Okke Ornstein in Panama | Dispatches from the isthmus

As if things aren’t already wacky enough with these crazy coupsters in Honduras: Not only did they just abolish the constitution to survive because they had to save the constitution by violating it – yes, you read that right, it’s rightwing coup logic – but now they want Panama to do the same!

Adolfo Facusse

This guy Adolfo Facusse, according to The Field, a “Honduran business magnate who earlier this month was hauled off an arriving airplane in Miami by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents then deported straight back to Honduras – is one of those fast-and-loose players who, even while deserting the Titanic, will look for some advantage in securing the best lifeboat exclusively for him, or at least stuff whatever silverware he can grab into his pockets on the way out.” So that guy, then, has now all by himself thought of a solution for the coup problem, and part of that solution are peace keeping forces. From Panama!

Tiny little problem here is of course that, as we down here all know, Panama has no army and thus no forces to be sent. What’s more, the constitution (article 305) explicitly forbids Panama from having an army, just a police force led by civilians and for domestic use only. This was established with the revision of the constitution of 1994, notably to prevent a military coup from ever taking place again on our isthmus.

Are we now to violate our constitution that protects us from military coups to provide a graceful exit to a bunch of military coupsters who had to violate their constitution to save and then abolish it? Somehow I don’t see how that would work without having massive protests. Not to mention the fact that the Panamanian police is neither trained nor equipped to perform military peacekeeping duties.

Facusse’s idea – if you can call it that – is simply not connected with reality, which actually makes it a sort of mainstream putsch thinking.

It reminds one of this joke Panamanians told during the military dictatorship. The story went that intelligence was no longer measured in IQ points, but in “tar”. A very intelligent person would be a “megatar”. A normal person would be a “mediotar”. And then the really retarded and stupid were a “militar”.