Mr. Varela goes to Washington

by Kevin Harrington-Shelton

Plus ca change

As with Alice in Wonderland, things are getting curiouser and curioser as President Juan Carlos Varela continues to mismanage the Suddeutsche Zeitung crisis.

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day. It was also the starting date for the Council of the Americas conference in New York City, where President Juan Carlos Varela was the ranking speaker of that Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored event. Undoubtedly it was part of a misguided damage control strategy to limit the risk to Panama’s reputation. But he may well be adding fuel to the fire, just days ahead of the second dump of Panama Papers on May 9th.

In deepest background, the president has painted himself into a corner, as the result of a media policy aimed at suppressing journalists with significant audiences. On Varela’s third day in office, Dr. Miguel Antonio Bernal was inexplicably relieved of his 40-year-old radio spot, and, in quick succession, so were professors Julio Miller and Candelario Santana. With the field thus cleared for the media establishment which virtually elected Mr. Varela in 2014, press coverage had been benign, if not biased.

Thus bereft of any constructive criticism on the media lynching of former officials, Mr. Varela has kept busy painting himself into corners. Not one single Varela appointee to the prior government he initially shared with Ricardo Martinelli for 26 months was among them. But wIth his press barons now running for cover following the initial Suddeutsche blitz, he has effectively been left out in the cold, garnering the worst approval ratings in Panamanian history (at barely two years into a five-year term). Particularly on transparency — a linchpin of his election platform — on which his strongest suit against the former Martinelli government was predicated.

But this also marks new blow to his legacy.

As the penny drops and the Suddeutsche revelations rev up reasoned responses throughout the world, the National Assembly slam-dunked a bill last week, “reforming” public works bidding procedures — following a single day for each of the three readings for such a pivotal bill. It basically allows more of the same, in a framework which allowed his predecessor to pillage the treasury —“legally.”

In its first two years Varela’s Panameñista Party bent over backwards (literally) to award lucrative contracts to the Brazilian Odebrecht (of Lava Jato fame), which has proven proficient in winning public works projects in Panama since President Ricardo Martinelli and Mr. Varela (then his vice president) flew down to Rio together in 2009 — and returned with a new executive jet for presidential travel. Most memorable are their jaunts with then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Excluding prequalification restrictions makes for “legal” self-serving measures. Prior to a Washington stopover en route to his NY Rockefeller conference, the president indicated he will not veto the bill — notwithstanding public opinion that it should have precluded contractors convicted elsewhere from bidding in Panama. This in hopes of forestalling any criticism of the earlier awards to Odebrecht during Mr. Varela’s watch. That the president’s own brother José Luís Varela (who heads their party’s legislative caucus) had personally defended this specific omission in the bill highlights a family sensitivity to this particular point.

But this quickie may well carry unintended consequences: evidencing a growing lack of legitimacy to govern. Should the upcoming Suddeutsche documents involve the Varela family, Panama could well be governed by its second woman president.

With friends like this…

by Mariela Sagel — translated from the original in La Estrella by Eric Jackson

Much is spoken of friendship, which should be unconditional and should benefit the welfare of each person. I don’t doubt this, but I am greatly intrigued by certain friendships that have allowed some to go through true calvaries while the others die laughing. In the Book of Proverbs, at 22:24-25, it is written: “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.”

This past week we say the former minister of social development go to an appeals hearing before the Supreme Court for having bought a luxury car. He has been incarcerated for more than a year and a half, without the bail that has been expeditiously conceded to the big bosses who have stolen millions from this country, with which they would have been able to do big projects. He will go to trial in another month. I don’t have any sympathy for this man, who in addition to making a display of his crass ignorance when he “abdicated” his candidacy for mayor, did nothing of relevance for which he can account in his ministry. He just passed the time as the cabinet’s “pretty boy.” But he did take pride in being a good friend of President Martinelli.

Now that the charges against him have piled up and in some cases have been combined, the disreputable president of the Suprme Court will let us know of how the judicial authorities intend handle these matters next week. What reason will the fugitive give to his “friends” left on the hook, who are prisoners while he lives a leisurely life, carousing and so on, in his golden exile? Doesn’t it seem unjust that many of his former subordinates are on trial while he’s protected by the gringos?

Others in his entourage are in the same boat, more or less left to fend for themselves, with their pitiful wives picketing in front of the Avesa Building. Family members claimed that former officials’ lives are in danger while they are incarcerated. Then when the arrogant former security minster was released on bail there came a strange mix of garbled Bible passages, threats and partying.

They say that “the best friendship is one that does not harm.” One of the first statements that President Varela made when the Mossack Fonseca papers scandal blew up was that Minister Without Portfolio Fonseca was his friend. This has raised many suspicions about the delay with which authorities have acted. Better if he had kept quiet about that, and nobody would be questioning him about it today.

Likewise, all of those who leave their cells — not necessarily in jails, which are intended for non-VIPs — proclaim to the four winds their unconditional friendship with the president they served. But where has he been to defend them? How come his battered party has not held a congress, the date for which keeps getting postponed?

I was surprised by the stubborn defense of those guilty of the horrible massacre of youngsters at the juvenile detention center, which alleged that the sentence, the most severe imposed in Panama, was excessive. It was made by ex-minister De Lima in an opinion column, in which he forgot what happened — the brutality and cruelty of the police officers who were there at the revolt, which was videotaped as an authentic proof of what happened. Nobody in authority in the government in which De Lima was a prominent member looked after the families of those who died nor of the two survivors, who needed special attention to heal their wounds and burns, in addition to psychological help. Such an enormous challenge it apparently was for the prison system, the Ministry of Government and the Ministry of Social Development. None of them showed any pity, nor did they do anything for these poor people. They delivered the putrified remains of their children in garbage bags.

The WHO’s Margaret Chan and UNICEF’s Anthony Lake
on attacks on medical facilities and personnel in Syria

We join the many voices expressing outrage at the attack on Al Quds Hospital in Aleppo. Among those killed were two doctors, including one of the only remaining pediatricians in the city, three paramedics, and numerous patients, among them children.

We are outraged at the alarming frequency of attacks on health personnel and facilities in Syria. These incidents come amid an escalation of violence in particular in the northern parts of the country.

A few days ago, a mortar killed a gynecologist on his way home after treating wounded civilians at a UNICEF-supported clinic in Aleppo.

These attacks remind us of the enormous difficulties and dangers that Syrian health workers face every day. Those workers deserve more than our admiration. They deserve greater protection.

Attacks on them and on health facilities and the denial of healthcare services as well as medical equipment and supplies anywhere in Syria, are not only a blatant violation of International Humanitarian Law, but deprive families and communities of essential health care when they need it most.

UNICEF and WHO urge all parties to the conflict to end all attacks on health facilities, personnel and ambulances and to allow the provision of health services to the many innocent civilians in desperate need. Thousands of lives are at stake.

~ ~ ~

The announcements below are interactive. Click on them for more information