The two new immigration decrees (the second of which only applies to citizens of the People’s Republic of China) are found — in Spanish, as it is official — on pages 6 through 11 of this document.
Immigration rules eased for some
by Eric Jackson
Some “permanent tourists” — people living here on tourist visas and in many cases carrying on economic activities not allowed under such visas — may be about to get a break. The Varela administration has announced some immigration policy changes.
The xenophobes are already complaining, much as they did about the previous Crisol de Razas program to regularize the status of foreigners who are living in Panama without benefit of proper immigration papers. The long-term problem of back then remains — there is a six-figure number of foreigners living here illegally or working here in violation of the terms of tourist or student visas, and the cost of rounding them all up and sending them back to from whence they came would not only be a great burden on law enforcement budgets, but it would also tear big holes in the Panamanian economy by eliminating productive workers and valuable customers.
What appears to be different from the context of the previous program is an ulterior economic motive. Ricardo Martinelli was out to smash the SUNTRACS construction workers’ union and public health care professionals’ unions by bringing in cheap foreign workers who would not be entitled to Social Security or any other benefits, but this does not seem to be Juan Carlos Varela’s purpose.
So on June 3, after consultations with some of Panama’s ethnic groups, the Ministry of Public Safety issued two new immigration decrees, number 167 and 168, the latter applying exclusively to persons from the People’s Republic of China. The American community, which does have immigration issues, was not part of any formal consultations but some allege that the influence of the US State Department was felt in the process.
The basic rules are that an applicant must:
Have been living here for at least one year as of June 3, and if having left to renew a tourist visa, not have been gone for more than 30 days;
Have no application for any change in immigration status that’s pending;
Have no recent serious criminal record in his or her country of origin or here in Panama; and
Personally appear for an interview with immigration officials.
There are all sorts of documents that an applicant must present to support his or her case — proof of residency for example by utility bills going back a year or more, two passport sized photos, copies of police records, a valid foreign passport and so on, in addition to forms that one must fill out. Surely to the consternation of lawyers, as was the case with the Crisol de Razas progam, none of these have to be submitted by an attorney.
There is a scale of fees. These start at a basic $500 for favored countries whose citizens do not have to get a visa other than as a tourist to enter Panama such as Canada, the United States and Colombia, go up to $1,000 for most countries without such agreements and are $2,000 for citizens of “restricted countries” such as most of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Under the separate Decree 168 it’s $2,500 for ciizens of the Peoples Republic of China. The fee discrimination goes back to the early decades of Panama’s history as an independent republic and there are plenty of people in our large Chinese community who resent it, but The Panama News is told that with all of their objections and reservations to the new decrees, most leaders of the Chinese community view the overall package as something mostly positive.
Two new requirements at a sponsor — and there is a bunch of paperwork for that — who must be a Panamanian citizen or legal permanent resident; and the applicant must register with Seguro Social and provide proof of that.
So how may people are going to get in? That seems to be up in the air. We are not yet told when the Migra will start taking applications, or where. We are told that at the end of the year we will be told how many people will be allowed to normalize their status during the following year — it’s not going to be an unlimited entitlement program, as the Crisol de Razas was alleged to be.
The requirement that an applicant had to have been here at least a year by June 3, 2016 puts this program in the intended category of a one-time amnesty possibility, rather than an invitation to newcomers.
Whether an application is accepted appears to involve a certain amount of discretion by public officials — a classic opportunity for bribery in an immigration systeme that has been notoriously corrupt. The applicant who is accepted gets a card that allows him or her to stay her for two years. After that, if she or he has stayed out of trouble, that immigration permit can be renewed.
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Ricardo Martinelli meets in Miami with top lieutenants Alma Cortés — a criminal defense lawyer by trade — and Eduardo Camacho, his publicist. Photo from Martinelli’s Twitter feed.
Law wars: privileges, immunities and exceptions
by Eric Jackson
Do we actually have the rule of law in Panama? Many deny it and most who know anything about the subject note our legal system’s serious shortcomings. Now come three significant tests that will again raise that subject.
