Anniversaries sometimes emanate flashes of political news that exceed remembrances. This Tuesday they are fulfilled 25 years of the synchronous moment in which Panamanian flag began to fly in the Canal Zone while the United States flag was removed from the mast. On the threshold of the 21st century, a history marked by bilateral conflicts was coming to a close, with its turning point with the agreement signed in 1977 by the North American president, Jimmy Carter, and his Panamanian colleague, Omar Torrijos Herrerawho would die in a strange plane accident four years later. Death found Carter last Sunday. His name has been revered in the Central American country, and not only for the role he played almost half a century ago.
The figure of the late head of state acquires another relevance and strength a few weeks after his return to the White House. Donald Trump. Before taking office, the real estate magnate threatened to regain US control over the Canal if his authorities do not reduce tariffs and reduce the Chinese presence in its ports. “Fuck Trump”was the slogan that Panamanian unions They launched with the burning of a flag with 50 white stars. The president José Raúl Mulino He avoided insult but not firmness. “There is nothing to discuss, the Panama Canal is Panamanian”, said. And he added: “I want to express precisely that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belongs to Panama, and will continue to be so.”
Carter’s death allowed Mulino to contrast American leadership. “His time in the White House marked complex times, which for Panama were crucial to negotiate and agree on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977, with which the transfer of the Canal to Panamanian hands and the full sovereignty of our country was achieved. Peace to his soul.” As for Trump, Mulino showed his confidence that the Republican leader will not go from words to actions and that he will seek to maintain “the best relationship” possible with the next president despite the differences that may arise.
History of conflicts
Panama separated from Colombia in 1903, after the call Thousand Day War. Almost immediately, he signed a treaty with Washington that not only placed that small country under the North American military orbitbut the foundations were laid for the construction of a 16-kilometer-wide canal that, a decade later, would change the times of the international trade. The bilateral agreement assigned a perpetual grant to the United States. Over the years, this possession aroused a nationalist wave that sought above all to recover the rights to that strategic area.
In the middle of the global decolonization processesand not without episodes of violent confrontation, such as the death of 20 protesters who were demanding Panamanian sovereignty, in 1964, the political conditions were created to move towards a reversal of dominance. During the last stretch of the presidency of Richard Nixon, In 1974, the repeal of what was signed in 1903 was agreed. Three years later, it was Carter’s turn to sign, together with Torrijos, two treaties: one of neutrality and another of channel return.
Trump’s bravado took Republicans’ permanent discomfort with the step taken by Carter to another level. His successor, Ronald Reaganhad been a tenacious opponent of the transfer of the Canal, but upon entering the Oval Office he refrained from challenging what was agreed. Between the event of 1977 and the last day of 1999 when the US flag stopped flying in that area, on December 20, 1989, the American army invasion to that country to capture its de facto ruler, General Manuel Noriega, accused of drug trafficking. The military operation caused between 400 and 500 deaths, according to various sources.
Challenges on the horizon
“On this day we come of age as a nation,” said the Panamanian president, Mireya Moscosoa quarter of a century ago. And that “majority” has just been questioned by the future president of the United States, in the face of Latin American perplexity, who heard those words as another sign of difficult times ahead. Mulino told CNN that, if Trump tries to move in the direction suggested, the Central American country will defend itself in the necessary instances. “Panama has the muscle that gives the international law to support in law why we own the channel, period”.
The Panama Canal does not have the operation or dynamics of 1999. It was modernized with a third set of locks in 2016. The interoceanic route has had operating income of 4,986 million dollars despite the reduction in daily transits due to the drought.
Aristides Royo He began to govern the isthmus shortly after the signing of the Carter-Torrijos treaty, in whose negotiations he actively participated. That experience leads him to affirm that Trump’s threats are unfeasible for contractual and also political reasons. Royo served until last June as Minister for Canal Affairs.
He recalled in this regard that the 1977 agreement includes “practically identical” statements by the two signatories in which it is stated that Washington “will never interfere with the sovereignty of Panama, with its territory, with its political system, and that the terms of the treaty will be absolutely respected.” He stressed that even after the 1989 invasion, under the administration of George Bush, “there was no North American threat to roll back the treaties.” The Trump era will test the value of the written word and the firmness of the Latin American community.
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