Panama: Semantics, Politics & Passion

From the balcony of his presidential palace, Panama’s Roberto F. Chiari addressed a milling crowd of 3,000 demonstrators. There will be no diplomatic relations with the U.S., he cried, until the Americans promise to negotiate a new Panama Canal treaty. “I will not deviate one instant from that position.” In Washington, Secretary of State Dean Rusk assured U.S. Senators that there would be no negotiations with Panama ”under pressure or threat of violence.” Through the tense and confused week, neither side budged; an OAS mediation team could do little more than keep an uneasy peace.

Only for a brief, early moment was there a flare of hope for quick settlement. After four days of talks, OAS mediators announced that Panama’s Foreign Minister Galileo Solis and U.S. Special Envoy Edwin M. Martin had reached what sounded like an encouraging agreement. Under the arrangement, Panama would resume diplomatic relations with the U.S. “as quickly as possible,” then within 30 days both countries would sit down to review “all existing matters” of conflict. But not long after the communique was broadcast, everything came unstuck. Claiming victory, Chiari announced that the U.S. was committed to renegotiate the original 1903 treaty. The U.S. vehemently denied this, held that the agreement was for “discussions” only, with nothing promised in advance.

Negociar, or Discutir. The sticking point was a matter of semantics—a single verb in the agreement, but an all-important one. The Spanish-language version read “negociar”—to negotiate. The English version read “discuss.” Panamanians insisted that since the working language of the OAS meetings was Spanish, their version was correct, and suggested that U.S. Envoy Martin, who does not speak Spanish, was confused. At first, the diplomats considered using the word discutir. But a Spanish-language purist objected that discutir implied argumentative discussion. Thus negociar, a softer word that means both discuss and negotiate, was substituted. Unconfused, Ed Martin at no time committed the U.S. to formal negotiations. He did, however, make a special point not to rule out treaty changes coming out of the discussions.

From Foreign Minister Galileo Solis on down, Panamanians accused the U.S. of bad faith. “Yankee doublecross,” snarled a Communist student leader. “The U.S. has never in the history of our treaty relations completely fulfilled its obligations, and those that have been fulfilled have been done tardily and grudgingly,” muttered an angry Panamanian official.

In Washington, there was dismay—and growing anger. President Johnson refused to back down. Annoyed U.S. officials raised the possibility that Chiari might not have intended to let the crisis simmer down, that the so-called “agreement” was merely a maneuver to put the U.S. in a bad light and bolster the Chiari party’s chances in the May 10 elections.

Congress was outraged. “We are in the amazing position of having a country with one-third the population of Chicago kick us around,” stormed Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. “If we crumble in Panama, the reverberations of our actions will be felt around the world.” Senators on both sides proposed an immediate study of alternative canal routes “to put an end,” as New Hampshire’s Norris Cotton said, “to the Panamanian monopoly.” Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield proposed early talks with Mexico about a 165-mile sea-level canal across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. Everyone urged the administration to stand firm on Panama.

And Their Parents, Too. Hoping to keep tempers below the boiling point, Canal Zone authorities raised both the Panamanian and American flags over Balboa High School, where the first rioting broke out. Army troops were still on the alert for renewed violence.

But most of them were pulled back a way from their positions confronting Panamanians directly across the border. Control of the Canal Zone was returned to Governor Robert J. Fleming Jr., who called schoolteachers together for a stern warning: “Tell the kids, any misbehavior and they’re going back to the States—and their parents with them.”

But flags were not the issue now. Panamanian extremists called for out right nationalization of the canal, and one Panama radio station kept dinning the hate-filled slogan: “A good Gringo is a dead Gringo.” Rumors flooded Panama City of a coup against Chiari if he gave so much as an inch on the issue of a new treaty. Students painted “Avenue of the Martyrs” on street signs along the Zone border and rubber-stamped every U.S. dollar they could find with “Yankee Go Home.” A haggard and tragic-looking Chiari, with Vice President Sergio González Ruiz, led a parade of 40,000 mourners at the funeral of twelve Panamanians killed in the first week’s riots. Opposition parties put Chiari on notice that he must never “betray the heroic gesture of Jan. 9.”

At last, after threatening all week, Chiari made Panama’s diplomatic break with the U.S. complete. All remaining officials in Panama’s Washington embassy were recalled and its affairs there turned over to Costa Rica; all U.S. embassy personnel were ordered out of Panama. The U.S. charge and his family moved to the sanctuary of the Canal Zone, while a military airlift evacuated to the U.S. another 1,500 Americans living in Panama. The U.S. consulates in Panama were still operating, and so were the Peace Corps and various AID missions. Special Envoy Martin was also staying on to see what he could do. But the discouraged OAS mediators gave up and departed for Washington, saying that perhaps this week the OAS would renew efforts to bring the two countries together.