Since the end of the Martinelli administration, the dozens of legal cases arising from its many aspects of corruption — the ex-president alone currently faces 15 separate criminal cases in the Supreme Court — have mostly not come to the point of trials based on the facts of those matters. Mostly they have been about who has what sort of immunity and whether it can be lifted or cicumvented, or which infomation is privileged and unavailable to the courts of law, or what exceptions to the general rule of law and who the beneficiaries of such disparate treatment may be.
Is it some sort of shell game, with a figurative pea under a figurative walnut shell that’s being rapidly and erratically shuttled around among other shells? But now mallets are being drawn and shells and peas may be crushed. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) In three sets of cases some major dodges from the law are under challenge, or about to be so because they have been assserted. Certain Panamanian ways of doing things may end — or may not. The worldwide furor over the Mossack Fonseca revelations and the US warning that that was the Waked bust probably mean that some anomalous Panamanian ways are facing extinction. But in the first instance, whether to change certain key things will be up to this country’s justice system.
Politicians’ privileges when prosecuted
Most of the proceedings about Ricardo Martinelli’s alleged crimes have been about lifting the immunities that he has enjoyed as a member of the obscure and powerless Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) or as the boss of the Cambio Democratico party. These privileges and immunities have not only included flat-out bars to investigation and prosecution — which can be lifted in time-consuming proceedings — but also special time limits in the event that there is an investigation or prosecution.
Now Administrative Prosecutor (Procurador de la Administración) Rigoberto González has challenged Article 470 of the Penal Code, which limits the time for a criminal investigation that has been started. It must be finished within two months if the accused is the president, a high court magistrate or a legislator. If an ordinary citizen is suspected of a crime, once a formal investigation has begun the prosecutors ordinarily have six months to conclude their probe and bring what charges they will. In either situation extensions may be granted in limited circumstances.
In the Civil Code family of legal systems of which Panama’s is part, precedent is not as binding as in the Anglo-American Common Law family of legal systems, so an attack on a particular law based on a particular principle will not necessarily sweep away other laws that are flawed according to that principle. However, an argument that persuades once may persuade again.
González says that Article 32 of Panama’s Constitution — “Nobody shall be tried, except by a competent authority in conformity with legal procedures…” — is violated by special procedures for politicians. He’s arguing that the special rules prejudice any accused politician, although these rules are most often invoked by their defense lawyers. He also argues that the Penal Code provision he would strike down violates Article 22 of the Constitution, which provides for the presumption of innocence and due process of law.
The administrative prosecutor’s arguments are such that a defendant would be unlikely to raise them. The more obvious line of constitutional attack against Article 470 of the Penal Code would be founded in Article 19 of the Constitution: “There shall be no immunities or privileges, nor discrimination, for reason of … social class….” This being Panama, though, that part of the nation’s basic law has always been more or less a dead letter.
But if the Supreme Court buys the arguments that González makes in his challenge to Article 470 — that special procedures prejudice a person against whom they are brought — there is an impressive edifice of legislation applicable only to the caste of public officials that could fall to similar challenges.
University autonomy
The University of Panama’s self-proclaimed “Rector Magnifico,” Gustavo García de Paredes, has for many months been resisting, then relenting a bit, then hardening his resistance, against a wide range of court proceedings and in particular audits by the Comptroller General. There are at least eight comptroller’s audits still going on at the unviersity, but those that have concluded — and have been sent to the Attorney General for criminal investigation and possible prosecution — include some $3.5 million missing from university coffers and more than $400,000 gone from a “private foundation” that García de Paredes set up to handle university funds. In the works now are investigations of land sales and rentals, including the sale of 325 hectares adjacent to Tocumen Airport to the airport for $109.8 million — that’s about $33 per square meter, and Comptroller General Federico Humbert wants to see the university’s assessments that went into the decision to accept that price. The rector says that the university has given up all documents, but the comptroller says that the assessments are not there. A long-term lease to politically connected developers at about 5¢ per square meter is also under the looking glass.
As has been claimed at many points in the auditing process and in court cases before, the Rector Magnifico claims that it’s not about him but about the university — which, he argues, is protected by an autonomy that does not allow comptrollers and courts to question his decisions. Look for that point to be litigated once more.
