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Wier & Zucman, Corporations and the world’s tax havens

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tax havens
Looks like paradise – especially if you’re a multinational corporation in need of a tax haven.
Photo by LeoPatrizi/E+ via Getty Images

$1 trillion in the shade – the annual profits multinational corporations shift to tax havens continues to climb

by Ludvig Wier, University of Copenhagen and Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley

CC BY-NC-ND

About a decade ago, the world’s biggest economies agreed to crack down on multinational corporations’ abusive use of tax havens. This resulted in a 15-point action plan that aimed to curb practices that shielded a large chunk of corporate profits from tax authorities.

But, according to our estimates, it hasn’t worked. Instead of reining in the use of tax havens – countries such as the Bahamas and Cayman Islands with very low or no effective tax rates – the problem has only gotten worse.

By our reckoning, corporations shifted nearly US$1 trillion in profits earned outside of their home countries to tax havens in 2019, up from $616 billion in 2015, the year before the global tax haven plan was implemented by the group of 20 leading economies, also known as the G-20.

In a new study, we measured the excessive profits reported in tax havens that cannot be explained by ordinary economic activity such as employees, factories and research in that country. Our findings – which you can explore in more detail along with the data and an interactive map in our public database – show a striking pattern of artificial shifting of paper profits to tax havens by corporations, which has been relentless since the 1980s.

Global crackdown

The current effort to curb the legal corporate practice of using tax havens to avoid paying taxes began in June 2012, when world leaders at the G-20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, agreed on the need to do something.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 37 democracies with market-based economies, developed a plan that consisted of 15 tangible actions it believed would significantly limit abusive corporate tax practices. These included creating a single set of international tax rules and cracking down on harmful tax practices.

In 2015, the G-20 adopted the plan officially, and implementation began across the world the following year.

In addition, following leaks like the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers – which shed light on dodgy corporate tax practices – public outrage led governments in the U.S. and Europe to initiate their own efforts to lower the incentive to shift profits to tax havens.

Profit-shifting soars

Our research shows all these efforts appear to have had little impact.

We found that the world’s biggest multinational businesses shifted 37% of the profits – or $969 billion – they earned in other countries (outside the headquarter country) to tax havens in 2019, up from about 20% in 2012 when G-20 leaders met in Los Cabos and agreed to crack down. The figure was less than 2% back in the 1970s. The main reasons for the large increase were the growth of the tax avoidance industry in the 1980s and US policies that made it easier to shift profits from high-tax countries to tax havens.

Tax haven crackdown?

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We also estimate that the amount of corporate taxes lost as a result reached 10% of total corporate revenue in 2019, up from less than 0.1% in the 1970s.

In 2019, the total government tax loss globally was $250 billion. U.S. multinational corporations alone accounted for about half of that, followed by the U.K. and Germany.

Global minimum tax

How do policymakers fix this?

So far, the world as a whole has been trying to solve this problem by cutting or scrapping corporate taxes, albeit in a very gradual way. In the past 40 years, the global effective corporate tax rate has fallen from 23% to 17%. At the same time, governments have relied more heavily on consumption taxes, which are regressive and tend to increase income inequality.

But the root cause of profit-shifting is the incentives involved, such as generous or lenient corporate tax rates in other countries. If countries could agree on a global minimum corporate tax rate of, say, 20%, the problem of profit-shifting would, in our estimation, largely disappear, as tax havens would simply cease to exist.

This type of mechanism is exactly what more than 130 countries signed onto in 2021, with implementation of a 15% minimum tax set to begin in 2024 in the EU, UK, Japan, Indonesia and many other countries. While the Biden administration has helped spearhead the global effort to implement the tax, the United States has notably not been able to get legislation through Congress.

Our research suggests implementing this type of tax reform is necessary to reverse the shift of ever-greater amounts of corporate profits going to tax havens – instead of being taxed by the governments where they operate and create value.The Conversation

Ludvig Wier, External Lecturer of Economics, University of Copenhagen and Gabriel Zucman, Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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Erin Brockovich at an Ohio town hall near the toxic train crash site

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Environmental activist Erin Brockovich’s Friday night Town Hall filled the auditorium and also two overflow rooms at East Palestine High School. Video by Louis DeAngelis — Status Coup News.

Brockovich leads East Palestine residents in town hall meeting

by the Common Dreams staff

“Unfortunately, this is not a quick fix,” activist Erin Brockovich said to a packed crowd in an East Palestine, Ohio High School auditorium Friday night. “This is going to be a long game.”

About 2,500 people and 100 reporters attended the town hall meeting with the crowd spilling into the school gymnasium. Brockovich, who became an activist in 1993 battling Pacific Gas & Electric Co. over groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California, told the audience to fight back and trust their instincts.

Brockovich and attorneys warned of long-term health and environmental dangers from the chemicals released after the fiery train derailment in East Palestine.

“I can’t tell you how many communities feel that these moments are the biggest gaslight of their life,” Brockovich told the audience.

“I’ve never seen in 30 years a situation like this,” she said, warning residents that what her team was going to present them may scare them. “… I feel your angst, and I feel your frustration. And I want to share something with you; you’re not alone.”

“You want to be heard, but you’re going to be told it’s safe; you’re going to be told not to worry,” she said. “That’s just rubbish because you’re going to worry. Communities want to be seen and heard.”

“These chemicals take time to move in the water. You’re going to need groundwater monitoring. People on well water: You really need to be on alert. They’re going to need to implement soil vapor intrusion modeling. Believe us. It’s coming,” she said.

“You start getting 50 and 100,000 pissed-off moms together — I’m telling you right now: Things change,” she said.

“You have the ability to become — and you will become — your own critical thinker. You will vet information; you will ask questions, you will demand answers. You will listen to that gut and that instinct that will keep you connected as a community,” Brockovich said. “Don’t let what’s happened here divide you.”

A presentation followed Brockovich’s speech by Texas lawyer Mikal Watts, who cited rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court to explain why he could not offer advice on specific cases in a public meeting or stay after the meeting to answer questions.

Watts did, however, say: “I’m begging you — for your own good — go get your blood and urine tested now.”

Common Dreamsreported Friday that almost half of US voters surveyed by progressive think tank Data for Progress blame rail company Norfolk Southern for the February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio which forced 1,500 residents to evacuate, contaminated soil and water, and has been blamed for causing a number of symptoms even as officials claim air and water monitoring hasn’t shown dangerous levels of pollution.

Forty-nine percent of the 1,243 people surveyed by Data for Progress from February 17-22 said they believed Norfolk Southern was responsible for the crash, including 50% of Democrats, 52% of Independents, and 47% of Republicans.

 

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¿Wappin? Post-Carnival Friday / Viernes Poscarnaval

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Mad Professor
Mad Professor at Goa Sunsplash 2018. Cropped from a Wikimedia photo by Alexey Komarov.

La música NUNCA se acaba
The music NEVER ends

Mon Laferte – Festival del Huaso de Olmue 2023
https://youtu.be/-hGqyeg3Dbo

Aisha & Mad Professor – Sunshine Reggae Festival 2018
https://youtu.be/gRc2bfQiDaU

Gato Barbieri & Carlos Santana – Europa & Samba Pa’ Ti
https://youtu.be/RVGMMUglVC4

Howlin’ Wolf – Live in Chicago 1969
https://youtu.be/WSVqqWUd5dU

Rubén Blades & Jerry Garcia – Muevete
https://youtu.be/ZWfYew3s_Nw

Chaka Khan – Live 2021
https://youtu.be/gFUTB_7U0zg

Hello Seahorse! – Sessiones Prodigy
https://youtu.be/qszTY_7XN2c

 

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Beluche, Termine la guerra en Ucrania

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Ukraine

Basta de la Guerra: Por un cese al fuego inmediato 

por Olmedo Beluche

Un año de guerra entre Rusia y Ucrania – OTAN, ha dejado casi un cuarto de millón de muertos, decenas de miles de heridos, millones de desplazados, ciudades arrasadas y la amenaza de una escalada militar que podría arrastrar a toda Europa, o incluso la posibilidad cada vez más real de un holocausto nuclear de consecuencias mundiales.

Es necesario organizar un gran movimiento internacional para exigir un cese al fuego inmediato. Hay que exigir un armisticio que silencie las armas, que detenga todo avance militar, que cese la matanza. Un armisticio que, sobre un compromiso elemental de no intentar avanzar un milímetro más sobre el terreno, permita el establecimiento de un diálogo para resolver por la vía diplomática las causas que llevaron a la guerra con la mediación de los países no implicados en el conflicto.

Un armisticio que comprometa tanto al gobierno ruso, como al ucraniano, así como a Estados Unidos y la OTAN, detener el envío de más armas a la región. Que cesen los disparos, que paren los bombardeos.

El proyecto de una paz sobre la base de una victoria total de una de las partes es claramente inviable. Por eso hay que repudiar los planes tanto rusos de pretender lanzar una ofensiva de primavera, como de la OTAN de armar a Ucrania con tanques o aviones. Esos planes de Rusia y de la OTAN alejan la paz a costa de mayores sacrificios humanos. Digámosle: BASTA.

Un alto al fuego inmediato es posible, sosteniendo las fronteras actuales trazadas sobre las trincheras que han creado los ejércitos. Rusia ocupa el este de Ucrania donde el conflicto con la población de habla y cultura rusa empezó a crecer desde 2014 incentivado por los ultranacionalistas ucranianos. La pertenencia definitiva de ese territorio a Ucrania o a Rusia es algo que deberán decidir algún día, democráticamente, sus habitantes, lo cual debe ser producto de una negociación, basada en un armisticio que permita el retorno de la población civil y la reconstrucción en largo plazo.

Por otro lado, Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea, la OTAN y el gobierno de Ucrania, deben dar garantías, creíbles y verificables, a Rusia de la no expansión de esa alianza militar occidental hacia sus fronteras, así como el cese del envío de armamentos ofensivos que amenacen la seguridad rusa.

Alcanzado el armisticio, los pueblos del mundo deben exigir el levantamiento de las sanciones contra Rusia, iniciando con las absurdas sanciones culturales y deportivas, pero también sobre las exportaciones de gas y petróleo, de manera que se pueda aliviar la alta inflación que empobrece al mundo.

El armisticio posibilitará que los pueblos de Europa exijan a sus gobiernos la reducción de los altísimos presupuestos militares construidos a costa de los derechos sociales, así como la necesidad de disolver la OTAN y cerrar las bases militares norteamericanas, ya que son una amenaza a la paz mundial.

 

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McCoy, Georgia State professor aided and watched Jimmy Carter’s work

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JC
Jimmy Carter tries to comfort six-year-old Ruhama Issah at the Savelugu Hospital as a Carter Center Volunteer Adams Bawa, dresses her painful guinea worm wound. 2007 photo in Ghana, by the Carter Center.

I assisted Carter’s work encouraging democracy – and saw how his experience, persistence and engineer’s mindset helped build a freer Latin America

by Jennifer Lynn McCoy, Georgia State University

When former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter founded the nonprofit Carter Center in 1982, one of their goals was to help Latin American countries – many of which were emerging from decades of military dictatorship – transition to democracies.

Already a hero to many in the region for promoting human rights and giving up US control of the Panama Canal during his presidency, Carter pioneered the center’s international election monitoring and conflict mediation with the work he did in Latin America.

I was on staff of The Carter Center from 1987 to 2015, first as a senior adviser and then as director of its Americas Program. In those roles, I worked closely with him, often accompanying the former president on trips to Latin America, where he tried to strengthen democracies and achieve peace.

I saw a man with great determination and self-discipline, driven by his faith and confidence that he could make a difference. He was always willing to take risks to tackle seemingly intractable problems.

