Freedom in the World 1999 - Panama

1999 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Civil Liberties: 2
Political Rights: 1

Ratings Change

Panama's political rights rating changed from 2 to 1, and its civil liberties rating from 3 to 2, due to opposition leader Mireya Moscoso being chosen president in free and fair elections, in which judicial independence and public corruption were major issues.

Overview

The year 1999 marked the transfer of responsibility for the Panama Canal to Panamanian authorities, amid worries about the ability of these to assure its security and smooth operation. The fact that Panama's newly elected president, Mireya Moscoso, had recently taken control from a government increasingly mired in corruption and other lawlessness helped to assuage some concerns. Incursions into Panamanian territory by left-wing Colombian rebels, however, created a backdrop of worry about the ability of a country without an army to defend itself.

Panama was part of Colombia until 1903, when a U.S.-supported revolt resulted in the proclamation of an independent Republic of Panama. A period of weak civilian rule ended with a 1968 military coup that brought General Omar Torrijos to power.

After the signing of the 1977 canal treaties with the United States, Torrijos promised democratization. The 1972 constitution was revised to provide for the direct election of a president and a legislative assembly for five years. After Torrijos's death in 1981, General Manuel Noriega emerged as Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) chief and rigged the 1984 election that brought to power the PRD, then the political arm of the PDF.

The Democratic Alliance of Civic Opposition (ADOC) won the 1989 election, but Noriega annulled the vote and declared himself head of state. He was removed during a U.S. military invasion, and ADOC's Guillermo Endara became president.

In 1994, the PRD capitalized on the Endara government's record of ineptness, and Ernesto Pérez Balladares, a 47-year-old millionaire and former banker, won the presidency with 33.3 percent of the vote. The PRD won 32 of 71 seats in the legislative assembly and, with the support of allied parties that won 6 seats, achieved an effective majority.

Pérez Balladares kept a campaign promise by choosing for his cabinet technocrats and politicians from across the ideological spectrum. But his orthodox free market economic policies led to widespread protests in 1995 by labor unions and students. The president's popularity declined when the government met protests with harsh crackdowns.

During the 1994 campaign, Perez Balladares pledged to rid the country of drug influence. However, the PRD was accused of involvement in drug trafficking in the aftermath of the collapse of the Agro-Industrial and Commercial Bank of Panama (BANAICO) in January 1996. An investigation by the Banking Commission found accounts empty and $50 million unaccounted for, as well as evidence that the bank was a central money-laundering facility. BANAICO was named in several U.S. drug investigations, including one into José Castrillon Henao, a Colombian who was arrested in April 1996 as the reputed organizer of the Cali cartel's seagoing cocaine shipments to the United States. Alfredo Alemán, a board member of BANAICO, was a friend and top advisor to Pérez Balladares and was a major contributor to the party's 1994 campaign. Pérez Balladares himself was forced to admit that his campaign unknowingly accepted a contribution from Castrillon Henao, who was in May 1998 extradited to Florida to stand trial for money laundering. The Perez Balladares administration further damaged its popularity when it restored government jobs and awarded a reported $35 million in back pay to former members of the Dignity Battalions, who had been Noriega's paramilitary enforcers.

In 1997, the son of a prominent PRD politician and two other Panamanians were found innocent of killing an unarmed U.S. soldier in 1992 in a trial plagued by political pressure and other irregularities. In August 1998, voters rejected by an almost two-to-one margin a referendum on a proposed constitutional amendment that would have enabled Pérez Balladares, whose government was mired in censorship, corruption, and an increasingly tenuous claim to fidelity to the rule of law, to stand for reelection.

In May 1999, Moscoso, the widow of three-time president Arnulfo Arias and herself an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1994, won 44.8 percent of the votes, more than 7 percent above the amount garnered by her rival, Martín Torrijos, as the head of a PRD-led coalition. Moscoso's coalition, the Union for Panama, won just 24 congressional seats as compared to the PRD's 38. However, she was able to forge a deal with a group of small parties to give her coalition a working majority.

The Moscoso government moved quickly to overturn an attempt by Pérez Balladares to pack the judiciary before he left office. It also sought to increase joint antinarcotics efforts with the United States, a partnership which had faltered under Pérez Balladares. Repeated incursions into Panamanian territory by Colombian guerrillas fostered increasing concern around the region over the spillover effects of Colombia's civil war.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Panama's citizens can change their government democratically. The 1999 national elections were considered free and fair by international observers. The constitution guarantees freedom of political and civic organization. In early 1999, Panama's largest political parties agreed to ban anonymous campaign contributions in an effort to stem infiltration of drug money into the political process. Following the May elections, 5 of the 12 political parties that had taken part were dissolved after they failed to win the five percent minimum required by the electoral law.

The judicial system, headed by a supreme court, was revamped in 1990. It remains overworked, however, and its administration is inefficient, politicized, and prone to corruption. An unwieldy criminal code and a surge in cases, many against former soldiers and officials of the military period, complicate the judicial process. In February 1998 the supreme court declared unconstitutional the provisions that authorize the ombudsman's office to investigate the administration of justice, claiming that the watchdog agency's role violates the principle of judicial independence. In the final days of Pérez Balladares's presidency, a new three-person section of the Supreme Court was created. Pérez Balladares said the new branch was needed to speed up the process; opponents accused him of trying to pack the court so as to shield himself from corruption investigations.

The PDF was dismantled after 1989, and the military was formally abolished in 1994. But the civilian-run Public Force (national police) that replaced the PDF is poorly disciplined and corrupt. Like the country's prison guards, officers frequently use "excessive force." It has been ineffectual against the drug trade, as Panama remains a major transshipment point for both cocaine and illicit arms, as well as a money-laundering hub. In 1999, the discovery of human remains thought to be those of an antimilitary regime cleric who disappeared in 1971, revived demands for a reopening of dozens of cases of disappearances that occurred during 21 years of military rule.

The penal system is marked by violent disturbances in decrepit facilities packed with up to eight times their intended capacity. About two-thirds of prisoners face delays of about 18 months in having their cases heard.

Panama also continues to be a major transshipment point for illegal aliens seeking to enter the United States, including large numbers from Ecuador.

Panama's media are a raucous assortment of radio and television stations, daily newspapers, and weekly publications. Restrictive media laws dating back to the Noriega regime remain on the books, however. The law permits officials to jail without trial anyone who defames the government. Legal codes establish government control of work permits for journalists, strict defamation and libel rules, and a clause that permits reporters to be punished for "damaging the nation's economy" or national security.

Labor unions are well organized. However, labor rights were diluted in 1995 when Pérez Balladares pushed labor code revisions through congress. When 49 unions initiated peaceful protests, the government cracked down in a series of violent clashes that resulted in four deaths and hundreds of arrests.

Since 1993, indigenous groups have protested the encroachment of illegal settlers on Indian lands and delays by the government in formally demarcating the boundaries of those lands. Indian communities do enjoy, however, a large degree of autonomy and self-government.