Under intense political pressure from without and a growing loss of effective power within the university, García de Paredes is not running for another term. His long reign at the University of Panama should by the normal cycle end in less than a year. Look at the assertion of university autonomy as a defense to what looks like ordinary crime as a delaying tactic that has kept him from being removed in a pending criminal process so far and might help to get one of the rector’s followers elected to succeed him. But even so, decisions handed down even after his departure may parse the distinction between rector and university and define just what university autonomy is and how far it goes.
Confidential information under the Transparency Law
If Herculean efforts are being made to shield Odebrecht in particular but multinational companies caught paying bribes around the world in general from any consequences in Panama, and to keep evidence gathered by foreign prosecutors out of Panamanian courts, this country does have treaties that mandate cooperation with other countries’ legal systems. The Martinelli administration made the tension between the sovereignty of Panama’s legal system and Panamanian commitments to other legal systems under international law more acute. In recent years — going back to before Martinelli’s time in office — there have been prosecutions in the United States, Italy and now Brazil and Switzerland about bribes paid to Panamanian officials. None of these have made it before Panama’s courts under Panama’s laws. Brazil is asking for Panamanian assistance in its massive Lava Jato (Car Wash) scandal, parts of which are the laundering of money or payment of bribes via Panamanian corporate subsidiaries or shell companies, parts of which are Brazilian companies bribing Panamanian officials. Our Attorney General Kenia Porcell says that she is cooperating, but Brazilian prosecutors say that’s not so.
It is said that Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which has big public works contracts here in Panama and whose former CEO Marcelo Odebrecht is serving a 19-year prison sentence in Brazil, used a Panamanian subsidiary, Constructora Internacional del Sur SA, to pay some $50 million in bribes between 2007 and 2014, to public officials both in Brazil and in a number of other countries including Panama. Brazilian justice wants to see all the data from the Constructora Internacional del Sur accounts in two Panamanian banks. The walls of Panamanian corporate and banking secrecy have already been partly breached by the seizure of documents and hard drives in the hundreds of Lava Jato raids carried out in Brazil, by information provided by cooperating witnesses and by data shared by courts, prosecutors and police agencies around the world. There are treaties mandating Panama’s cooperation in obtaining and sharing things like bank records in criminal investigations. Such sharing is pretty routine when the United States asks Panama for data in the course of drug trafficking cases, or in the event of the laundering of illicit drug business proceeds.
Now, however, Porcell appears to have interposed another protective wall. Among other claims such as the alleged imprecision of Brazil’s requests, she issued a press release asserting that since there is an ongoing investigation, Panama’s Transparency Law provides that access to this information is restricted to Panama’s Public Ministry so the Brazilians don’t get it.
Anti-corruption activists who pushed for and helped to draft the Transparency Law are appalled. Ramón Ricardo Arias, who heads Panama’s chapter of Transparency International (the Fundacion para el Desarrollo de la Libertad Ciudadana), complained in La Prensa that “As an NGO that actively participated in the drafting and promulgation of that law, it looks shocking to us to attempt to cite that norm as an excuse to deny or limit international assistance in criminal matters.” He said that international cooperation is an exception to the Transparency Law’s confidentiality of information about ongoing investigations provision. Law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal points to Article 425 of the Penal Code, which might complicate matters. That law is about subverting the state, among other things by submitting it to the authority of a foreign state. So would it apply to information sharing between criminal justice systems? Would it apply to the protection of those making payoffs through Panama or a Panamanian entity to corrupt officials of a foreign government?
Legal twists are one thing, but public appearances and international political realities are another. Does the Varela administration protest, in the wake of the publication of Mossack Fonseca files and growing international pressures based on those, that Panama has done a lot to share information with other countries in tax and criminal matters? A big new hole in that like the one that Porcell suggests is likely to increase pressures against Panama already coming from the United States, the European Union, South American countries and the OECD. These could make it very hard for Panama to maintain an international financial center.
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Panama’s chapter of the Democratic Party organization outside of the USA
Democrats meet June 11 at the BYC
You are cordially invited to attend the next Democrats Abroad Panama meeting, Saturday, June 11 from 1-2 PM at the Balboa Yacht Club*. Help us elect a new Board of Directors so we can get back to our goal — to help eligible voters cast their votes to defeat Donald Trump in the approaching election.