The Jimmy Carter I remember was results-oriented rather than process-driven. He brought an engineer’s mind to every problem and was ready with possible solutions. He could be stubborn. But he was always willing to make principled decisions, even if they cost him politically.

For example, when – as president in 1977 – he signed the Panama Canal Treaties to turn over control of the canal to Panama by 1999, he was heavily criticized by many members of Congress. But with the treaties, Carter ended an arrangement that, from 1903, had allowed the U.S. to control the canal and was viewed as colonialism by many Latin Americans.

Since taking over the canal, Panama has expanded its capacity.

Democracy first

Carter always believed that negotiation was more fruitful than force. As president, he leaned into this philosophy with the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords and did the same thing to help Haiti reestablish democracy as leader of The Carter Center.

A gray-haired white man wearing a short-sleeved white shirt shakes the hand of a Black man, who is wearing glasses and a short-sleeved white shirt.Former President Jimmy Carter greets Haitian presidential candidate Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the eve of the Haitian presidential elections in 1990. Carter led an international team of observers that monitored the election process. Thony Belizaire/AFP via Getty Images

In 1994, the United States was set to invade Haiti on a United Nations-approved mission to reinstall the country’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Carter had monitored voting there in 1990, when Haitians elected Aristide. The Haitian leader was ousted in a military coup soon after, though.

When Carter informed President Bill Clinton that Haitian military general Raoul Cedras had asked for Carter’s help in mediating the crisis and avoiding a US invasion, Clinton allowed for a last-ditch diplomatic effort to seek a solution.

Carter led a team, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, to Haiti on a very short timeline to negotiate a peaceful end to the situation. With the U.S. forces already en route, the men managed to persuade the generals to accept amnesty and exile to avoid a potentially deadly US invasion.

The Carter art of mediation

In my view, Carter’s genius as a mediator is his belief that there is some innate goodness in every person, no matter the harm they may perpetrate. He strove to develop a connection with even the most detestable dictators because he knew their decisions could change the future of a society. Once he had a relationship with those leaders, he presented them with the hard choices they needed to make. And he always kept his compass. He focused on the well-being of the people in the countries he was helping, not his personal successes or failures.

His approach opened him to criticism that he cozied up to dictators. But, to me, he just exercised realism and persistence.

The Sandinista revolutionary government of Nicaragua, led by Daniel Ortega, came to power during the Carter presidency, when a broad coalition overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza.

The Reagan administration responded to Ortega’s Sandinista government by imposing an economic embargo and supporting a counterinsurgency from rebel forces known as the Contras. President Ortega needed help to end that conflict and believed that he could gain international legitimacy and pressure the U.S. to change its policy if he held internationally monitored elections. So, Ortega invited The Carter Center, the U.N. and the Organization of American States to mount an unprecedented election-monitoring mission that ended up terminating the Sandinista revolution.

One man, on the left, stands leaning over a table as he speaks with a man, center, a woman and man on the right, who are also standing and leaning over the table.
Former President Jimmy Carter and Jennifer Lynn McCoy, to his left, speak with members of the signature’s checking board, May 29, 2004, in Caracas. Carter served as an observer as Venezuelans sought a referendum to recall President Hugo Chavez. Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images

I was The Carter Center’s field representative in Managua at the time. The former president had developed his relationship with Ortega over the course of five trips to Nicaragua during the election campaign in 1989 to 1990, mediating disputes along the way. But election night was the most important moment. The initial vote count reports mysteriously stopped, and around midnight Carter went to see Ortega, along with the U.N. and OAS representatives. Carter told him that our data indicated the Sandinista-backed candidate had lost and that Ortega should acknowledge the loss and take credit for the democratic elections and everything the Sandinista revolution had accomplished.

Ortega acceded and the next day we accompanied him as he visited President-elect Violeta Chamorro’s house to congratulate her on her victory.

He was persistent

But Carter didn’t stop there, knowing the transition would be rocky. He gathered the two sides together in my little house in Managua and, sitting on rocking chairs on the patio, he negotiated a three-point agreement to frame the transition’s most difficult points – confiscated property and land reform, the integrity of the security forces and demobilization of the Contras.

Another time Carter’s persistence paid off was in Venezuela. That country’s democracy became unmoored with plummeting oil prices and hyperinflation in the 1990s, and The Carter Center was invited to monitor the 1998 elections, which populist outsider Hugo Chávez won.

After a failed military coup attempted to oust him in 2002, a shaken Chávez asked Carter to mediate between him and his political opposition. We partnered with the U.N. and OAS to form a tripartite mediating group – the OAS secretary general, trusted by the opposition; Carter, trusted by Chávez; and the U.N. as a neutral party providing background support.

Although the opposition was initially skeptical of Carter, given that he was invited by Chávez, it came to value Carter’s entree with Chávez and held high expectations he could hold Chávez to any commitments.

When an eventual agreement led to a recall referendum petition process, Carter forcefully pushed a stalling Chávez and his team to acknowledge that the opposition had gathered sufficient signatures to hold the referendum to decide whether to end Chávez’s term early.

But when the vote finally happened in August 2004, Chávez had managed to turn the tide in his favor in the opinion polls by spending on social programs. He won the vote decisively. The opposition alleged the vote count was fraudulent, while the OAS and The Carter Center audits of the count did not detect fraud. I received many messages from irate Venezuelans blaming Carter and me for ignoring fraud and allowing Chávez to continue in power in Venezuela.

I learned then what a thick skin a public figure must have to withstand the fury of severely disappointed people.

I have always admired Carter for the countless controversial decisions he made over the years. And I believe he will be remembered for his vision of a free and peaceful world and his willingness to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems with high risk of failure.

His interventions at key moments helped save lives – and encouraged Latin American democracy, at least for a time. And his center’s ongoing, lower-profile programs that promote citizens’ rights to information, election integrity, mental and public health and media freedom have made life better for people in many countries in the hemisphere.The Conversation

A suited, smiling gray-haired man walks on stage, with his left hand raised high, as he waves to the audience before him. Behind him, a large video screen captures his actions.
Former President Jimmy Carter takes the stage during the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

 

Jennifer Lynn McCoy, Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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CIFHU lamenta el fallecimiento del Dr. Richard Cooke

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El Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Humanidades (CIFHU) de la Universidad de Panamá lamenta el fallecimiento del insigne arqueólogo y antropólogo Richard Cooke. El equipo de investigadores del CIFHU hace llegar sus condolencias a su hija, Juana Cooke Camargo, a la profesora Marcela Camargo, ex directora del CIFHU, y a nuestro colega Florencio Díaz.
Debajo vea a un artículo por Diana R. Carvajal, de la Universidad Externado de Colombia, sobre la prolífica obra que Cooke lega a la sociedad panameña. Artículo titulado “Richard Cooke: arqueología y divulgación en Panamá”.

 

Richard Cooke: arqueología y divulgación en Panamá

por Diana R. Carvajal — Universidad Externado de Colombia

Resumen: La divulgación en arqueología en Panamá se ha realizado a través de diferentes medios; como periódicos, revistas, televisión, internet, museos, yacimientos arqueológicos, centros de interpretación, entre otros, que han estado fuertemente permeados por discursos ideológicos propios del contexto político y social. El Dr. Cooke ha actuado como promotor y divulgador de la arqueología panameña desde 1972. Sus iniciativas vinculan temáticas arqueológicas como el poblamiento temprano y la dispersión de grupos humanos en el istmo, el surgimiento de la desigualdad social, la economía de subsistencia prehispánica con temas contemporáneos y que involucran la arqueología con las ciencias sociales y biológicas; como la explotación de ecosistemas marinos y terrestres, el impacto de los grupos humanos sobre dichos ecosistemas, la apropiación del patrimonio arqueológico panameño y la continuidad cultural demostrada por la genética molecular. Es el propósito de este artículo, por lo tanto, hacer un recorrido histórico no exhaustivo por las experiencias divulgativas del Dr. Cooke, no solo en el ámbito académico, sino, sobre todo, para los no arqueólogos. De igual forma, es una manera de reconocer la trayectoria del Dr. Cooke y resaltar su labor dentro de la arqueología pública. Las experiencias divulgativas del Dr. Cooke permitirán hacer una reflexión sobre las prácticas actuales de divulgación de la arqueología en Panamá y por extensión en Latinoamérica.

Introducción1

La divulgación, no solo entre académicos, sino hacia el público en general, ha sido un importante trabajo en arqueología que se realiza a través de diferentes medios como periódicos, revistas, televisión, internet, museos, yacimientos, entre otros. Dichas actividades, aunque interpretan y hacen accesible el conocimiento, han estado fuertemente permeadas por discursos ideológicos propios del contexto político y social.

La difusión de la arqueología y la interacción con las comunidades no son fenómenos nuevos en el mundo o en Latinoamérica (López, 2001; López, Pradilla y Reyes, 1988; López y Reyes, 1994). Esta propagación de los datos arqueológicos se incluyó dentro de la denominada arqueología pública, término utilizado por Charles McGimsey III, en 1972, en su libro Public Archeology. En este libro, el arqueólogo se centra en cuestiones que son aún parte de los debates de la comunidad académica; como la participación de las comunidades locales, la interacción de las comunidades indígenas con el patrimonio arqueológico, la socialización de los trabajos y las interpretaciones del pasado durante los proyectos de arqueología preventiva o de rescate (Merriman, 2004).

Posteriormente, arqueólogos anglosajones incluyeron otras preocupaciones que iban más allá de la mera difusión y participación públicas. Dichas preocupaciones aún están latentes, particularmente en Latinoamérica, como el tráfico ilícito de antigüedades, el impacto del conflicto armado sobre el patrimonio arqueológico, el uso político de la arqueología, su impacto económico, los derechos indígenas o la imagen que se proyecta a la sociedad del pasado (Funari, 2004). Como se define a continuación, se entiende la arqueología pública, según Almansa (2011, p. 90), como:

Si la arqueología trata de crear un conocimiento novedoso desde el estudio de los restos materiales de sociedades pasadas, la arqueología pública estudia todas las relaciones entre dicha arqueología y la sociedad contemporánea con el ánimo de mejorar la coexistencia entre ambos y lograr un entendimiento generalizado del valor y uso de la arqueología.

A principios del siglo XXI, la arqueología pública se ha desarrollado como una nueva especialización de la arqueología gracias al aporte seminal de Peter Ucko en Inglaterra; y se ha avanzado en campos de acción como la imagen pública de la arqueología en los medios de comunicación, la participación directa de la comunidad en el trabajo arqueológico, entre otros (Moschenka, 2009; Shennan, 2007).

La arqueología, en general, aporta información de los modos de vida de las sociedades del pasado, cuya pertinencia en el presente tiene que ver con la conformación de identidades y procesos de cambio, y el compromiso de la población con el patrimonio arqueológico para su protección y divulgación. Al mismo tiempo, promueve la creación de políticas culturales y el desarrollo sostenible de las comunidades mediante el turismo (Giedelman, 2010; Groot, 2006, 2014).

El doctor Richard Cooke ha contribuido no solo a la arqueología de Panamá; sus investigaciones han aportado a la comprensión de las adaptaciones y economías de las sociedades precolombinas de las tierras bajas tropicales de la baja Centroamérica.

Las diferentes facetas de su trabajo académico, desde que llegó a Panamá en 1969, comprenden la arqueología, la zooarqueología y la etnohistoria (Anexo 1). Muchos de sus aportes son mencionados en este volumen, sin embargo, en este artículo me propongo resaltar la labor del Dr. Cooke dentro de la arqueología pública, de la que fui testigo como su estudiante en las excavaciones en Cerro Juan Díaz y luego a nivel profesional en los trabajos en Cueva de los Vampiros, la Región Occidental de la Cuenca del Canal y en el archipiélago de las Perlas (Figura 1).

