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Floods in Panama force thousands into shelters

According to the National Civil Defense System of the Republic of Panama (SINAPROC), heavy and constant rains that continue to fall since Nov 28, have caused rivers to overflow their banks, flooding  communities of indigenous peoples throughout the country.  In all of these communities agricultural production has been affected as well and crops destroyed. As of December 1st,over 23,000 people have been affected by the floods and mudslides.

The newspaper La Prensa  quotes Gavin Sundwall, spokesman for the American Embassy in Panama, as stating that these floods are to Panama what Katrina was to Louisiana.

Photos of the disaster can be found at the Boquete Business Association site: http://www.boqueteweather.com/flood.htm   Some of them are posted below:

 

 

  

As the rains continue to fall, consider making a donation via

Panamerican Relief  at http://panamericanrelief.org

or via the Panamenian Red Cross http://www.panama.cruzroja.org/
You can send a donation directly to a bank account which  was created by the Panamanian Red Cross specifically to respond to this disaster listed on their website.

or make a donation online via the International Red Cross Website at: http://donate.ifrc.org/

Photo: SINAPROC.gob.pa 

For the most up to date information, go to: http://www.sinaproc.gob.pa/

Our Man in Panama

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/opinion/09briggs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

By EVERETT ELLIS BRIGGS

Norfolk, Conn.

THE deposed dictator of Panama, Manuel Antonio Noriega, was to have been released from a federal prison outside Miami today after serving 15 years of a 30-year sentence for narcotics trafficking. Instead, he remains behind bars pending extradition to France, where he is wanted for money laundering. And that’s not Mr. Noriega’s only legal problem: in Panama there is a warrant for his arrest for the 1985 assassination of a political opponent, Hugo Spadafora.

As Mr. Noriega re-emerges from the shadows, it’s worth remembering how badly the United States mishandled the Panamanian misadventure, which led to the loss of hundreds of lives and cost us politically throughout the region. Mr. Noriega’s rise and fall is instructive only insofar as it tells us how the United States should not conduct itself when faced with a thuggish foreign dictator who happens also to have been a longtime intelligence “asset.”

I witnessed the Noriega fiasco firsthand. After years in charge of Panama’s intelligence service, he ascended to power during my term as ambassador to Panama. Later, when I was ambassador to nearby Honduras and then as a member of the National Security Council under President George H. W. Bush, I had bit parts in the unfolding drama.

This is my version of what happened in the years between the time he seized power and his capture in 1989.

Two Releases.

The Geneva Conventions in the Noriega Case.

"Federal District Judge William M. Hoeveler has decided that the Geneva Conventions do not prohibit extradition of former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega to France where he faces charges of money laundering."   Okke Ornstein

Read the text of the Order Denying Defendant's  Petition for Writs of Habeaus Corpus, Mandamus and Prohibition. U.S. District Court. Southern District of Florida:
Download pressDocs.pdf

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NORIEGA PA FRANCIA!

SETBACK FOR LATIN AMERICAN "LEFT"

The ruling is a setback for the Latin American left, notably the governments of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. The Venezuelans had been actively involved in efforts to have Noriega return to Panama, reasoning that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and because it's in their interest to create unrest in Panama and thus shake up a population that is politically apathetic in a country with no organized leftist political party.

Continue reading this article from Noriegaville.com

 

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Embattled Gonzales Resigns
Attorney General Was Criticized for Terrorism Policy, Prosecutor Firings

By Dan Eggen and Michael A. Fletcher

Washington Post Staff Writers. Tuesday, August 28, 2007;  Page A01

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, one of President Bush's closest confidants and a key architect of his controversial counterterrorism policies, announced yesterday that he is quitting after seven months of bitter confrontation with Congress over his honesty and his competence to run the Justice Department.

Continue reading this article from the Washington Post 

CIA Panama 1989 Part 1

CIA Panama 1989 Part 2