Check the Democrats Abroad Facebook page for updates, as well as a copy of the Democrats Abroad Panama By-laws and the minutes for the last general meeting.
** If you are unable to attend in person you will be able to attend via Web Ex from your computer. Invitations with log in information will be sent to you in a separate email**
WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO…
Introductory comments by Meeting Chair – Phil Edmonston
Schedule Special Elections to elect all new members of the Country Committee Board of Directors at a meeting to be held on Saturday, July 16, at a time and place to be determined. Further, that the elected Board members serve until a General Election at the Countrywide AGM in the first half of 2017, AGM tentatively set for February 2017.
The Meeting Chair shall then request volunteers to serve on a Nominating Committee of three or five people to complete the development of a slate of candidates, and promote/ manage the Special Election. The slate of candidates, the By-law sections governing elections, as well as any instructions for remote voting, will be posted by the Nominating Committee on the Democrats Abroad Facebook pages and distributed to all members of DA Panama via email from the Regional Vice Chair. All persons wishing to serve on the Nominations Committee need to submit their intent to serve to the Deputy RVC Jody Quinnell at jquinnelljq@yahoo.com by June 12, 2016
The Meeting Chair will open the floor for nominations to the Board from the members attending the meeting. Individuals nominated from the floor must submit their willingness to serve and for what office to the Deputy RVC Jody Quinnell at jquinnelljq@yahoo.com by June 14, 2016
Brief update on transfer of treasury.
Additional discussion and motions from attendees.
Adjourn.
*The Balboa Yacht Club is an informal open air club, well-known and easy-to-find. Turn right at the beginning of the Amador Causeway as if going to Country Inn and Suites. Drive 2 blocks and turn left. The entrance to the parking lot is on the right. Stay after the meeting for drinks and conversation.
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El modelo economico post-invasión se agotó: el MIREN ofrece una alternativa
La situación económica nacional
por el Movimiento Independiente de Refundación Nacional (MIREN)
La publicidad generada en torno a los papeles de Mossack y Fonseca (M&F) anuncia la crisis terminal del modelo de crecimiento económico panameño. El modelo neoliberal impuesto por EEUU, después de la invasión militar norteamericana de 2009, llegó a su fin. El arquitecto local de la política de privatizaciones, desregulación y flexibilización del trabajo, en los últimos años del siglo pasado, Guillermo Chapman, recientemente declaró que el modelo estaba agotado y había que buscar uno nuevo. Chapman fue el primer ministro de Economía y Finanzas (MEF), cuando el presidente Pérez Balladares descartó el antiguo Ministro de Política y Planificación (MIPPE).
Tanto el escándalo de M&F como las acusaciones de EEUU contra el Grupo Waked han generado graves preocupaciones entre los rentistas y especuladores (oligarquía o burguesía) panameños. En este momento han optado por plantear dos caminos en forma simultánea. Por un lado, encontrar un terreno sobre el cual pueden negociar con EEUU absorbiendo las pérdidas que demanda Washington. Por el otro, ‘ajustar’ el modelo de crecimiento económico, sacrificando los sectores más vulnerables.
Un elemento importante en la crisis que sacude los cimientos de la confianza en el modelo económico-político, es la ausencia del gobierno del presidente Varela. Su equipo económico parece no entender la esencia política de la situación. Tampoco hace propuestas. Se limita a preparar la inauguración pomposa del tercer juego de esclusas del Canal de Panamá.
Sectores de la burguesía llaman a la unidad nacional. Al contrario, el MIREN llama a la rendición de cuentas. ¿Quiénes – además de los gobiernos de turno – son los responsables de la política errática de los dueños de los bancos y de quienes manejan las finanzas del país? ¿Hay que esperar el colapso del centro ‘financiero’ panameño para comenzar a hacer las preguntas pertinentes?
La oligarquía ha demostrado su incapacidad para gobernar el país. Es el momento para iniciar un ‘cambio de modelo’ a fondo y no ajustes cosméticos.