Desde 1972, el Dr. Cooke (Anexo 1) mostró una preocupación por llevar su conocimiento especializado a un sector más amplio de la población y mejorar así el mundo que lo rodeaba. Sus iniciativas vinculan temáticas como el poblamiento temprano y la dispersión de grupos humanos en el istmo, la paleoecología, el surgimiento de la desigualdad social, la economía de subsistencia. Su visión del contexto político-social de Panamá y del mundo le han permitido relacionar las problemáticas locales de sus investigaciones con temáticas contemporáneas a una escala temporal y regional mayor, como la explotación de ecosistemas marinos y terrestres, el impacto de los grupos humanos sobre los ecosistemas, la apropiación del patrimonio arqueológico y la continuidad cultural de los grupos indígenas (Cooke y Sánchez, 2004a).



El propósito de este escrito es hacer un recorrido histórico no exhaustivo de las actividades divulgativas del Dr. Cooke, no solo en el ámbito académico, sino sobre todo en la transmisión de ese conocimiento a los no arqueólogos. Estas experiencias permitirán hacer una reflexión sobre las prácticas actuales de divulgación de la arqueología, tanto en Panamá como, en general, en Latinoamérica.

Un recorrido histórico de las actividades divulgativas del arqueólogo Richard Cooke

En una época anterior a los años sesenta, la investigación arqueológica en Panamá se caracterizaba por estudios descriptivos; principalmente las excavaciones de contextos funerarios y la total ausencia de estudios interpretativos en torno a los modos de vida de las poblaciones que habitaron el istmo. La preparación de los investigadores era muy limitada, tanto que la divulgación de conocimiento sobre el pasado precolombino se hacía a partir de fuentes bibliográficas o cátedras de antropología en las escuelas secundarias que negaban la influencia de las poblaciones indígenas sobre la formación del moderno estado panameño y su continuidad dentro de la historia de la nación.

El estudio del pasado en Panamá estaba influenciado por dichos prejuicios coloniales y por una asociación de huaqueros (Sociedad de Arqueología Panameña, SAP) y posteriores investigadores que realizaban trabajos de “arqueología” en yacimientos arqueológicos como Sitio Conte. Las prácticas de la época consideraban lícito que los artefactos eran un tesoro encontrado en las excavaciones y que, por lo tanto, era posible reclamarlo como parte de pago en los contratos celebrados con el gobierno panameño (Haller, 2010; Porras, 2002; Rovira, 2013).

Al momento de llegar el Dr. Cooke a Panamá, a finales de los años sesenta, iniciaba su investigación doctoral. El clima intelectual panameño de la época se caracterizaba por la consolidación institucional y académica de la antropología y arqueología. Las investigaciones y actividades divulgativas de los años sesenta y setenta están fuertemente influenciadas por jóvenes científicos panameños como Reina Torres de Arauz, entre otros; quienes desde la Universidad de Panamá impulsaron el Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas, la Dirección de Patrimonio Histórico, la creación de las revistas de Patrimonio Histórico y Hombre y Cultura, la apertura de innumerables museos regionales, que demostraban el interés por el estudio del pasado panameño y su divulgación (Constela, 1993; Cooke y Sánchez, 2004a; De Gracia y Mendizábal, 2014; Mendizábal, s.f; Sánchez, 2002).

En esos años, el Dr. Cooke trabajó como profesor de antropología en la Universidad de Panamá; Florida State University, y en la Universidad Santa María la Antigua; y colaboró en los estudios arqueológicos del Museo Americano de Historia Natural como asistente del arqueólogo Junius Bird (Figura 2). Asimismo, laboró bajo contrato para la Unesco y para Patrimonio Histórico en proyectos de salvamento arqueológico en Fortuna, Chiriquí (Cooke y Sánchez, 2004a; Sanjur, 2012).

En dichas posiciones, centró las actividades de divulgación en ámbitos académicos al publicar documentos como “El Rescate Arqueológico en Panamá: Historia, Análisis y Recomendaciones”, donde hace una síntesis de los trabajos arqueológicos en Panamá hasta la fecha y hace algunas recomendaciones acerca de la preservación y divulgación del patrimonio histórico y cultural (Cooke, 1984; Anexo 1).

A finales de los años ochenta, Cooke formó parte del equipo de trabajo del Museo Reina Torres de Arauz, actualizando los guiones y las exhibiciones en las que se aspiraba; en palabras de Marcela Camargo, (2014) a mostrar al visitante cuándo y cómo había surgido el istmo, la presencia de sus primeros pobladores, el desarrollo de esas sociedades y lo sucedido posteriormente con la Conquista y dominio español.

Estas actividades coinciden con el gobierno-dictadura de Omar Torrijos, quien, dentro de sus planes de gobierno liberal y populista, incluía el aumento de la infraestructura, la oferta de educación pública, y dentro de las políticas culturales: la exaltación de la nacionalidad e identidad panameña. Según Camargo (citado por Sánchez [2008]), dichas ideas liberales entorno a lo nacional estaban fuertemente influenciadas por los conceptos de modernidad y civilización de las instituciones europeas y norteamericanas. Esta política de estado, sin duda, impulsó las investigaciones arqueológicas y su difusión (Rovira, 2013; Sánchez, 2002). Solo, hasta estos años, el concepto de patrimonio hace parte del léxico del estado panameño. A raíz de esto, surgieron leyes para reglamentar conjuntos monumentales como Panamá Viejo, Portobelo y Casco Viejo, y se impulsaron actividades turísticas a través del IPAT -Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá (Pizzurno, 2007).

Durante los años ochenta, se destacó el Proyecto Santa María, el cual concentra sus actividades investigativas en torno al poblamiento temprano, la ecología cultural, la arqueozoología con el uso de recursos animales por parte de poblaciones precolombinas. Es en esta década cuando entra el Dr. Cooke a formar parte del staff del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales, donde continúa hasta la fecha. El arqueólogo aglutina sus actividades divulgativas en la presentación de artículos y capítulos en importantes revistas científicas, así como la tutoría de estudiantes becarios, la asistencia a voluntarios y la divulgación en reportajes periodísticos para el público en general (Sanjur, 2012; Anexo 1).

Esta década se caracteriza por la crisis político-institucional generada por los comicios ganados por Arnulfo Arias, pero que fueron otorgados a Nicolás Ardito Barleta, desencadenando la dictadura del general Manuel Antonio Noriega y la posterior invasión del ejército norteamericano. Estas situaciones afectaron al país en forma negativa tanto en lo económico como en lo social, con el desplazamiento de los habitantes de contextos urbanos, lo cual dio pie a la suspensión de actividades arqueológicas y de difusión. Principalmente, el Museo Antropológico Reina Torres de Arauz tuvo en esta década el primero de varios cierres, y parte de su colección fue saqueada (De Gracia y Mendizábal, 2014; Sánchez, 2008)

En la década de los años noventa, se destaca el proyecto arqueológico Cerro Juan Díaz dirigido por el Dr. Cooke con fondos de STRI -Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute-, INAC -Instituto Nacional de Cultura- y National Geographic. A solicitud de la directora de Patrimonio Histórico de ese entonces, Marcela Camargo, se desarrollaron excavaciones arqueológicas que culminaron en el 2001. Este sitio arqueológico es una aldea precolombina ocupada entre los siglos IV a XV después de Cristo, inicialmente identificada por un arqueólogo chileno a comienzos de 1980 y objeto de actividades de huaquería y coleccionismo que continúa hasta hoy. La huaquería que incluye la destrucción y venta de objetos precolombinos ha sido uno de los males que más ha sufrido el patrimonio arqueológico panameño por parte de nacionales y extranjeros desde principios del siglo XX; tanto así que dichas actividades acabaron “oficializándose” en las décadas de los años cincuenta y sesenta por parte de la Panamanian Archaeological Society o SAP (Cooke, 1997; Haller, 2010; Mendizábal, s.f).

La estrategia contra los problemas de huaquería en el Proyecto Cerro Juan Díaz, según un artículo publicado en la época por el Dr. Cooke (1997), se concentró en estrategias que involucraban a los especialistas en arqueología con la educación, la publicación y la interacción con poblaciones locales, quienes no solo asistieron al proyecto arqueológico como trabajadores y voluntarios en las excavaciones, sino que fueron contratados por el INAC para ejercer actividades de vigilancia. Las actividades divulgativas incluyeron una exposición itinerante de las investigaciones en Cerro Juan Díaz, seminarios – talleres a estudiantes del Centro Regional Universitario de Azuero, de la escuela de Geografía e Historia de Panamá y de la Universidad Santa María; cursos de verano a estudiantes de universidades extranjeras que vinculan el patrimonio arqueológico con lo ambiental, como la Universidad de Princenton y McGill (Figura 3); así como visitas de grupos escolares de primaria y secundaria, como el Colegio Enrico Fermi, a las excavaciones para conocer el trabajo de arqueólogos. La divulgación también incluyó exposiciones gráficas en el Museo de la Nacionalidad y en las Ferias Regionales de Azuero, documentales de las investigaciones en FETV -Canal5, Telemetro Canal 13 y aparición en reportajes en medios impresos locales como La Prensa y la Estrella de Panamá, o guías turísticas extranjeras como Lonely Planet (Cooke, 1997; Cooke y Sánchez 2004a).

Para esta década, son pocos los arqueólogos panameños y, en tanto no hay educación de este tipo en Panamá, su formación la realizaban principalmente en universidades extranjeras. Para ellos y muchos estudiantes de antropología y arqueología de Colombia, Costa Rica, Canadá, Japón y Estados Unidos, el proyecto Cerro Juan Díaz funcionaba como una escuela de campo donde el doctor Cooke impartía sus conocimientos y experiencias. Los estudiantes realizaban sus prácticas profesionales y sus tesis de grado bajo su dirección muchas veces con financiamiento del STRI. Asimismo, como lo demuestra el anexo 1, es una preocupación del Dr. Cooke involucrar a estudiantes y jóvenes profesionales en la publicación de capítulos o artículos de sus investigaciones en inglés y español (Haller, 2010). Las actividades divulgativas del Dr. Cooke destacan la antigüedad de las sociedades precolombinas, su carácter multiétnico y la importancia estratégica de Panamá en la migración de poblaciones, tecnologías y cultígenos (Cooke y Sánchez, 2004a, 2004b; Anexo 1).

Coincide esta década con los gobiernos de Guillermo Endara y Ernesto Pérez Balladares, este último, para recuperarse de la crisis económica de años previos, implementó políticas neoliberales como la privatización de empresas estatales (Sánchez, 2002). Esas crisis de finales de los años ochenta y principios de los años noventa, luego de la invasión y ocupación de los Estados Unidos a Panamá, dividieron a la población panameña que oscilaba entre un grupo autoritario, militarista y nacionalista, y otro grupo contrario proyanqui (Porras, 2002). Posteriormente, Mireya Moscoso asumió el gobierno que recibió el Canal de Panamá. El consecuente retiro de las poblaciones que vivían en la zona del Canal generó debacles económicas, por lo que las políticas estatales se centraban en el desarrollo rural, la modernización del sistema educativo y la administración pública. Es en ese momento del ámbito cultural, a pesar de la reducción de recursos económicos, cuando se construyó un museo para la niñez (De Gracia y Mendizábal, 2014).

