Por sus acciones los conoceréis

Colamarco unconvincing in Panama land quagmire

10 10 2005, by Okke Ornstein

Can a former commander of the dignity battalions, Noriega's infamous goon
squads, be trusted with regulating land ownership in Panama? That is
the unspoken question that hangs over the ongoing debate about the
proposed Law 132, which claims to bring clarity in the often chaotic
situation of titled land, Right of Possession (ROP) land and
unregistered land in Panama, most notably the province of Bocas del
Toro.

A storm of protest was the result of the initial proposal, Bocatoreños
left by bus for Panama to attend the public debates by the Comision
de Hacienda in the National Assembly, the Provincial Council of
Colón rejected the proposal in strong terms, and the Foundation for
the Development of Tourism in the Caribbean was in almost permanent
session to discuss alternatives and strategy. Bocas town is the scene
of protest marches and town square meetings.

The law, as proposed, allows the government to take away land from
indigenous tribes and families and foreign retirees and investors
alike, introduces a system of concessions in designated tourism
development areas, and is basically an invitation for corruption and
full-time employment for Panama's abundant population of lawyers.

"When they arrested Noriega, they took Ali Baba but they left the fourty
thieves alone," is a well known saying in Panama. Dr. Benjamin
Colamarco, once a commander of Noriega's thugs who even served a
prison sentence for his activities and is one of those many Noriegistas
being recycled in the current government, is the principal defender of
the proposed law. As such, people don't trust him, and rightfully so.
Newspaper La Prensa gave him an opportunity to defend the law last
weekend (part 1 and part 2) but unfortunately his defense does not convince. Neither
does a revised version of the law that is being circulated and that
can be downloaded here.

Colamarco claims in the interview that he is in favor of the existing
law that regulates ROP land. But he doesn't mention, nor is he asked
by La Prensa, anything about the fact that in his proposal this ROP
land can be taken away if someone hasn't been living on it for 10
years or more. Those who have registered nothing but lived on the land
for generations, like indigenous tribes and poor farmer families, will
in Colamarco's proposal have great difficulty to obtain any form of
registration, because the law strips the so-called "testimonial
proof", which has always been the instrument of choice to
establish who lived where and who traditionally owns what.
Additionally, the vast amount of low-income farmers and indigenous
people living on ROP land will not be able to cough up the funds to
enter the bureaucratic game of getting concessions and other forms of
registration of their legitimate claims.

La Prensa then moves the "interview" quickly to safer
grounds and continues about titling ROP land which is moving slowly.
The goon squad commander promises improvements and that is that.
Titling ROP land is not an issue in Bocas because the province
consists mainly of islands, and as far as mainland is concerned the
whole debate concentrates on designated tourism areas where the
government does not want to title but sell concessions.

World Bank Report: Reforms may violate Human Rights

The government, in its favorable policies to big business, is with
this law reducing land ownership to a matter of economics. But for the
original inhabitants of Panama and the rest of the continent this is a
rather vulgar simplification of what living and working on the land
really means. "land is not only a physical asset with some
economic and financial value, but an intrinsic dimension and part of
peoples lives and belief systems. The end is not necessarily a
material product or a level of economic productivity," the World
Bank wrote in an interesting study on the subject of land rights and
indigenous communities back in 1999 (download here).

The report treats the various traps and pitfalls related to land
reforms and similar projects, and specifically states that laws such
as the proposal by the Torrijos government may violate Human Rights:
"There is also a human rights dimension to all of the above. And
it is essential to understand this human rights dimension of land
rights, not just as a legal obligation, but as a key element of
economic and social development. Land laws in both developed and
developing countries have affected the poor and the powerless the
most, particularly women. These rights over the land affect other
human rights; e.g., The Right To Food (security of food
supplies), The Right To Housing (capacity to own a house), The
Right To Health (the use of medicinal plants) and The Right To
Development, to name a few."

Well, the goon squad commander never was a human rights champion,
that's for sure.

The report, in its paragraph about Panama, praises the policy of the
so-called Comarcas, large areas where indigenous groups enjoy
wide latitude for administering their land. And that should remind our
readers that the Law 132 proposal, by disproportionally affecting
indigenous people, will thus effectively serve to promote a racist
agenda of driving the original inhabitants of the isthmus into the
Comarcas.

Our advice would be, in order to avoid another Social Security
debacle: Tear this one up and start from scratch.