Panama Remembers The Day Of The Martyrs
Panama Remembers the Day of the Martyrs
by Eric Jackson
January 9, 1989 marks the 25th anniversary of a violent confrontation which Panamanians know as the Day of the Martyrs. Celebraled as the most solemn of Panama's holidays, the Day of Ihe Martyrs marks events in 1964 which left at least seventeen Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers dead, with hundreds wounded on both sides.
The Republic of Panama was largely a creation of the United States. In 1903 it was a part of Colombia, which had rejected a U.S. bid to build an interoceanic canal through the isthmus. President Theodore Roosevelt connived with Phillipe Bunau-Varilla (who owned the rights of a previously unsuccessful French attempt lo build a canal), and the heads of the principal Panamanian landowning families to foment a "revolution."
Bunau-Varilla wrote a Panamanian declaration of independence in his hotel room at New York's Waldorf-Astoria. The U.S.owned Panama Railroad shifted its trains so that the tiny Colombian garrison in Colon was immobilized. The U.S. -owned Star and Herald newspaper bought rum to get the demoralized Colombian soldiers drunk, and the U.S. Navy appeared shortly thereafter to protect the new U.S. ally from Colombian reinforeements.
Bunau-Varilla signed a treaty which gave the U.S. a ten mile wide strip of Panama (the Canal Zone) in perpetuity, and the right to intervene in Panamanian affairs. A Panamanian delegation arrived in Washington about two hours after the treaty had been signed. Though they were shocked at what had been done, Panama was forced to accept the unequal treaty.
The U.S. supervised most of Panama's elections before WWI, cultivating a dependent Panamanian political elite. From 1918 to 1920, U.S. military forces occupied Chiriqui province, adjacent to Costa Rica, to protect banana plantations held by the United Fruit Company.
In 1925, renters in the wretched slums of Panama City went on a general rent strike. The government asked the U.S. Army to intervene. The rent strike was suppressed; some 25 Panamanians died. In 1936, the canal treaty was revised in keeping with Franklin D. Roosevelt's "good neighbor policy. "The U.S. right to intervene was renounced, but rights to the canal "in perpetuity" remained.
The canal treaty was again revised in 1955, with an increase in rents paid to Panama, U.S. commitments to buy more supplies from Panamanian suppliers, and a prohibition against Panamanians shopping in Canal Zone stores. The latter was a concession demanded by Panamanian merchants who objected to the competilion. The "in perpetuity" clause remained.
While the exclusion of Panamanians from Canal Zone commissaries was perceived as a gain by Panama's elite, U.S. citizens in the Canal Zone ("Zonians") generally viewed it with approval as a form of segregation. Over the decades the Zonians fonned a colonial society, separate from and hostile to, both the Panamanians and the West Indians.
The Canal Zone commissaries, like virtually all other businesses in the Canal Zone, were run by the Panama Canal Company, a U.S. government-owned Corporation. Canal Zone housing was rented from the company, illnesses were treated in company hospitals, and Zonians could (and many did) conduct all of the business of day-to-day life without leaving the Canal Zone or dealing with Panamanian businesses.
Almost all Zonians had Panamanian or West Indian maids. Panama Canal housing was built with servants' quarters attached. In 1964, the standard pay for live-in maid service was room and board, and $15 per week.
Zonian children went to separate English-speaking schools. There were Canal Zone courts and police. A Panamanian accused of an offense in the Canal Zone had the right to an interpreter, but he or she was tried in English according to U.S. law. The U.S. flag was flown at schools and most public buildings.
Prelude to Martyrdom
In 1959, former Panamanian foreign minister Aquilino Boyd led demonstrations in which Panama's flag was planted in the Canal Zone. Several demonstrators were beaten by Canal Zone police and U.S. soldiers. An angry crowd marched on the U.S. embassy where they were dispersed by Panama's Guardia Nacional (at that time the combined Panamanian army and police force).
President Eisenhower began dïscussions with the Panamanian govemment over the flag issue, and agreed to fly Panama's flag at one site in the zone. These talks, and conlinued Panamanian demands for sovereignty over the Canal Zone, continued under the Kennedy administration.
In 1962, the Thatcher Ferry Bridge was opened over the canal to replace ferry boat service. The bridge and the ferry were named for a Kentucky congressman. The bridge dedication was to be the occasion for a speech on changing Panama-U.S . relations by Undersecretary of State Gcorge W. Ball.
Panamanian demonstrators disrupted the ceremonies, demanding that the structure be named the "Bridge of the Americas." Most demonstrators chanted slogans, while others climbed the bridge superstructures to hang banners and remove the U.S . name signs. The demonstrators rushed the speakers' podium, forcing Ball, Panamanian President Roberto Chiari and other dignitaries to flee.
