enterprise 0 Institute and author most recently of Panama's Canal: What z Happens When the United States Gives a Small Country What It Wants (AEI Press...

...Not that any Panamanian thinks that the U.S...

...This was of course exactly what he had in mind...

...If these charges are true, Panama could quickly find itself in violation of the Neutrality Treaty, leaving aside the private understandings it reached with the United States at the time of ratification...

...The truth, alas, is far more mundane...

...Having abolished its own army after the U.S...

...It remains to be seen if this is merely a foretaste of worse things...

...If it doesn't, the document is meaningless...

...firing ranges...

...In one survey 68.5 percent thought the current U.S...

...Jesse Jackson and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, this movement has failed to attract much support in the United States...

...Surveys have divided the ranges into 156 categories of topography, soil type, vegetation, and unexploded ordinance density...

...A banker and former planning minister under General Tonijos, "Toro" Balladares is the respectable face of the Panamanian Revolutionary Party (PRD) — the hypernationalistic movement founded by Torrijos when President Carter begged him to step down and provide the country with a more respectable political face...

...With the departure of the Americans, Panama will lose not only its largest single source of income outside of the canal itself, but the invisible insurance policy that encouraged the presence of foreign investors...

...Panama has been a prime recipient of U.S...

...Although the language is Spanish (or, in some provinces, Indian tongues), English is more widely spoken here than anywhere else in Latin America...