Editorials
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
The perils of Panama Exit Noriega, enter democracy. That enticing slogan expresses the hope of the three-fourths of the people of Panama who voted for the opposition in the presidential election of...
...Whiter paper stock offers greater contrast to the typeface, leading, we have been told, to easier reading...
...church than edicts from on high...
...And the surest path lies in allowing and encouraging the Panamanian people to find their own way to bring about needed change...
...It is not a question that has one answer...
...Panama's per capita income, high among Latin American countries, must be measured against its national debt and grossly unequal income distribution...
...Bush's record so far...
...Therein lies a policy dilemma of great delicacy...
...Needless to say, that record of proprietary arrogance is known to and resented by Panamanians, and their resentment is reflected in the ambivalence many of them express about their country's relations with the U.S...
...The bishops, who have issued a series of statements over the last several years critical of Noriega's regime and supportive of democracy, organized parish leaders into observation teams throughout the country and then openly defied the law by making public their independent poll results...
...Fitzwater's outrage seems to have cooled...
...Credit for the irresistible offer goes to Thomas Brinkman, Jr., at Metroweb (our new printers) who kept coming back to our offices with new figures and new configurations of our printing budget until we had a deal that promises better printing, better paper, and better mail service (from Cincinnati) at no greater cost...
...ambassador and formally recognized Endara as president...
...they will report back on the negotiations June 5. Policy choices made by the U.S...
...For this election the usually quarrelsome opposition parties succeeded in forming a coalition and supporting a slate of candidates who, by all accounts, won overwhelmingly...
...By contrast, leaders of the opposition movement have come from a small professional and business class that has long benefited from U.S...
...The document attempted first to define and set goals for Catholic institutions of higher education and then to incorporate them in a set of seventy-two "Norms" that many believed would strip colleges and universities of their autonomy, embroil bishops in endless squabbles with the Catholic academic community, and, in the end, possibly force the secularization of many schools that have struggled to maintain their Catholic identity while meeting the needs of a diverse student body in a pluralistic society...
...Enjoy...
...Bush even argued that the U.S...
...The fruit of this elemental process is trust, the sine qua non of all genuine human exchange, the ground on which any government must stand-and, we want to emphasize, the Bush administration in particular...
...The vote for the opposition included not only members of the poorest classes, but up to half the military...
...The opposition has also been strengthened by Panama's Roman Catholic hierarchy...
...One election does not make a democracy live...
...Third, we had an offer we couldn't resist-not in the end...
...representatives reversed themselves and offered to sponsor an international conference on the subject in this country...
...Remember the Philippines...
...A new draft is being prepared and a group of fifteen from among the delegates was asked to participate...
...A group of 130 Catholic higher education officials from around the world (eighteen representing U.S...
...he refused to rush the U. S. into unilateral action...
...territory...
...Scientific inquiry operates by well-defined and generally accepted rules...
...Considerable pressures can still be exerted by concerted action-from international ostracization and regional economic sanctions to sustained support for the Panamanian anti-Noriega movement...
...On the greenhouse effect, the administration initially tried to read the scientific data through the distorting prism of laissez-faire ideology...
...In strong language they called on soldiers to disobey orders that contradict the law...
...About the administration we are not so sure...
...Since democratic government has never been effectively in place, Panama's prospective civilian leaders have little experience upon which to build a stable future...
...Fitzwater's tepid explanation: Dr...
...He has offered Noriega asylum in Venezuela...
...The cause: a new grade of paper of a type called "groundwood matte" offered us by a new printer...
...Ultimately the credibility of the scientific community was enhanced by Dr...
...The country, once prosperous, is gradually sinking into impoverishment-exacerbated by the economic sanctions the U.S...
...James E. Hansen's testimony on the greenhouse effect scheduled to be delivered to Congress...
...the election, that country's military was critical to the departure of Marcos...
...But other problems lie ahead...
...Two military leaders gave their support to Aquino...
...But it is very hard to see what benefit would come to Panama from U.S...
...we wrested its territory from Colombia in 1903, and helped create its quasi-independence as a state in order to further our purpose of building the cross-isthmian canal...
...if anti-Noriega sentiments and democratic fervor can easily wane, especially under the pressure of continued intimidation and physical brutality against the opposition...
...As for the vigor of the scientific quest, it has been underscored by the recent worldwide scientific effort to replicate the cold atomic fusion experiments of two Utah scientists...
...The OAS has sent three delegates to Panama to negotiate the transfer "with full respect for the sovereign will of the Panamanian people...