El MIREN propone darle a las riquezas panameñas el uso más racional para el bienestar de todos los sectores del país. Nuestro recurso más importante que es la población hay que ponerla a trabajar productivamente. A nuestro recurso material clave, que es nuestra posición geográfica, hay que ponerla al servicio del país. El Canal de Panamá, que representa ingresos que superan los dos mil millones de dólares al año, es la fuente que permitiría a Panamá impulsar un plan de desarrollo que cubra la totalidad de la geografía nacional.
Panamá necesita un gobierno como el que ofrece el MIREN, que pueda identificar nuestras ventajas, sumar a todos los panameños e iniciar un camino que le permita a la ciudadanía disfrutar de los esfuerzos de su trabajo.
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Tamara está afuera de Panamá, preparandose para la conferencia internacional de CCL en Washington, DC el 19-21 de junio. Entonces, Andre va a liderar esta reunion. Él dará una presentación corta, y luego revisaremos nuestros logros y practicaremos conversaciones sobre el clima. La idea es siempre aprender como ser mejores cabilderos y defensores del clima.
Si no has escuchado ya a la Introducción de CCL, y las dos sesiones de Capacitaciión de Defensores del Clima en Youtube, será muy muy útil hacerlo.
Newsflash: Donald Trump isn’t as retrograde on climate change as we thought. It turns out he’s well aware of the dangers of global warming — at least to his golf courses.
The Republican presidential hopeful is so concerned, in fact, that he’s petitioned the Irish government to let him build a seawall to secure his luxury golf course and hotel on the County Clare seaside.
According to an application filed by one of Trump’s companies, to “do nothing” as the ocean continues to eat away at the waterfront greens would pose a “real and immediate risk” to Trump’s beachfront property. And it explicitly cites rising global temperatures as the root of those threats.
As any good neighbor would, the real estate magnate also sounded the alarm to local residents. A brochure circulated by his company to surrounding towns makes the case for coastal protection, pointing out that more frequent storms brought on by global warming will increase the rate at which beaches disappear in the coming decades.
Climate change, Trump seems to be saying, is an existential threat to his Irish golf course. But what does he say about it here in the United States? It’s a Chinese-orchestrated “hoax.” It’s “BS.” It’s “pseudo-science.”
It doesn’t stop there. Trump’s also picked a pro-oil and coal climate denier as a top energy adviser. And he’s promised to trash domestic rules and international agreements that cut carbon pollution.
Apparently the billionaire-turned-politician is happy to appeal for government support to protect his overseas assets. But he’s not on board with public policies meant to keep his fellow Americans and their homes safe.
And the threat to his fellow Americans is very real.
A recent study by the humanitarian group Christian Aid calculated that 34 million people in the United States — that’s 10 percent of us — will be living in towns and cities exposed to coastal flooding by 2030. The eastern seaboard is especially at risk.
Miami ranks eighth for world cities whose residents face being washed out. It’s forecast to shoulder the highest financial costs from rising oceans of anywhere on earth, with $3.5 trillion in exposed assets over the next 50 years alone. New York City, Trump’s hometown, comes in a close third at $2.1 trillion in expected losses.
But when the storms come, it won’t be people like Trump who pay the biggest price.
After extreme coastal storms, ordinary families face formidable obstacles to accessing insurance payouts to cover the costs of rebuilding their lives. Billionaires like Donald Trump, on the other hand, can call a private jet to whisk them off to their second (or third) home.
You can bet that if Trump knows climate change is bad for business at his golf course, he knows it’s bad for business, period — small and large, in Ireland or here in the United States. But he’s happy to let the sea swallow our homes, as long as his own property gets a wall.
That double standard should give voters across the political spectrum pause. It’s not about blue or red. It’s about a brash billionaire thinking his interests are more important than everyone else’s.
Los ‘Papeles’ M&F y el sistema financiero mundial (II)
por Marco A. Gandásegui, hijo
Este es el segundo artículo y último de una serie que se inició la semana pasada. Revisábamos una entrevista concedida por el profesor Michael Hudson, de la Universidad de Missouri (en Kansas), sobre el flujo de dólares de todo el mundo hacia EEUU. “Si usted echa un vistazo a las balanzas de pagos de los países que son llamados ‘paraísos fiscales’, fuera de EEUU, encontrará pasivos que se deben a EEUU. Si se detiene podrá ver la enorme cantidad de acciones norteamericanas, de bonos norteamericanos y de depósitos bancarios norteamericanos que vienen de esos llamados ‘paraísos’. Hudson concluye que es “la magnitud gigantesca de esos depósitos que mantiene a flote al dólar”.