The bridge which reunites the land masses of North and South America, divided by the canal, is today named the Bridge of the Americas. While most Zonians were aghast about the demonstration, many prefened the Panamanian choice of name.
Symbols of Sovereignty
On Jan. 10, 1963, Kennedy agreed that Panama's flag would fly alongside the U.S. flag wherever it was flown at non-military sites in the Canal Zone. Zonians protested vigorously . A Panama Canal employee, Gerald Doyle, sued to block the display of Panama's flag, but the presidential executive order was upheld in the Canal Zone's Federal District Court.
In Dec, 1963, Canal Zone Gov. Robert J. Fleming, Jr. (a major general in the Army Corps of Engineers, appointed by the president and under the supervision of the Secretary of the Army), issued a decree limiting the effect of the executive order. The U.S. flag would no longer be flown in front of schools or at other locations, so that the Panamanian flag would not be flown either. The governor's order infuriated many Zonians, who viewed the failure to fly the U.S. flag as a renunciation of U.S. sovereignty over the Canal Zone.
The first Zonian defiance of the new flag policy was by Canal Zone police offïcer Carlton Bell, who raised the flag at the Gamboa Civic Memorial. There followed, over the next few days, a series of flag raisings at Canal Zone Junior College, Balboa and Cristobal High Schools and the Canal Zone elementary schools on the Atlantic side of the isthmus.
A high school student, leader of the flag raising at Cristobal High, Connie Lasher, succinetly stated the Zonian case to a reporter for Life magazine: "We want just the American flag flying - it proves our sovereignty . The next step, if they have their way, will be just to fly the Panamanian flag."
Gov. Fleming, miscalculating the volatility of the political situation, left the Canal Zone for Washington on the afternoon of Jan. 9, 1964. The Day of the Martyrs unfolded with Lt. Gov. David S. Parker in charge of the Canal Zone.
The Zonian gauntlet was picked up by Panamanian high school students at the Instituto Nacional, an elite school near the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. Led by 17-year-old Guillermo Guevara Paz, about 200 students from the institute marched to Balboa High School, carrying their school's Panamanian flag. In 1947, students from the Instituto Nacional had carried that particular flag in the demonstrations demanding the withdrawal of U.S. military bases. They intended to raise the Panamanian flag where the Zonians had raised theirs. They also carried a sign proclaiming Panama's sovereignty in the Canal Zone.
The Panamanian students were met by Canal Zone police and a crowd of Zonian students and adults. After hurried negotiations between the Panamanians and the police, a small group was allowed to approach the flag pole, while the main group was kept back. A half-dozen of the Panamanians approached the flag pole. The Zonians surrounded the flag pole and sang the Star Spangled Banner. The Panamanians were driven back by the Zonian civilians and police. In the scuffle, the Panamian flag was torn.
There are sharply conflicting claims about how the flag was torn. Canal Zone police captain Gaddis Wall, who was in charge of the police at the scene, denies any U.S. culpability. Carranza, the Panamanian flag bearer, said, "They started shoving us and trying to wrest the flag from us, all the while insulting us. A policeman wielded his club which ripped the flag. The captain tried to take us where the others (Panamanian students) were. On the way through the mob, many hands pulled and tore our flag."
(see PANAMA, page 6}
PANAMA (from page 1)
The larger body of Panamanians moved to join the fray, and several were battered by police. The Panamanian students retreated up the many steps toward the Canal Zone Administration Building.
The students tried to lower the U.S. flag at the administration building, but were thwarted by police. The Panamanians stoned the building and several cars, breaking a number of windows. Retreating to Panama City, the demonstrators rolled trash cans down the street to obstruct pursuing police cars.
Martyrs Lead Panama Past the Point of No Return
As word spread of the flag desecration incident, angry crowds formed along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. At several points they stormed into the Zone, planting Panamanian flags. They were tear gassed by the police. Some of the small group of police were injured by thrown stones. The police opened fire.
Ascanio Aiosemena, 20, was shot in the back, through the shoulder and thorax. His lung was punctured and his aorta was severed. Death came within a minute or two. He became the first of Panama's Martyrs.
Arosemena, the captain of the soccer team at the Escuela Profesional, was a good student. He happened upon the scene of the fighting while he was on his way to see a movie. Witnesses say that Arosemena died while helping to evacuate wounded demonstrators from the danger zone.
