With Quarreling Neighbors and its Own Guerrilla Camps, Panama Is In a Tough Spot… and US Involvement Threatens to Make Things Worse

By Okke Ornstein
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

March 7, 2008

PANAMA CITY: In 2001, I wrote on these pages that the Darién jungle province separating Panama from Colombia was a ticking time bomb. Over the years, however, I started to wonder if I had been wrong on that. All seemed quiet on Panama’s eastern front. But today, the time bomb can be heard ticking again and may be ready to go off.

Panama will not break diplomatic ties with its neighbor Colombia – as Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua have already done – in response to the Colombian attack on Ecuadorian soil against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in its Spanish initials).

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa visited Panama yesterday and met with president Martín Torrijos. At a press conference afterward, Correa again sharply denounced the Colombian attack, but Torrijos did not follow suit.

The official position is that Panama’s ambassador at the OAS, Aristides Royo, is trying to play a mediating role between the different parties. Yet, other news suggests that there is more at stake.

Read the rest of the story at the Narco News Bulletin.

Interesting story in El Siglo today. Written by Tomas Cabal - a journalistic gun for hire and El Siglo not being known for reliable reporting either - it should not be taken at face value, but nevertheless. Cabal alleges that the government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is paying Panamanian politicians of the so-called “left wing” of the ruling PRD party.

The names of the recipients include legislator Hector Aleman, Minister of Housing Balbina Herrera and the President of the National Assembly Pedro Miguel Gonzalez - yes, that’s the guy whom the US government claims is a “terrorist” for killing an American soldier.

Vandaag voor het eerst meegewerkt aan het VPRO/RNW radioprogramma WereldNet. Luister hier.

De Christelijke jihad in de bocht. Wat is het toch een verschrikking, die hypocriete samengeknepen billen politici en hun gristelijke normen en waarden. Oh, we mogen niet beledigen. Oh, we moeten respect hebben. Oh, wat erg toch dat Wilders iets akeligs over de Koran gaat zeggen in een filmpje. Oh, wat erg dat er een antieke pornofilm op TV komt. En nou willen ze weer het vloeken strafbaar houden, die godverdommese bijbel-asocialen. Hirsh Ballin, die zwakzinnige paap, draaikonten en doen.