El Congreso de EEUU maneja muy bien la lógica financiera. En la década de 1960 entendió que los delincuentes chicos y grandes y de todas las nacionalidades son la gente que dispone de la mayor liquidez en el mundo. Según Hudson, “esos delincuentes no quieren amarrar sus fortunas a propiedades. Las propiedades saltan a la vista, son de perfil alto, muy visibles. En cambio, las finanzas en la balanza de pagos se conocen como el invisible. Si usted es un delincuente, quiere que sus finanzas sean invisibles para poder mantenerlas a salvo. La inversión más segura es la compra de bonos del Tesoro de EEUU”.
Hudson afirma que el Congreso de EEUU “sabía que el grueso de los extranjeros tenedores de bonos del Tesoro eran delincuentes. Los congresistas concluyeron que necesitaban el dinero de los delincuentes, así que no legislaron para hacer retenciones y no gravaron fiscalmente a los tenedores de fortunas producto del crimen. Al contrario, convirtieron el crimen en una actividad libre de impuestos. Así fue que no se hacen preguntas sobre los activos de delincuentes camuflados en cuentas fiduciarias en los bancos norteamericanos”.
Hudson asegura que “fue bajo presión de EEUU que se configuró el actual sistema bancario internacional, a fin de facilitar el blanqueo de dinero procedente del capital acumulado en el tráfico de drogas. La causa de que norteamericanos y canadienses no figuren particularmente en los registros del bufete de Mossack y Fonseca (M&F) es que sus clientes no son norteamericanos”. El sistema fiscal panameño de territorialidad –que no le cobra impuestos a quienes desde Panamá hacen negocios en el extranjero- es considerado por Hudson como “un robo legal a la hacienda pública”.
Hudson propone una solución al lavado de dinero: “Hay que gravar fiscalmente a las empresas de EEUU conforme a sus ingresos a escala planetaria. Si usted sabe que una compañía como Exxon ingresa a EEUU mil millones de dólares, se le aplica el gravamen no importa dónde declaran los ingresos”. El profesor de Economía tendría que agregar que, en el caso de Panamá, este país estaría obligado a cobrar impuestos a sus nacionales no importa donde están ubicados sus negocios.
EEUU y Panamá comparten un problema. Washington tendría que gravar fiscalmente a Apple por todos los ingresos que tiene en Irlanda, jurisdicción que le permite evadir los impuestos que le debe al fisco norteamericano. Según Hudson, esto provocaría un choque de intereses entre monopolios y gobierno. Algo parecido pasaría en Panamá, a otra escala. Para financiar el presupuesto nacional habría que comenzar a gravar las ganancias de panameños obtenidas en el exterior. Además, cobrar impuestos de herencia, de depósitos bancarios y de bienes raíces urbanos.
Hudson cree que no hay condiciones políticas en EEUU para lograr ese objetivo. Tampoco es probable que en las condiciones actuales se produzcan cambios en Panamá. “Washington podría perseguir al pequeño ‘mequetrefe’ que se cuela por los grandes sumideros fiscales creados por la industria petrolera hace un siglo. Pero es muy difícil perseguir a los pequeños evasores fiscales sin capturar a los peces gordos. Y los peces gordos son nada menos que las mayores empresas transnacionales de EEUU”.
Hudson concluye que “no se resolverá el problema del lavado de dinero ni del tráfico de ilícitos, porque EEUU quiere sostener el dólar por la vía de atraer hacia su sistema bancario todo el dinero de origen criminal”. Hudson asegura que “el conjunto del sistema financiero de EEUU se ha hecho criminal para poder subsidiar sus pesados presupuestos militares. Por un lado, financian su presupuesto militar lavando el dinero de la ‘clase criminal’ mundial. Por el otro, deja libres de impuestos a las grandes compañías transnacionales, desde Apple hasta Exxon. Es evidente”.
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This one is dedicated to The Greatest