A partir del 2000, con los gobiernos de Martín Torrijos y a raíz de la creación de la Ley de Ambiente, se efectuaron numerosos estudios de impacto ambiental, algunos relacionados con el Plan de Desarrollo de Turismo Sostenible de Panamá 2007- 2020 (Mellado, 2013), que, si bien mitigaron los impactos a los bienes culturales, son pocas las actividades de divulgación de los resultados de dicha gestión. Entre esos se destacan los proyectos del Fuerte de San Lorenzo El Real de Chagres y en el Conjunto Monumental Histórico de Portobelo (Mendizábal, s.f.).

En este periodo, los trabajos divulgativos del Dr. Cooke se concentraron en proyectos de arqueología preventiva, como el Proyecto Arqueológico de la Cuenca de Panamá para el ensanche del Canal financiado por la ACP -Autoridad del Canal de Panamá-; la Cueva de los Vampiros, que fue alterada por actividades extractivas de empresas camaroneras y diferentes proyectos de impacto ambiental en el archipiélago de la Perlas como resultado de emprendimientos del sector turístico y hotelero, así como proyectos académicos financiados por Senacyt -Secretaria Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación- (Anexo 1).

Estas investigaciones permitieron la consolidación, conservación, restauración y puesta en valor de estos bienes culturales. Se involucró a los habitantes locales contratados para asistir a los arqueólogos. La información concerniente al poblamiento temprano del istmo, el uso de recursos animales y vegetales, los impactos en los ecosistemas por acciones antrópicas, la pesca precolombina, el surgimiento de la desigualdad, las transformaciones culturales durante el siglo XVI, entre otros temas, fueron publicados en la prensa, capítulos y revistas especializadas, boletines académicos del STRI o divulgadas a través de seminarios; y cursos de verano a estudiantes de la Universidad de Princeton y McGill. Cooke continuó su labor con la asistencia de becarios (Cooke y Sánchez, 2004a; King, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d, 2002e, 2009, 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2016; Mendizábal, s.f; Anexo 1; Figura 4).

En los años posteriores, las políticas de gobernantes como Ricardo Martinelli y Juan Carlos Varela se caracterizaron por diseñar e implementar políticas para solucionar los problemas económicos y sociales. En lo concerniente a los programas de cultura y tecnología, con la creación del Senacyt, se adelantó la creación y readecuación de museos como el Museo Interoceánico, el Museo Reina Torres de Arauz y el Museo de la Biodiversidad (De Gracia y Mendizábal, 2014; Sánchez, 2002; Sánchez, 2008).

Comentarios finales

En los últimos años de este siglo, las actividades divulgativas del Dr. Cooke se han concentrado en la enseñanza de la historia de las civilizaciones prehistóricas de Panamá, las representaciones iconográficas de animales, la historia ambiental y social de la Cuenca del Canal, el uso de la fauna y su impacto en ecosistemas insulares, mediante talleres y seminarios a docentes de secundaria en las provincias de Panamá y Bocas del Toro, docentes de la Universidad de Panamá, y del Colegio de Santa Cruz, Florida (USA). Se han desarrollado para los estudiantes de colegio en cooperación STRI-Banistmo, un programa denominado CHISPA! y conversatorios en la Universidad Especializada de las Américas –UDELAS- sobre la Interculturalidad (King, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d, 2002e, 2009, 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2016; Figura 5). Los periódicos locales como la Prensa o la Estrella de Panamá han publicado para el público crónicas no solo de homenajes otorgados como la Orden del Imperio Británico y el Experto del año 2016, también, por ejemplo, ha publicado noticias cortas sobre la ocupación precerámica en el Archipiélago de las Perlas y artículos que recalcan el desarrollo autóctono panameño (Guevara, 2016; Méndez, 2017; Montañez, 2016). El Dr. Cooke también ha colaborado en las sesiones de lluvia de ideas para definir el contenido de las exhibiciones del Museo de Biodiversidad (Sánchez, 2008).

Como menciona Trigger (1992), los trabajos de arqueólogos como el Dr. Cooke son resultado de sus predecesores. Coincide dentro del contexto latinoamericano y mundial con una realidad poscolonial y el surgimiento e iniciativas como el World Archaeological Congress de 1980 que se gestó en el Institute de Arqueología del University of London, allí se cuestionó lo que significa el trabajo arqueológico para las comunidades. Anteriormente, la arqueología no reflexionaba sobre cómo su práctica se encontraba inmersa dentro de intereses del Estado y grupos (Funari, 2004).

No sobra recordar que el Dr. Cooke obtuvo su título doctoral en el mismo instituto y que el clima intelectual en esta institución británica promueve a escala global los estudios de patrimonio cultural, arqueología ambiental y tuvo influencia en su trabajo desarrollado en Panamá. Posterior a esta década, y en la actualidad, los trabajos de divulgación han mostrado cómo la arqueología se inserta en el tejido social y se relaciona con el derecho de poblaciones locales al manejo de sitios y su patrimonio material, contra la venta de bienes culturales y la representación de la arqueología en los medios de comunicación que en conjunto se denominan arqueología pública.

Posterior a la década de los años noventa, el trabajo del Dr. Cooke ha influenciado en el conocimiento de los modos de vida de las sociedades del pasado y la diversidad de trayectorias, cuya pertinencia tiene que ver con la conformación de nuevas identidades panameñas y procesos de cambio con el compromiso de la población con el patrimonio arqueológico para su protección y divulgación; esto particularmente se refleja en el aumento de profesionales panameños dedicados a la arqueología, museología e historia y en la creación de una asociación de antropólogos (AAH, 2013; Haller, 2010). Al mismo tiempo, los esfuerzos del Dr. Cooke con otros investigadores panameños han cimentado la creación de políticas culturales para la conservación, gestión y apropiación del patrimonio arqueológico con miras el desarrollo sostenible de las comunidades. Por ejemplo, se readecuarán tres sitios de patrimonio cultural, el Museo Arqueológico y Antropológico Reina Torres de Arauz, y las fortificaciones de San Lorenzo y Portobelo; además, se creó la Dirección de Cultura en la Alcaldía de Panamá para preparar a la Ciudad de Panamá para ser la Capital Iberoamericana de la Cultura en 2019 (BID, 2017; INAC, 2017).

Las estrategias divulgativas del Dr. Cooke han contribuido al desarrollo de las investigaciones históricas, a denunciar las actividades de huaquería y el reconocimiento de la arqueología como disciplina, la diversidad cultural y biológica del Istmo, así como su rol en mostrar la continuidad histórica y geográfica de la población originaria. Gracias a la invitación del Senacyt (2016), el Dr. Cooke junto con otros arqueólogos, ha participado en discusiones en torno a los desafíos para desarrollar investigación arqueológica en Panamá.

Sus esfuerzos son creativos en el reconocimiento de la presencia indígena en Panamá y el rol de la arqueología en ese proceso. Lamentablemente, no han tenido el suficiente eco en los planes de desarrollo estatales y están sometidos a los vaivenes económicos y políticos, como ocurre en el resto de Latinoamérica. Científicos como la Dra. Porras (comunicación personal) reconocen que el mayor impacto del Dr. Cooke es:

El mayor impacto del Dr. Cooke, a mi entender, fue el de romper el hermetismo científico del Smithsonian en Panamá, el cual funcionaba como una especie de enclave con su sistema de apartheid colonial científico (excluyente de las instituciones académicas, de los investigadores y hasta de los temas significativos para los nacionales panameños). No solamente estudiaba el Dr. Cooke al Panamá precolombino como objeto digno de estudio y sujeto de la historia y la arqueología, sino que compartió y tradujo al español sus investigaciones con los estudiosos panameños, mientras formaba arqueólogos entre jóvenes indígenas y estudiantes universitarios de las provincias y de la ciudad de Panamá. Sus artículos y conferencias enviaron el mensaje “subversivo” a la comunidad científica de élite (ésa que siempre dijo que Panamá no tenía cultura ni historia propias): Richard dio muestras abundantes y contundentes para la tesis de que la arqueología de Panamá era única y de gran valor, mientras a los panameños nos comunicó confianza y sentido de valor, como comunidad académica y como seres humanos. Incluso contribuyó y lo sigue haciendo para que los académicos panameños superemos nuestros prejuicios eurocéntricos y nuestro colonialismo interno.

Sin duda, Richard Cooke fue más allá de ser un excelente arqueólogo, para convertirse en un ser humano solidario, combatiente contra el colonialismo académico dentro y fuera de Panamá. Un arqueólogo brillante y hombre admirable sin duda alguna.

Como se observa en su producción bibliográfica, muchos de los artículos o capítulos son escritos en español y en coautoría con estudiantes o profesionales recién egresados, donde se enfatizaba la historia profunda de los antiguos pobladores panameños y sus desarrollos autóctonos, en contraste con otras versiones coloniales de la historia de Panamá precolombina como inexistente o como resultado de ser una simple área de tránsito.

A pesar de su divulgación y gestión del patrimonio arqueológico, las mismas preocupaciones del Dr. Cooke expresadas en su artículo de 1997 siguen vigentes, como que el público en general no entiende el problema de la huaquería y la poca importancia de la arqueología en la construcción de una identidad nacional en un país con un alto porcentaje de población indígena (Porras, 2002). Problemáticas como la falta de infraestructura adecuada, la escasez de investigaciones multidisciplinarias y la subsecuente dificultad de divulgar la investigación de trabajos arqueológicos reducen las posibilidades para que dicha información potencie el desarrollo científico y tecnológico, ayude en la valoración de los orígenes y, de este modo, cierre la brecha de la desigualdad y fomente un desarrollo equitativo que mejore la calidad de vida de los panameños y demás pueblos latinoamericanos.

El caso de Cerro Juan Díaz (Cooke, 1997) ejemplifica las tensiones experimentadas por el Dr. Cooke durante el ejercicio de sus investigaciones arqueológicas y las actividades divulgativas. Como mencionamos anteriormente, el Dr. Cooke trabajó en Cerro Juan Díaz en el marco de las ideas nacionalistas del gobierno de Omar Torrijos, donde formuló políticas públicas que fomentan la identidad panameña valorizando su diversidad cultural (Porras, 2013). Se resalta durante su gobierno la Ley 63 del 6 de junio de 1974 por la que se crea el INAC. Este organismo fue concebido para orientar, fomentar, coordinar y dirigir las actividades culturales del país y entre sus funciones llevar a cabo el reconocimiento, estudio, custodia, conservación, restauración, enriquecimiento y administración del patrimonio histórico de Panamá (Gaceta oficial, 1974). Esto no fue lo que impulso al Dr. Cooke a comenzar las investigaciones y los procesos educativos, fueron las actividades de huaquería en el sitio a partir de los años ochenta y un llamado directo del INAC, logrando la financiación del gobierno panameño y de instituciones como el STRI.

En esta coyuntura, tuvo que luchar con los estereotipos de la sociedad panameña en torno a la arqueología generada desde las excavaciones en Sitio Conte por Mason y Lothrop. Desde esos años, los arqueólogos son huaqueros o espías que toman los objetos precolombinos como parte de pago o para nutrir las colecciones de museos extranjeros (Haller, 2010). Durante las excavaciones en Cerro Juan Díaz, se escuchaba a las personas hacerle al Dr. Cooke los mismos cuestionamientos que formuló recientemente un columnista en el diario “La Estrella de Panamá” (Acosta, 2014) sobre el Sitio El Caño y que cualquier arqueólogo o arqueóloga ha escuchado a lo largo de su ejercicio profesional: ¿Qué fue lo que se encontró?, ¿cuál es el resultado de las excavaciones?, ¿dónde está el oro y la cerámica?, ¿quién custodia ese material?