...We hope Dr...
...First, there were the readers who found our "grey" pages hard on aging eyes...
...Panama was born in the U.S.A...
...Hansen's views were "not necessarily those of all scientists who have considered this matter...
...Recall the vivid but phony footage in the television commercials attacking Michael Dukakis's alleged neglect of the Boston harbor cleanup...
...And recall Mr...
...But if the passage of time works in Noriega's favor...
...History and memory-the conflicting memories of Panamanians and Americans- make any such trip the more hazardous...
...In the Hansen case, its recovery was swift and unexpected...
...He listened to former President Jimmy Carter's firsthand account of the stolen election...
...military intervention or how U.S...
...In the Hansen affair, science and trust were both abused...
...And it is the business of scientists, not bureaucrats, to debate and clarify their areas of disagreement with Dr...
...should refrain from acting like "the Colossus of the North, coming down there to try to dictate to the people of Panama...
...The moment to start on the long road to democracy in Panama is not the day after Noriega leaves, but today...
...The emerging leadership of Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez is particularly important...
...It is possible that the church can influence the military to cooperate in the ouster of Noriega, especially in concert with international pressures for Noriega's departure...
...Since this is to be a papal document, the pope and his advisors may see matters differently than do the Congregation for Catholic Education and the international delegates...
...will bring about Noriega's ouster...
...Hansen will even be invited to speak-freely...
...They decried the fraud (as they had after the 1984 election) and condemned the violence against "people whose only armament is their unshakable will to live in dignity and peace...
...GOOD NEWS, BUT...
...Despite the arrest of hundreds of its leaders and the disappointingly low turn-out for the strike, the political opposition appears ready to continue its struggle...
...Even so, a cautionary note should be sounded...
...But finally, a document from the top down on a subject about which Vatican bureaucrats have so little experience seems to defy the oft-cited but seldom invoked principle of subsidiarity...
...As school children few of us were taught to question these actions...
...Military commanders who may aspire to political leadership have worked their way up through Noriega's tightly controlled network of corruption...
...he played down the threat of U.S...
...Second, there were laments from West Coast readers not about paper, but about late (sometimes very late) deliveries...
...Science took a momentary drubbing, but it is thick-skinned and has many defenders...
...intervention...
...government will be critical...
...activities and influence...
...He called an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) on May 17, which condemned the "outrageous abuses" during the election and called for a peaceful transfer of power...
...True enough...
...Reports from the meeting indicate that pleas for recognizing the diverse situations of Catholic higher education and the difficulty of implementing universal norms were met with attention and understanding...
...A draft document on higher education from the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education caused quite a stir at the beginning of this year in these pages ("Loading the Blunderbuss," January 27,1989) and among officials of Catholic colleges and universities...
...Hansen's testimony but the very commitment to truth-telling, the binding factor created when word and intention conform to and are fused with actuality...
...The question of the Catholic identity of Catholic higher education is a subject about which sustained discussion is needed and perhaps the "threat" of this draft has done more to focus attention on the identity question than a completed document would have...
...Its method is intended to be self-correcting...
...Faster presses and less absorbent paper mean more ink on the magazine and less on your fingertips (a small bonus for the fastidious...
...American nationals are being encouraged to leave or seek safety on American military bases...
...Without that there can be no democratic Panama...
...Suddenly, in the wake of the Hansen revelations, U.S...
...Restraint, cooperation with regional diplomatic efforts, depriving Noriega of the opportunity to take American hostages should continue as primary elements in American policy...
...Consultation among Catholic institutions of higher education on this issue is likely to be more fruitful for the church than edicts from on high...
...These are good signs: that education officials spoke up...
...In a country where election fraud is predictable and beatings increasingly common, the ouster of Noriega and the accession to office of duly elected leaders are the obvious and essential first steps...
...Even after Corazon Aquino won The Commonweal while paper f all goes well, you will be reading this issue of Commonweal with greater ease and therefore, we hope, with greater pleasure...
...and if the poor may feel that they have little to gain, then the temptation to intervene militarily will grow...
...But the bitter reality is that even when Noriega leaves- if he does leave-the journey to democracy will be long and arduous...
...the new committee of delegates in devising the next draft may find itself co-opted by the Roman agenda and subsequently committed to it...
...the Congregation could yet revert to its original intent...
...At one point, Mr...
...So far George Bush has shown informed restraint...
...An organized international drug cartel lurks in the background, collectively more powerful and harder to oust than Noriega...
...Last month, acting as President Bush's speakes-person, Fitzwater readily conceded that the administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had altered the words and conclusions of Dr...