The crowd burned cars with Canal Zone license plates. They set fire to several buildings and railroad cars in the Canal Zone town of Ancon, adjacent to Panama City. The police (and Zonian civilians, say some disputed sources) opened fire again.
U.S. authorities called upon the Guardia Nacional to put down the disturbances, but the guardia, which had been criticized for siding with the Americans in the 1959 flag demonstrations, stayed out of the fighting.
Meanwhile, in front of the U.S. District Court, demonstrators tore down a section of the "Fence of Shame." The fence ran from Panama City to Balboa and separated the Canal Zone from the rest of Panama. Panamanians armed with stones and molotov cocktails also stormed the house of U.S. District Judge Guthrie Crowe, directly across the street from the Instituto Nacional. The police responded with tear gas and then with shotguns and pistols.
Several hundred yards down the road from the Instituto Nacional area, a large crowd surged out of the Panama City slum neighborhood of El Chorillo and went nearly one-half of a mile into the adjacent Canal Zone city of Balboa, where they were met by Canal Zone police. The police used all of their tear gas, then began to fire with revolvers.
The crowds grew larger and angrier. By 8 pm, the Canal Zone police were overwhelmed. Some 80 police officers faced a hostile crowd of at least 5,000 along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. When the lieutenant governor came to survey the scene, his car was stoned.
At the request of Lt.Gov. Parker, Gen. Andrew P. O'Meara, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, assumed authority over the Canal Zone. The U.S. army was deployed at 8:35 pm.
An airplane equipped with loudspeakers flew over Panama City urging the crowds to disperse, and armored personnel carriers with machine guns mounted on top arrived.
The U.S . army occupied the posh Tivoli Guest House which came under heavy fire, mostly from .22 caliber rifles. Crowds of Panamanians looted the American Gun Shop while others brandished their own small arms against the U.S. forces.
The recently dedicated Pan American Airlines building was completely gutted. The next moming the bodies of six Panamanians, probably demonstrators, were found in the wreckage. A recently opened U.S. Information Service Iibrary in Panama City was also set afire. The Chase Manhattan Bank, the offices of Eastman Kodak, Singcr Sewing Machine Co., a Sears, Roebuck Co. store, Goodyear's offices, Braniff Airline's reservation agency and the premises of several U.S.-owned utility companies were also damaged.
A number of U.S. military personnel and their families were forced to flee their homes in Panama City. Some 2,048 U.S. citizens from all over Panama took refuge in the Canal Zone. There were also many instances where Panamanians gave refuge to U.S. citizens. Among the Panamanian samaritans were a number of guardia personnel.
There was some looting. The guardia, which would not assist the U.S. against angry Panamanians, intervened and arrested seventeen looters. A number of Panamanian merchants armed themselves to protect their stores.
Rodolfo Sánchez, a 33-year-old bystander who was sitting in his car, was shot to death by a high-powered rifle, almost certainly fired by U.S. soldiers. Victor Garibaldo, a 29-year-old taxi cab driver, was killed by a high-powered rifle as he was sitting in his cab near the Legislative Palace. He, too, was almost certainly killed by U.S. forces.
An 11-year-old girl, Rosa Elena Landecho, was shot to death by a high-powered rifle while standing on the balcony of her family's apartment. She was most likely killed by the U.S. Army, which had peppered the apartment building in response to suspected sniper fire from one of the apartments into the Canal Zone.
Panama City's Santo Tomas Hospital reponed 95 injuries, including eighteen deatails. Most of the dead and wounded had gunshot wounds.
More than 400 bullets were later found embedded in theTivoli. The U.S . Army reponed nine soldiers wounded by gunfire, with none killed, in the fighting near Panama City. On the Pacific side, one U.S. soldier died in an accident and twenty U.S.soldiers, four police officers and thirteen U.S. civilians were hurt by causes other than gunfire.
The Fighting Spreads
News instantly travelled the 50 miles from the country's south coast to its north coast. Panama's second largest city, Colon, which abuts the formcr Canal Zone city of Cristóbal near the Atlantic end of the canal, erupted in pro tests within a few hours.
Colon is much poorcr thari the capital. The fighting there was conducted with a fury that surpassed the violence on the Pacific side.
A crowd marched on Cristobal, raised the Panamanian flag, and was urged to disperse by the mayor of Colon. More militant leaders led the crowd of at least 1,500 to invade Panama Canal Company office and storage buildings, the YMCA building, and the Masonic Temple. The railroad station and the telephone exchange were stoned and fire-bombed. The Canal Zone police retreated.