El doctor Cooke (1997) recalca que los arqueólogos aún no tienen suficiente injerencia en las políticas culturales, ni cuentan con respaldo de instituciones estatales que se relacionen con la investigación y conservación del patrimonio arqueológico. Aunque se ha trabajado en cambiar estas situaciones coloniales y estereotipos en la arqueología, esto se mantiene hasta ahora en Latinoamérica.

Agradecimientos

Agradezco a Luis Sánchez y Yajaira Núñez por la invitación al simposio. Gracias a los científicos y personal administrativo del STRI, en particular Oris Sanjur, Elizabeth King y Alexandra Lara, por la ayuda con el material gráfico de este artículo. Un especial reconocimiento para la Dra. Ana Elena Porras por sus comentarios.

 

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López, C. (2001). Del diseño de investigación a la exhibición en el museo: problemas y perspectivas de la arqueología pública y la arqueología por contrato en Colombia. En Ministerio de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Colombia (ed.), La arqueología, la etnografía, la historia y el arte en el Museo Nacional de Colombia (vol. 1, pp. 106-114). Bogotá: Ministerio De Cultura.

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 Cuadernos de Antropología

Julio-Diciembre 2019, 29(2)

DOI: 10.15517/cat.v29i2.36757

Recibido: 15-02-2018 / Aceptado: 21-06-2018

 Revista del Laboratorio de Etnología María Eugenia Bozzoli Vargas

Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Escuela de Antropología, Universidad de Costa Rica

ISSN 2215-356X

 1 Este artículo se deriva de la ponencia presentada en el simposio “Tras una herencia cultural milenaria: contribuciones de Richard Cooke a la arqueología del Área Istmo-Colombiana”, organizado por Luis A. Sánchez y Yajaira Núñez-Cortés en el XI Congreso de la Red Centroamericana de Antropología, celebrado del 27 de febrero al 3 de marzo de 2017 en San José, Costa Rica.

Anexo 1: Bibliografía Selecta del Dr. Richard Cooke.

Año

Publicación

2016

López-Angarita, J., Roberts, C., Tilley, A., Hawkins, J. y Cooke, R. (2016). Mangroves and people: Lessons from a history of use and abuse in four Latin American countries. Forest Ecology and Management, 368: 151-162. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2016.03.020

Stange, M., Aguirre-Fernández, G., Cooke, R., Barros, T., Salzburger, W. y Sánchez-Villagra, Marcelo R. (2016). Evolution of opercle bone shape along a macrohabitat gradient: species identification using mtDNA and geometric morphometric analyses in neotropical sea catfishes (Ariidae). Ecology and Evolution, 6(16): 5817-5830. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2334

2014

Iizuka, F., Cooke, R., Frame, Lesley y Vandiver, P. (2014). Inferring provenance, manufacturing technique, and firing temperatures of the Monagrillo ware (3520-1300 cal BC), Panama’s first pottery. En Martinon-Torres, M. (ed.), pp: 19-29. doi: 10.5339/uclq.2014.cas.ch3

2013

Cooke, R., Ranere, A., Pearson, G. y Dickau, R. (2013). Radiocarbon chronology of early human settlement on the Isthmus of Panama (13,000-7,000 BP) with comments on cultural affinities, environments, subsistence, and technological change. Quaternary International, 801, 3-22. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2013.02.032

Dickau, R., Redwood, S. y Cooke, R. (2013). A 4,000-year-old shaman’s stone cache at Casita de Piedra, western Panama. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 5(4), 331-349. doi: 10.1007/s12520-012-0112-5

2012

Perego, U. Lancioni, H., Tribaldos, M., Angerhofer, N., Ekins, J., Olivieris, A., Woodward, S., Pascales, J., Cooke, R., Motta, J. y Achilli, A. 2012. Decrypting the mitochondrial gene pool of modern Panamanians. PLoS ONE, 7(6), 1-10. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038337

2011

Cooke, R. (2011). The Gilcrease Collection and the Gran Cocle. En R. G. Cooke, N. J. Saunders, J. W. Hoopes y J. Quilter (eds), To capture the sun: the gold from ancient Panama (pp. 115-160). Tulsa: Gilcrease Museum.

2010

Cooke, R. y Martin Rincón, J. (2010). Arqueozoologia en la Baja América Central (Nicaragua, Costa Rica y Panama). En G. Mengoni, J. Arroyo-Cabrales, O. J. Polaco y F. J. Aguilar (eds), Estado actual de la arqueozoologia latinoamericana: Current advances for the Latin-American archaeozoology (pp. 105-131). Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

2008

Carvajal, D. Jiménez, M. y Cooke, R. (2008). Curing, fishing and taphonomy at two contiguos rockshelters in Panama: preliminary observations. Quaternary International, 180, 90-106.

2007

Cooke, R. (2007). Guangala fishers and farmers (pescadores y agricultores Guangala). Fishers and farmers (pescadores y agricultores Guangala). Environmental Archaeology, 12, 216-218.

Cooke, R., Jiménez, M. y Ranere, A. (2007). Archaeozoology, art, documents, and the life assemblage. En E. Reitz, C. M. Scarry, S. J. Scudder (eds), Case studies in environmental archaeology (pp. 95-121). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Cooke, R., Jimenez, M. y Ranere, A. (2007). Influencias humanas sobre la vegetación y fauna de vertebrados de Panamá: actualización de datos arqueozoológicos y su relación con el paisaje antrópico durante la época precolombina. En E. G. Jr. Leigh, E. A. Herre, J. B. C. Jackson y F. Santos-Granero, Ecología y evolución en los trópicos (pp.562-593). Panama: Editora Nova Art.

Dickau, R., Ranere, A. y Cooke, R. (2007). Starch grain evidence for the preceramic dispersals of maize and root crops into tropical dry and humid forests of Panamá. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(9), 3651-3656. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0611605104

Pearson, G. y Cooke, R. (2007). Cueva de los Vampiros, Coclé, Panama. Nuevos datos sobre la antigüedad del ser humano en el istmo de Panamá. Arqueologia del Area Intermedia, 7, 39-70.

 

 

 

 

2006

Lotze, H., Lenihan, H., Bourque, B., Bradbury, R., Cooke, R., Kay, M., Kidwell, S., Kirby, M., Peterson, C. y Jackson C. (2006). Depletion, degradation, and recovery potential of estuaries and coastal seas. Science, 5781, 1806-1809. doi: 10.1126/science.1128035

Carvajal, D., C. P. Díaz, L. A. Sánchez H. y R. G. Cooke (2006). ¿Fue Cerro Juan Díaz, una aldea precolombina en el río La Villa, el pueblo de indios de Cubita?. En M. Camargo y Y. Marco (comps), Memorias del VI Congreso Centroamericano de Historia (pp. 100-123). Panamá: Universidad de Panamá.

 

2005

Cooke, R. (2005). Prehistory of native americans on the Central American Land Bridge: colonization, dispersal, and divergence. Journal of Archaeological Research, 70(2), 129-187.

2004

Cooke, R. (2004). Observations on the religious content of the animal imagery of the ‘Gran Coclé’ Semiotic Tradition of Pre-Columbian Panamá. En S. O`Day, W. van Neer y A. Ervynck (eds), Behaviour behind bones: the zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity (pp. 114). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Cooke, R. (2004). “Panamá precolombino”. En O. J. Suáez (ed.), Dimensiones de la historia de Panamá (p. 20). Panamá: Club Unión de Panamá.

Cooke, R. y M. Jiménez. (2004). Teasing out the species in diverse archaeofaunas: is it worth the effort? an example from the tropical eastern Pacific. Archaeofauna, 13, 19-35.

Cooke, R. y Jiménez, M. (2004). Rich, poor, shaman, child: animals, rank, and status in the ‘Gran Coclé’ Culture Area of Pre-Columbian Panamá. En S. O’Day, S., W. Van Neer y A. Ervynck (eds), Behaviour behind bones: the zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity (pp. 271-284). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Cooke, R. (2004). Arqueología en Panamá (1888-2002). En A. Figueroa (ed.), Panama: cien años de República (pp.111-149). Panamá: Manfer S.A.

Cooke, R. y Sanchez, L. (2004a). Panamá prehispánico. En A. Castillero C. (ed.), Historia general de Panamá (Vol. 1, Tomo II, Primera parte: Las sociedades originarias, pp. 3-46). Bogotá: D ́Vinni Impresores.

Cooke, R. and Sanchez Herrera, L.(2004b). Panamá indígena (1501-1550). En A. Castillero C. (ed.), Historia general de Panamá (Vol. 1, Tomo II, Primera parte: Las sociedades originarias, pp. 47-78). Bogotá: D ́Vinni Impresores.

Mayo, J. y Cooke, R. (2004). La industria lítica de Gran Coclé, Panamá, a finales del periodo Cerámico Medio. Resultado del análisis de material lítico de la Operación B de Sitio Cerro Juan Díaz. Arqueología Mexicana, 33, 140-160.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2003

Cooke, R. (2003a). Observations on the religious content of the animal imagery of the ‘Gran Coclé’ semiotic tradition of pre-Columbian Panama. En S. O`Day, W. van Neer y A. Ervynck (eds), Behaviour behind bones: the zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity (pp. 114-127). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Cooke, R. (2003b). Rich, poor, shaman, child: animals, rank, and status in the ‘Gran Coclé’ culture area of pre-Columbian Panama. En S. O’Day, W. van Neer y A. Ervynck, A. (eds), Behaviour behind bones. The Zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity (pp. 271-284). Liverpool: Oxbow.

Aronson, R., Bruno, J., Precht, W., Glynn, P., Harvell, C., Kaufman, L… Roughgarden, J. (2003). Causes of coral reef degradation. Science, 5650, 1502b-1504.

Cooke, R. (2003). Los pueblos indígenas de Centroamérica durante las épocas precolombina y colonial. En Coates A. G. (ed.), Una historia de la naturaleza y cultura de Centroamérica (pp. 153). Panamá: Smithsonian Books.

Cooke, R. y Sánchez, L. (2003a). Alain Ichon in Panama (1967-1970): a reappraisal of the Tonosí Research Project in the light of new research. En C. Arnauld, A. Breton, M. F. Fauvet-Berthelot y J. A. Valdés (eds), Misceláneas en Honor a Alain Ichon (pp. 13-27). Guatemala: Impresora Caudal.

Cooke, R. y Sánchez, L.(2003b). Panamá prehispánico: tiempo, ecología y geografía política (una brevísima síntesis). Istmo (Revista Virtual Estudios Literarios y Culturales Centroamericanos). Recuperado de https://www.si.edu/es/object/SILSRO_51386

Cooke, R., Isaza, I. I., Griggs, J., Desjardins, B. y Sánchez, L. A. (2003). Who crafted, exchanged and displayed gold in pre-Columbian Panama?. En J.Quilter y J. Hoopes (eds), Gold and power in the Intermediate Area (pp. 91-158). Washington DC: DumbartonOaks.

Cooke, R. G., L. A. Sánchez H., D. R. Carvajal, J. D. Griggs, J. D. e I. I. Isaza A. (2003). Transformaciones sociales y culturales de los amerindios de Panamá durante el siglo XVI: una perspectiva arqueológica y paleoecológica. Mesoamérica, 45, 1-34.

Pandolfi, J., Bradbury, R., Sala, E., Hugues, T., Bjorndal, K., Cooke, R., McArdle, D., McClenachan, L., Newman, M., Paredes, G., Warner, R. y Jackson, J. (2003). Global trajectories of the long-term decline of coral reef ecosystems. Science, 5634, 955-958.

Pearson, G. A., Cooke, R. G., Beckwith, R. A. y Carvajal, D. R. (2003). Update on Paleoindian research on the isthmus of Panama. Current Research in the Pleistocene, 20, 63-66.