...There will be efforts in Congress and elsewhere to abrogate the Panama Canal Treaty...
...Truth usually prevails-eventually...
...Steps toward a regionally coordinated response are being taken...
...but if that came to pass the same people might well seethe at continued U.S...
...They may wish that the U.S...
...Unbeknownst to him, his assessment of global wanning trends had been rewritten to substantiate conclusions dictated by the White House's go-slow, free-market-inspired approach to pollution containment...
...The ethos of scientific inquiry, despite pressures to produce and publish, is widely shared and maintained by the scrutiny of those employing it-many of whom have helped preserve its integrity at great personal cost...
...Because soldiers refused to fire on the people, the elected candidates were ultimately able to take office...
...Hansen, of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is one of the government's top scientists...
...given a face-saving exit, General Noriega may yet retire...
...Hansen's rapid and forthright objection to having words put in his mouth...
...That enticing slogan expresses the hope of the three-fourths of the people of Panama who voted for the opposition in the presidential election of May 7. Their aspirations are shared by the peoples of neighboring countries, probably by most people in the U.S., and even by our chastened leaders who once valued General Manuel Noriega's cooperation in pm-contra and selective anti-drug enforcement efforts over the freedom of Panamanians...
...There are, no doubt, some among you who will mourn, as we did, this move from newsprint-part of the Commonweal look from the beginning...
...George Bush took office with real questions about his integrity and truth-telling capacities left hanging from the Iran-contra affair...
...After president-elect Guillermo Endara and his two vice presidents, Ricardo Arias Calderon and Guillermo Ford, were attacked and beaten by paramilitary forces the day after the election, they did not retreat, but appeared in public, notably at Sunday Masses throughout Panama City, calling for a one-day general strike...
...Many of Noriega's staunchest supporters and most of the military are drawn from their ranks...
...In the succeeding decades, as the bitter battle over the Panama Canal treaties during the Carter administration showed, many Americans had come to regard not just the Zone but the whole country virtually as U.S...
...military intervention, while bolstering the already sizable U.S...
...But James Hansen's views are James Hansen's, not OMB's...
...It was trust that took the harder blow...
...force, adding some 2,000 troops...
...support to the Panamanian military, to encourage military abandonment of Noriega...
...Not just scientific integrity was at stake in the administration's adulteration of Dr...
...Then consider Mr...
...The best (if belated) signal the administration has sent came at an international conference on global wanning, where it had been stalling debate...
...that a document dealing with the essential issue-the Catholic identity of Catholic higher education- may yet advance an important discussion...
...he recalled the U.S...
...Hansen was distressed that "they should put words in my mouth," adding, "they even put it [a paragraph of their own making] in thefirstperson...
...Not all is bleak...
...But it is a multilayered problem over which many people have puzzled...
...schools) met with Congregation officials in Rome in April...
...On the Alaska oil spill, he all but signed on to Exxon's deceptive downgrading of the disaster...
...But good reasons-also part of the Commonweal look-led us on to new paper and printer...
...On acid rain, its reported plan to enlist market forces on the side of the environment by selling "licenses to pollute" sets a bad example and conveys a false message...
...instead we learned to admire the brave struggle to build the canal, so costly in lives and gold...
...While doing no more than encouraging may seem a very feeble first step on the road to democracy, it includes the very useful step of supporting the people themselves to take responsibility for their national fate...
...that Congregation officials listened...
...its practitioners motivated by an intentionality that is fostered, if not always by a respect for truth, then at least by the watchful eye of peer review...
...Bush's vigorous campaigning on the subject at hand-the environment...
...At most, Washington should use the threat of multinational military intervention, along with covert signals of U.S...
...DOCTORED DATA Just over a year ago, Marlin Fitzwater, newly appointed as White House spokesperson, declared it a "damn outrage" that Larry Speakes, his predecessor, had manufactured bogus quotations which were then attributed to President Ronald Reagan...
...Pressures internal and external may yet succeed...
...One-third of Panama's poor-blacks, Indians, and mestizos-who have never shared in Panama's prosperity survive with only the barest necessities...
...if middle-class Panamanians feel they have too much to lose in a long-term, bloody revolution...
...applied last year to squeeze out Noriega...
...interests would be served by open hostilities between the two countries...
...Hansen, and vice versa...
...As we said, "if all goes well"-and you will know almost as soon as we do-you should be reading this issue at twice the speed with thrice the pleasure...
Vol. 116 • June 1989 • No. 11