The U.S. Army then moved to the Cristobal /Colon area. Armed, but ordered not to use their weapons, they ousted Panamanians from U.S.owned buildings, put out some of the smaller fires and strung barbed wire in the streets. Panamanians threw stones while the Army threw tear gas grenades.
Panamanians escalated the fight with molotov cocktails, then with sniper fire. Pvt. David Haupt was shot in the head, becoming the first U.S. fatality. The U.S. Army retreated to the Masonic Temple, which they forlified.
Intense fighting continued for the next two days. The army was pinned down in the Tivoli by sniper fire from several directions and continued to take casualtics. First Sgt. Gerald A. Aubin and Staff Sgl. Luis Jimenez Cruz (a Puerto Rican) were shot to death. Twelve other soldiers were wounded by snipers along the boundary between Colon and Cristobal. The soldiers were ordered to use live ammunition on the aftemoon of Jan. 11 .
The guardia in Colon made some effort to separate the combatants. A guardia jeep driving down the street near the Masonic Temple becamc entangled in the barbed wire. It was fired upon from the Masonic Temple and from the Cristobal dock area. Sgt. Celestino Villareta of the Guardia Nacional was hit in the chest by a high-powered rifle round. An ambulance sent to rescue Villareta and his wounded driver was fired on. Villareta, 43, died.
The U.S. Army denies that it was responsible for Villareta's death. But Panamanians point out that thc docks wcrc under U.S. control, and that the bullet that killed Villareta carne from that area.
A six-month-old girl, Marilza Avila Alabarea, was asphyxiated by tear gas. The U.S. denies that this infant's death was linked to the gassing of her Colon neighborhood.
Panamanians claim that al least thirteen persons were shot by the U.S. Army along the border at Cristóbal and Colon. U.S. accounts hold that no more tlian ten Panamanians wcre shot by U.S. soldiers in the Colon area.
While the fighting was most deadly in areas near the canal, anti-U.S. actions tookplace all over Panama. In David, the capital of Chiriqui province, the Chase Manhattan Bank and other U.S.owned businesses and cars were set afire. In Santiago, capital of Veraguas province, 1,000 people signed a call for war with the United States.
Rural Panama also arose. A U.S.-owned papaya plantation near San Carlos, the largest in the country, was ruined when a crowd cut down all of the trees. The banana workers of United Fruit Company went on strike. That corporation evacuated its U.S. employees and their dependents from Puerto Armuelles to Costa Rica after its U.S. manager was allegedly threatened by workers. Some 65,000 sterns of bananas rotted on the docks.
Various casualty figures for the several days of fighting which are known as the Day of the Martyrs range from 20 to 29 dead and 200 to 300 injured. For various reasons, including fears that jobs or pensions with the Panama Canal company could be lost, many of the injured were not taken to hospitals, while the injuries of some who were treated at hospitals did not get officially reported.
The Fruits of Their Sacrifice
President Lyndon B. Johnson quickly ordered that both flags would fly in front of all Canal Zone schools. Gov. Fleming, who promptly returned to the zone, promised deportation to any Zonian who persisted in defiance of the flag policy. These concessions did not mollify the Panamanians.
Other governments of the western hemisphere did not support the U.S. policy which led to the events known as the Day of the Martyrs. The Organization of American States (OAS) took jurisdiction of the dispute from the United Nations Securily Council. The OAS did not take action on Panama's motion to brand thc United States guilty of aggression, but it did accuse the U.S. of using unnecessary force.
The main result of the Day of the Martyrs was the revision of the Panama Canal treaty. This change has been underway since 1903 and is still incomplete, but it was made irreversible by the sacrifices of Panama's Martyrs.
In 1964, public opinion forced the government of Panama to break diplomatic relations with the United States. The precondition for their re-establishment four months later was the start of negotiations over the status of the canal. After several changes of government and more than thirteen years, these talks led to the 1977 Panama Canal treaties.
The first of the 1977 treaties ended U.S. governance of the Canal Zone in 1979. Panama will completely own the canal in 1999. Panama is to receive $10 million per year plus any net profits made by the Panama Canal Commission, which replaced the Panama Canal Company. U.S. rights to fourteen military bases in the old Canal Zone continue until the end of 1999.
A second treaty ensures that the canal will remain open to ships of all nations. It gives the U.S. the right to military action to keep the canal open (but not to interfere in Panama's internal affairs), and gives U.S. warships priority in passage at times of war.
Article VII, section 1 of the first treaty provides that "the entire territory of the Republic of Panama, including the areas the use of which the Republic of Panama makes available to the United States of America pursuant to this treaty and rclatcd agreements, shall be under the flag of the Republic of Panama and consequently such flag always shall occupy the position of honor."