Ranere, A. y Cooke, R. (2003). Late Glacial and Early Holocene occupation of Central American Tropical Forests. En J. Mercader (ed.), Under the canopy: the archaeology of tropical rain forests (pp. 219-248). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2002

Carvajal, D. R., Díaz, C. P., Sánchez, L. A. y Cooke, R. G. (2002). ¿Fue Cerro Juan Díaz, una aldea precolombina en el río La Villa, el pueblo de indios de Cubita?. En Actas del VI Congreso Centroamericano de Historia. Panamá: Universidad de Panamá

Pearson, G. y Cooke, R. G. (2002). The role of the Panamanian land-bridge during the initial colonization of the Americas. Antiquity, 76, 931-32.

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. (2002). Late glacial and early Holocene occupation of Central American tropical forests. En J. Mercader (ed.), Under the canopy. The archaeology of tropical rain forests (pp. 219-248). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Griggs, J. C., L. A. Sánchez, R. G. Cooke, C. P. Díaz y Carvajal, D. R. (2002). Recopilación y presentación de datos ambientales y culturales en la región cccidental de la cuenca del Canal de Panamá. Tarea 6: inventario de sitios de recursos culturales y evaluación del potencial de sitios adicionales. Volumen 2: informe de los sitios de recursos culturales fuera de las áreas de impacto directo y sitios de recursos culturales dentro de las áreas de impacto directo en las cuencas de los ríos Caño Sucio e Indio. Panamá: Autoridad del Canal. Manuscrito inédito.

 

 

 

2001

Cooke, R. (2001a). Cuidando a los ancestros: rasgos mortuorios precolombinos en cerro Juan Díaz, Los Santos. En S. Heckadon-Moreno (ed.), Panamá: puente biológico (pp. 54-62). Panamá: Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales.

Cooke, R. (2001b). La pesca en estuarios panameños: una visión histórica y cultural desde la Bahía de Parita. En S. Heckadon-Moreno (ed.), Panamá: puente biológico (pp. 45-53). Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales, Panamá.

Jiménez, M. y Cooke, R. (2001). Análisis faunístico de los restos excavados en las Casas De Terrín (Panamá Viejo): una aproximación a la dieta y a la ecología. En B. Rovira y J. G. Martín (eds), Arqueología de Panamá La Vieja – Avances de investigación, No. 1 (pp. 89-126). Panamá Viejo, Panamá: Patronato Panamá Viejo.

Jiménez, M. y Cooke, R. G. (2001). La pesca en el borde de un estuario neotropical: el caso de Cerro Juan Díaz (Bahía de Parita, costa del Pacífico de Panamá). Noticias de Arqueología y Antropología, Grupo NaYa, Buenos Aires, CD-ROM.

Cooke, Richard y Sánchez, L. A. (2001). El papel del mar y de las costas en el Panamá prehispánico y del periodo de contacto: redes locales y relaciones externas. Revista de Historia, 43, 15-60.

 

 

 

 

2000

Sánchez, L. y R. Cooke (2000). Cubitá: un nuevo eslabón estilístico en la tradición cerámica del “Gran Coclé”, Panamá. Precolombart, 3, 5-20.

Cooke, Richard, Sánchez, L. A. y Udagawa, K. (2000). Contextualized goldwork from ‘Gran Cocle’, Panama: an update based on recent excavations and new radiocarbon dates for associated pottery styles. En C. McEwan (ed.), Precolumbian gold: technology, style and iconography (pp. 154-176). Londres: British Museum Press.

 

1999

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. (1999). Precolumbian fishing on the Pacific coast of Panama. En M. Blake (ed.), Pacific Latin America in prehistory: the evolution of Archaic and Formative Cultures (pp. 103-122). Pullman: Washington State University Press.

1998

Cooke, R. (1998a). Cupica (Chocó): a reassessment of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff’s fieldwork in a poorly studied region of the American tropics. En J. S. Raymond y A. Oyuela (eds), Recent advances in the archaeology of the Northern Andes (Monograph 39, pp. 91-106). Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Archaeology.

Cooke, R. (1998b). Human settlement of Central America and Northern south America, 14,000 – 8,000BP. Quaternary International, 49/50, 177-190.

Cooke, R. (1998c). The Felidae in Pre-Columbian Panama: a thematic approach to their imagery and symbolism. En Nicholas J. Saunders (ed.), Icons of power: Felid symbolism in the Americas (pp. 77-121). Londres: Routledge.

Cooke, R. (1998d). Subsistencia y economía casera de los indígenas precolombinos de Panamá. En A. Pastor (ed.), Antropología panameña: pueblos y culturas (pp. 61-134). Panamá: Editorial Universitaria.

Cooke, R., Sánchez, L. A., Isaza, I. y Pérez, A. (1998). Rasgos mortuorios y artefactos inusitados de Cerro Juan Díaz, una aldea precolombina del ‘Gran Coclé’ (Panamá central). La Antigua, 53, 127-196.

 

 

 

 

1997

Cooke, R. (1997). Huaquería y coleccionismo en Panamá. Revista Nacional de Cultura, 27, 50-66.

Cooke, R. y Sanchez, L. A. (1997). Coetaneidad de metalurgia, artesanías de concha y cerámica pintada en Cerro Juan Díaz, Gran Coclé, Panamá. Boletín Museo del Oro, 42, 57-85.

Sanchez H., Luis A. y Cooke, R. (1997). ¿Quién presta y quién imita?: orfebrería e iconografía en ‘Gran Coclé’, Panamá. Boletín Museo del Oro, 42, 87-111.

Zohar, I. y Cooke, R. (1997). The impact of salting and drying on fish bones: Preliminary observations on four marine species from Parita Bay, Panamá. Archaeofauna, 6, 59-66.

 

 

 

1996

Cooke, R., Norr, L. y Piperno, D. R. (1996). Native Americans and the panamanian landscape: harmony and discord between data sets appropriate for environmental history. En E. J. Reitz, L. A, Newsom y S. J. Scudder (eds), Case studies in environmental archaeology (pp. 103-126). New York: Plenum Press, .

Ranere, A. y Cooke, R. G. (1996). Stone tools and cultural boundaries in prehistoric Panama: an initial assessment. En F.W. Lange (ed.), Paths to Central American prehistory (pp. 49-77). Niwot CO: University Press of Colorado.

 

1995

Cooke, R. (1995). Monagrillo, Panama’s first pottery (3800-1200 cal bc): summary of research (1948-1993), with new interpretations of chronology, subsistence and cultural geography. En J. Barnett y J. Hoopes (eds), The emergence of pottery: technology and innovation in ancient societies (pp. 169-184). Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Ranere, A. y Cooke, R. G. (1995). Evidencias de ocupación humana en Panamá a postrimerías del Pleistoceno y a comienzos del Holoceno. En I. Cavelier y S. Mora (eds), Ámbito y ocupaciones tempranas de la América Tropical (pp. 5-26). Santafé de Bogotá: Fundación Erigaie, ICAN.

 

1994

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. J. (1994). Relación entre recursos pesqueros, geografía y estrategias de subsistencia en dos sitios arqueológicos de diferentes edades en un estuario del Pacífico Central de Panamá. En Actas del Primer Congreso sobre la Defensa del Patrimonio Nacional, Panamá.

Cooke, R. y Tapia, G. (1994a). Marine and freshwater fish amphidromy in a small tropical river on the Pacific coast of Panama: a preliminary evaluation based on gill-net and hook-and-line captures. En W. van Neer (ed.), Fish exploitation in the past (Proceedings of the 7th Meeting of the ICAZ Fish Remains Working Group). Annales du Musée Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, Sciences Zooologiques, 274, 99-106.

Cooke, R. y Tapia, G. (1994b). Stationary intertidal fish traps in estuarine inlets on the Pacific coast of Panama: descriptions, evaluations of early dry season catches and relevance to the interpretation Panamá of dietary archaeofaunas. Offa, 51, 287-298.

 

 

1993

Cooke, R. (1993). Alianzas y relaciones comerciales entre indígenas y españoles durante el período de contacto: el caso de Urracá, Esquegua y los vecinos de Natá. Revista Nacional de Cultura, 25, 111-122.

1992

Cooke, R. (1992a). Etapas tempranas de la producción de alimentos vegetales en la Baja Centroamérica y partes de Colombia (Región Histórica Chibcha-Chocó). Revista de Arqueología Americana, 6, 35-70.

Cooke, R. (1992b). Prehistoric nearshore and littoral fishing in the eastern tropical Pacific: an ichthyological evaluation. Journal of World Prehistory, 6, 1-49.

Cooke, R. (1992c). Preliminary observations on vertebrate food avoidance by the Precolombian Amerinds of Panama, with comments on the relevance of this behaviour to archaeozoology and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. En O. Ortiz-Troncoso y T. van der Hammen (eds), Archaeology and environment in Latin America (Vol. 5, pp. 59-107). Amsterdam: Instituut voor Pre- en Protohistorische Archeologie Albert Egges van Giffen, Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. J. (1992a). Adaptaciones precolombinas a los bosques tropicales del Pacífico de Panamá: una evaluación de hipótesis planteadas por el “Proyecto Santa María” (1981-1986) (traducción y modificación del artículo que sigue [1992c]). Scientia, 7, 61-86.

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. J. (1992b). Human influences on the zoogeography of Panama: an update based on archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence. En S. P. Darwin y A. L. Welden, (eds), Biogeography of Mesoamerica. Proceedings of a Symposium (Mérida, Yucatán, México, October 26-30, 1984) (pp. 21-58). New Orleans: Special Publication of the Mesoamerican Ecology Institute, Tulane University.

Cooke, R. y A. J. Ranere. (1992c). Prehistoric human adaptations to the seasonally dry forests of Panama. World Archaeology, 24, 114-133.

Cooke, R. y A. J. Ranere. (1992d). The origin of wealth and hierarchy in the Central Region of Panama (12,000-2,000BP), with observations on its relevance to the history and phylogeny of Chibchan-speaking polities in Panama and elsewhere. En F. Lange (ed.), Wealth and hierarchy in the Intermediate Area (pp. 243-316). Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1991

Ranere, A. y Cooke, R. G. (1991). Paleo-Indian occupation in the Central American Tropics. En R. Bonnichsen y K. L.Turnmire (eds), Clovis: origins and adaptations (pp. 237-253), Corvallis OR: Center for the Study of the First Americans.

1989

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. J. (1989). Hunting in prehistoric Panama: a diachronic perspective. En J. Clutton-Brock (ed.), The walking larder: patterns of domestication, pastoralism and predation (pp. 295-315). Londres: Unwin Hyman.

1985

Cooke, R. (1985). Ancient painted pottery from central Panama. Archeology, 38(4), 33-39.

Cooke, R. y W. M. Bray. (1985) The goldwork of Panama: an iconographic and chronological perspective. En J. Jones (ed.), The art of Precolumbian gold: the Jan Mitchell Collection (pp. 35-49). Londres: Weidenfield and Nicholson.

Piperno, D., Clary, K. H., Cooke, R. G., Ranere, A. J. y Weiland, D. (1985). Preceramic maize in central Panama. American Anthropologist, 87, 871-78.

Cooke, R., Piperno, D. Ranere, A. J., Clary, K. Hansell, P., Olson, S., Valerio, W. y Weiland, D. (1985). La influencia de las poblaciones humanas sobre los ambientes terrestres de Panamá entre el 10,000 a.C. y el 500 d.C. En S. Heckadon y J. Espinosa (ed.), La agonía de la naturaleza (pp. 3-25). Panamá: IDIAP/STRI.

Cooke, R. y Rovira, B. E. (1985). Historical archaeology in Panama City. Archaeology, 36, 51-57.

 

 

 

 

1984

Cooke, R. (1984a). Archaeological research in central and eastern Panama: a review of some problems. En F. W. Lange y D. Z. Stone (eds), The archaeology of Lower Central America (pp. 263-302). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Cooke, R. (1984b). Birds and men in prehistoric central Panama. En F. W. Lange (ed.), Recent developments in isthmian archaeology (International Series 212, pp. 243-81). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

Cooke, R. (1984c). Reseña bibliográfica: ancient Panama: chiefs in search of power por Mary Helms. Ethnohistory, Winter 1984.

Cooke, R. y Ranere, A. J. (1984). The “Proyecto Santa Maria”: a multidisciplinary analysis of prehistoric adaptations to a Tropical watershed in Panama. En F. Lange (ed.), Recent developments in Isthmian Archaeology. British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 212, 3-30.

 

 

 

1981

Cooke, R. (1981). Los hábitos alimentarios de los indígenas precolombinos de Panamá. Revista Médica de Panamá, 6, 65-89.

1979

Cooke, R. (1979). Los impactos de las comunidades agrícolas precolombinas sobre los ambientes del Trópico estacional: datos del Panamá prehistórico. En Actas del IV Simposio de Ecología Tropical. Instituto Nacional de Cultura/Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (Tomo 3, pp. 919-973), Panamá.

1977

Cooke, R. (1977a). El hachero y el carpintero: dos artesanos del Panamá precolombino. Revista Panameña de Antropología, 2, 48-77.

Cooke, R. (977b). Recursos arqueológicos. En Apéndice 7: Evaluación Ambiental y Efectos del Proyecto Hidroeléctrico “Fortuna”. Revista Lotería (Panamá) 254-56, pp. 399-444.

 

1976

Cooke, R. (1976a). El hombre y la tierra en el Panamá precolombino. Revista Nacional de Cultura, 2, 17-38.

Cooke, R.(1976b). Informe sobre excavaciones en el sitio CHO-3 (Miraflores), río Bayano, febrero de1983. En Actas del II Simposio Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología y Etnohistoria de Panamá (pp. 369-426). Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Panamá.

Cooke, R.(1976c). Panamá: Región Central. Vínculos, 2, 122-140.

Cooke, R. (1976d). Rescate arqueológico en El Caño (NA-20), Coclé. En Actas del IV Simposio Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología y Etnohistoria de Panamá (pp. 447-482). Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Panamá.

Cooke, R. (1976e). Una nueva mirada a la cerámica de las provincias centrales. En Actas del IV Simposio Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología y Etnohistoria de Panamá (pp. 309-365). Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Panamá.

 

 

 

 

1972

Cooke, R. (1972). The archaeology of the western Coclé province of Panama (Tesis de doctorado inédita). Univesity of London, Londres, Inglaterra.

 

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

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Panama’s next president? The contest begins to take shape.

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Gaby
He’s got all the gestures and endorsements sort of right. However, history, his performances when Nito has been out of the country and the lack of any larger record that establishes him as other than just another politician all suggest that the next elected president of Panama will not be Gaby Carrizo. A quirk of Panamanian law suggests that if Nito dies or has to step down and Gaby puts on the presidential sash, the latter won’t be eligible to run in 2024. But what would become of someone who declines to do his duty because he wants to be president? Photo from José Gabriel Carrizo’s Twitter feed.

Next year’s presidential race shaping up

by Eric Jackson

Carnival has been time out for political campaigning, even if here or there online the ban appears to have been evaded.

A new party telling people, in the name of the party, to act reasonably and safely during the days of drunken revelry? Leave it for someone to complain and electoral magistrates to judge.

Pseudonymous acolytes, on the face of it coming from outside Panama, running attack posts on social media? Would the election authorities have the capability, resources and inclination to prove who and what they are, and at whose behest they work?

In any case, a long and early campaign season is now underway.

Zulay
Currently leading the race to gather the most ballot signatures as an independent, sitting PRD deputy Zulay Rodríguez, known for vitriolic National Assembly rants against foreigners, gay men and lesbians, journalists who write unflattering things about her, bankers and it’s anyone’s guess who’s next. She wants to strip away the Panamanian citizenship of those who were born in Panama to foreign citizen parents and to restrict the playing of foreign music on Panamanian radio.

The Independents

There will be three independent presidential candidates on the ballot. Despite long odds and rules intentionally stacked against them, one may yet overcome all that and be the next president. The disgust with all of the political parties and with the political patronage system embedded in our 1972 constitution is palpable and may be strong enough to win a crowded race in which there is no second round runoff. It has never yet happened, but you never know.

So far six people have surpassed the minimum number of signatures to get on the ballot, but only the top three get presented to the voters. Petitioning continues through July 31 of this year. The latest to minimally qualify, but now in fifth place, is leftist economics professor Maribel Gordón, with 48,606 signatures as of late last week. She’s part of the brain trust of the CONUSI labor federation, the most prominent union in which is the militant SUNTRACS construction workers’ organization. The Panamanian left, since the 1960s fragmented into warring communist factions and shades of socialists who won’t align with any authoritarian Marxist-Leninist party, has traditionally included about 10 to 15 percent of the nation’s electorate.

Gordón leapfrogged ahead of former Panameñista deputy Katleen Levy, now with a bit more than 41,000 signed-up supporters.

Although somebody might jump from way behind and overtake one or both of the front runners for most signatures, as it stands now Levy and Gordón are in a battle with fourth-place Eduardo Quirós (56,632 signatures by the pre-Carnival count) and third-place Francisco Carreira (59,311) for that last spot on the ballot. The front-running independents are number one, PRD legislator and xenophobic demagogue Zulay Rodríguez (93,084) and number two, Panameñista Party member and former Minister of Commerce an industry Melitón Arrocha, at 80,153 supporters.

Historically the Electoral Tribunal has found ways to tip the scales to keep independents who stand for something and could thus become disruptors of the usual politics off of the ballot. The magistrates are, after all, notwithstanding their denials of any sort of partisan bent, chosen from the different political parties that have interests in keeping the old paradigms.

Figure that fascism is probably on the ballot in the figure of Zulay Rodríguez, who would likely splinter off part of the PRD vote. Arrocha or Levy would similarly threaten to take Panameñista votes with them.

The way that it works here is that independents are formally prohibited from making ballot alliances with political parties as the small parties traditionally do, but somebody petitioning for ballot status as an independent might renounce that in favor of being a nominee on a party’s or alliance’s ticket, whether or not he or she is in one of the top three spots in the petitioning race. The filing for formation of alliances happens early next year, months after the independents’ petitioning is over.

National Assembly president Crispiano Adames throws his hat into the PRD primary ring.

The PRD

It’s the long-standing habit of Panamanian voters to eject the party the holds the presidency in the next election. The cynical conventional wisdom is that they all steal, so it’s better to make them take turns rather than set their hooks too deeply into Panama.

The long 1968 – 1989 dictatorship from which the PRD arose may be taken by many as proof of the horrors of the extended rule of any one party. However, if a look at that experience is too superficial or if the inquiry extend no further back in time then important aspects of Panamanian militarism and the course of the 21-year dictatorship get missed, even without the conspiracy theories.

General Omar Torrijos founded the Democratic Revolutionary Party in 1979, part of a process of “normalizing” politics that earlier included the drafting of our current constitution by a rump assembly of the nation’s representantes – city council members – who had been elected in 1968. It was a political patronage deal between the military command and those ward heelers who went along with it for a cut of the action.

By the first time that the PRD took the field in a contested presidential election, in 1984, Omar Torrijos was dead, having been killed in a 1981 plane crash about which hypotheses and theories are still spun. The findings of four agencies from three countries were that Torrijos had his pilot do some risky flying in a driving rain at Coclesito, and on this occasion his luck ran out.

Manuel Antonio Noriega, the spymaster whom Torrijos described as “my gangster” maneuvered his way to the top over the ensuing couple of years. When Panama had its first open presidential election after the coup its old nemesis Arnulfo Arias got the most votes, but the Electoral Tribunal, alleging some sort of irregularities in San Miguelito, wiped that huge municipal district off of the total and awarded the race to the PRD’s banker Nicolás Ardito Barletta. Nobody was fooled. Meanwhile the Reagan administration was using cocaine smuggling operations through Panama as a part of supporting the not-very-covert Contra War against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. (Oh? They say behind Washington’s back, unbeknownst to them? Uh huh.) But Reagan and his crew wanted more and demanded open Panamanian support for the Contra War, a political impossibility within both the PRD and the Panama Defense Forces command structure. There were chains of events orchestrated and otherwise, but by 1987 Noriega was in Uncle Sam’s sights, most of Panama’s political forces had united against the strongman and the PRD, Noriega had removed and replaced Nicky Barletta and the opposition went on to crush the PRD in the 1989 elections – which Noriega and his henchwoman in the Electoral Tribunal, Yolanda Pulice, annulled, just ‘cuz. More events intervened, US military forces invaded, hundreds of Panamanians who has nothing to do with the dictatorship’s abuses were killed and the actual winner of the 1989 election, Guillermo Endara, was belatedly installed as president by US forces in a ceremony at Fort Clayton.

Then in 1994 the old cycle resumed, Endara’s Panameñistas and their allies fragmented, and we got the PRD in the form of Ernesto “Toro” Pérez Balladares back in the presidency, with a bit more than one-third of the vote in a seven-way race.

We might argue about whether, outside of the cycle, the PRD rigged another election, the canal expansion referendum of 2006. The yes side won by an at a glance landslide on the strength of the PRD all turning out to vote for it, the left and the Panameñistas opposing but widespread vote suppression, the quasi-criminalization of the no campaign and a relatively small fraction of the electorate actually turning out to vote. The abuses of that experience, various Martín Torrijos administration scandals plus the weakness of the Panameñistas after the corruption and incompetence of the 1999-2004 Mireya Moscoso administration, gave the Palacio de las Garzas to Ricardo Martinelli for five years.

Anyway, the PRD has had their next turn via the Cortizo administration, most of the party elders have their plan – the transparently corny Vice President José Gabriel Carrizo – but primary challenges are in the making. National Assembly president Crispiano Adames says he’s running for president – which does not also prevent him from running for re-election for his present seat in the legislature. Within the week we will see if anyone else files as a primary challenger to Gaby. Former party leader abd legislator Pedro Miguel González says that he will make an announcement about his plans or lack thereof by the deadline. The gossip is that it may be former Health Minister Rosario Turner but she has yet to make any announcement. The filing deadline is February 26 and the primary will be on June 11.

The backdrops to the intra-PRD drama have an ailing President Cortizo calling for budget restraint and the party’s legislators and local officials thumbing their noses at him, and while party old guard members like Toro Pérez Balladares and 2009 standard bearer Balbina Herrera are backing Carrizo, other party elders like Martín Torrijos, former PRD secretary general and legislator Pedro Miguel González and former Administrative Prosecutor Alma Montenegro are complaining about the process and seem ready to back a primary challenge.

The PRD’s legislative bosses seem content to accept their party’s defeat in the presidential race so long and they and others hold onto their positions in down-ballot races.

But what about National Assembly president Crispiano Adames? He wasn’t the leading vote-getter in his multi-member circuit in the metro area and may figure that a failed primary run for the presidency is a face saving way out of a difficult legislative re-election bid.

From Panama City’s mayor on down, many PRD local officials appear to be playing all of the old games as if there will be no tomorrow – which there may not be, for them.

By size the PRD may look well set. They have the largest membership of all of the parties, nearly three-quarters of a million, and this well-oiled get-out-the-vote organization. But this is a culture in which most people vote in general elections, and there will be a voter roll of more than three million people.

Yanibel
Ricardo Martinelli and Yanibel Ábrego, at a rally of her Cambio Democratico faction, which seeks an alliance with Martinelli. But what if he’s not on the ballot to make up such a slate? Photo from Yanibel Ábrego’s Twitter feed.

Martinelli and other far right factions and leaders

Ricardo Martinelli is raring to come back to the presidential palace, vowing revenge against any and all who oppose him. He wants the party that he created and discarded back and has deployed lawyers, Internet trolls and who knows what other goons to achieve his purposes. The polls have him leading the race, with about 30 percent of the vote. ‘He stole but he got things done’ is his acolytes’ motto.

Yes, he got things done – mostly for himself.

His achievements, as documented in the courts of the United States, Switzerland, Andorra and Spain, include laundering some $28 million in Odebrecht bribes. His sons, after confessing and doing US federal time for their supporting roles in that, are staying quiet about it since they were deported back to here. Later this year their dad goes on trial with a bunch of other people, with some of whom he has long since fallen out, for the Odebrecht scheme.

Also set for trial this year will be a criminal trial for New Business an alleged kickback and money laundering scheme by which he purchased his main propaganda machine, the EPASA newspaper chain that includes El Panama America, La Critica and smaller publications. A conviction in either of those cases almost certainly throws him off of the ballot. The New Business litigation might strip him of his newspaper chain.

There are other investigations underway, contemplated or possibly to be revived by the courts that may yet trap Martinelli. We also don’t know which bombshells the US government, which as barred the entire Martinelli family from entry into the United States, might yet explode over Team Martinelli.

He’s not quite as fickle as his erstwhile friend Donald Trump about throwing old allies and underlings under buses, but Martinelli is that kind of guy. (The falling out with Trump, blame on Trump, who put his name on and his company into the management of a mobbed-up hotel and condo tower which, however, the Colombian developer partner situated in a notorious flood plain. Come ribbon-cutting day and the area was knee-deep in water and Trump’s alternative reality was to blame Martinelli.)

Still, there are figures with totalitarian or kleptocratic politics akin to Martinelli’s and some of them are making nice in probable anticipation of filling the void on the right that would be created if Martinelli is thrown off of the ballot. Zulay Rodríguez is one of those possibilities. So is former National Assembly president Yanibel Ábrego and her faction of the Cambio Democratico party. Religious far right figures like the MOLIRENA legislator from San Miguelito, Corina Cano, could jump on board. If Martinelli is convicted and in some way or another replaced, there will be spots to fill on a reconfiguration or substitute team.

A year and two months is a long time in politics. Panama’s courts and prosecutors have historically been amenable to purchase or persuasion, even if lately they have been striking down spurious acquittals and sending old Martinelli people to prison at an increasing rate. Will trolls from Miami speaking for “real” Panamanians or posting political analysis from Panama City, FLORIDA be able to slow or stop the losing streak? This reporter has been wrong before about the Martinellis’ chances but the prediction from here is that he will be a convicted criminal, ineligible for a spot on the ballot, come next year. And wouldn’t THAT be quite the wild card if it comes to pass?

Fascism is on the march across much of the world, but also has been defeated in many places. For a win in Italy, there are losses in Brazil and the United States. It takes on different symbols and scapegoats from country to country, but also generates opposition everywhere. Expect that as the scene clarifies, there will be a public clamor for an anti-Martinelli coalition if he’s on the ballot, or something similar if somebody on Panama’s far right shows any success at claiming or trying to claim that portion of the political spectrum that has been looking favorably upon the former president. And yes, there would be call center trolls and other hirelings set to the task of aborting any such coalition.

Panameñista Party president, 2019 presidential standard bearer and former Panama City mayor José Isabel Blandón speaks at length about alliances and the current political situation in an interview with Panama En Directo.

The Panameñistas

If you want to get into Panamanian political history that party’s founder, Arnulfo Arias, was actually one of Hitler’s friends from his 1930s days as a diplomat in Mussolini’s Italy. The movement got its start in the 1920s as Accion Comunal, whose members went around in KKK robes and agitated for the expulsion from Panama of West Indian blacks and Asians. After his brother Harmodio got a turn the Palacio de las Garzas, Arnulfo became president and promulgated the 1941 constitution that stripped all those of Asian, Afro-Antillean or Sephardic Jewish ancestry of their Panamanian citizenship, no matter if they, their parents and their grandparents had been born in Panama. The discourse of those times got around to whether it would be a good idea to sterilize the Chinese-Panamanians, which would have been bad news for Zulay Rodríguez Lu’s maternal grandparents.

The racism Uncle Sam may have been willing to tolerate but by 1941 there were German U-boats in the Caribbean Sea, among other things picking off shipments of war materiel and food from the West Coast of the United States heading through the Panama Canal to the British. Franklin D. Roosevelt was not amused and that October, while Arnulfo was in Cuba visiting his eye doctor, a coup was orchestrated via the American Embassy here.

(Yeah, yeah – so very legal. The president had left the country without formal notice to the National Assembly, and the Americans merely reminded the national police chief and the vice president of that, and immediately recognized the new government. So it is said.)

Arnulfo remained popular and had his various comebacks, all of which ended in coups d’etat to send him packing again. The ultimate coup, in October of 1968, sent him and his then teenaged wife, Mireya Moscoso, fleeing to the Canal Zone, then to Francisco Franco’s Madrid.

Within the Panameñista orbit the fascist aura dimmed and then blinked out. After the grand caudillo’s time they even elected a Jew, Katleen Levy, to the National Assembly.

Mireya Moscoso’s 1999-2004 shift in the presidency? She was not her charming, brilliant, witty and urbane husband. The corruption was pretty crude and the arnulfistas spent a decade in the political wilderness after that.

The way back came as junior partners of Ricardo Martinelli – or shall we say partners in crime in the Odebrecht graft schemes? A court will have something to say about that later this year, when Martinelli’s VP and later elected president on his own party’s ticket (2014-2019), Juan Carlos Varela will confront charges as co-defendant with Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal, Martinelli’s two sons and a number of other co-defendants in a bribery and money laundering case.

It’s generally expected that the last Panameñista standard bearer, former Panama City mayor José Isabel Blandón, will run for the presidency again next year. As a junior or senior partner on a coalition slate? The common wisdom – maybe not so wise in times like these – is that for any chance the Panameñistas need to be part of some coalition with an equal or bigger party.

The PRD’s Gaby Carrizo talks about a grand coalition, which is taken by some observers to be with the Torrijistas’ traditional foes, the Arnulfistas. If “Stop Martinelli” becomes the name of the game, that would make a certain amount of sense. But if that comes to pass, it would mean that Ricardo Martinelli retains a grip on the law courts and the Electoral Tribunal, which should not only upset the Panameñistas and the PRD.

One of the many reasons why the Panameñistas may be willing to be a junior partner in an anti-Martinelli coalition, other than how vicious the Martinelistas have been to them? There are two registered Panameñistas seeking to get on the presidential ballot as independents – Melitón Arrocha and Katleen Levy. The odds are good that at least one of them will get on the ballot and split away at least some party members on Election Day 2024.

Ricardo Lombana on the campaign trail. The attorney and former diplomat has run for president before, but this time he doesn’t have the structural impediments of an independent status. Photo from his Twitter feed.

Lombana and Otro Camino

Ricardo Alberto Lombana González was the best-performing independent candidate for president in 2019, garnering just under 19 percent of the vote. Since then he has registered and petitioned to put the Movimiento Otro Comino – Another Road Movement – onto the 2024 ballot as a political party.

A lawyer and the son of an immigrant from Spain, Lombana is the grand-nephew of the late Panamanian feminist icon Clara González. He got a Salesian Catholic education at Colegio La Salle, his law degree at the University of Panama and his LLM in international and corporate law at Georgetown. Then he did more post-graduate studies at Oxford and Harvard. He served as a diplomat in Washington for the Mireya Moscoso and Martín Torrijos administrations, Panameñista and PRD respectively.

Since late in the Martinelli administration he has been a steadfast critic of this country’s public corruption and political patronage system. Don’t count him out as a serious contender for the presidency, but he’s way back in the polls and a lot of events would have to work out right for him to get to the head of the pack. He probably would not be elected without other parties in alliance with his. Still, he surprised a lot of people the last time around and should not be counted out.

Roux
Attorney Rómulo Roux, on the left, may end up without a party on the ballot. At least he has the sense to make friends with those who have demonstrated a sense of loyalty, in this case by supporting the Detroit Tigers through their prolonged hard times. Photo from Rómulo Roux’s Twitter feed.

CD – will they even be around? Which faction will control?

Right now Cambio Democratico (CD), which Ricardo Martinelli founded but then lost control of during his flight from prosecution, his fight against US extradition, legal troubles that kept him from running for mayor of Panama City in 2019 and so on. The last time around corporate lawyer Rómulo Roux, a photogenic Catholic conservative and lawyerly prudent man, carried the party banner and became party leader, and turned out to be a dud on the campaign trail.

Martinelli, facing multiple criminal charges in several cases and with an entourage to match, expected to be acclaimed as CD leader again, but Roux and others had different ideas and even the party’s caucus members who are not onboard with Martinelli and his new party are also not onboard with Roux.

Roux and his party group gave instructions to the CD legislative caucus about whom to support for what for various leadership posts in the National Assembly. These were ignored by 15 of the 18 caucus members and Roux et al moved to remove the 15 rebel deputies from the legislature. Meanwhile former National Assembly president, Yanibel Abrego called for an early party leadership convention to remove Roux. The Electoral Tribunal nixed both of these motions but meanwhile the CD party convention delegates’ – and leaders’ – mandates have lapsed. The Electoral Tribunal has cut off the party’s government subsidy, but what’s going on with the ballot status and recognized organization is up in the air and a mess.

Martinelli wants CD as an ally of his new RM party in the elections, and perhaps the PRD or the Panameñistas would like that party on the slate as an ally as well. However the status mess may be resolved, figure that both Roux and Ábrego have their followings which they could take, formally or not, into an alliance with somebody.

If Ricardo Martinelli gets to run for president next year – that is, no disqualifying criminal trial loss this year – might Ábrego be his running mate? OR, if Don Ricky is out of the race, might she be the Realizando Metas stand-in?

CD has more than 307,000 signed-up members – the second-largest party membership at the moment – but it looks like they are a broken remnant on their way to extinction. Nevertheless, in Panamanian politics you never know.

Isn’t that the historical oddity? Corina Cano, the most noteworthy political representative of Panama’s religious hard right, sits in the legislature as a member of a Liberal successor party. National Assembly photo.

The minor parties – MOLIRENA, Partido Popular et al

When Panama separated from Colombia in 1903, there were the Liberal and Conservative parties, the former having by far the most support in the country, the latter in military control of Panama City, Colon and the Panama Railroad route and having just executed the Liberals’ guerrilla general, Victoriano Lorenzo. They quickly declared Liberal political leader Belisario Porras a non-citizen of Panama to keep him off of the ballot.

Within a decade of independence the Conservatives were moribund and by sometime in the 1920s they were extinct. Porras was president and has things named after him all over Panama. There are no monuments to those who ordered Lorenzo’s execution nor those who ruled Porras off of the ballot.

But rather quickly the factionalism among Liberals that had characterized the Colombian period returned, and multiplied prodigiously in the 1920s. The Accion Comunal movement that gave rise to the Panameñistas AND the social reforming militarism of José Remón and later Omar Torrijos that accounts for the roots of the PRD originated among Panamanian Liberals. The one party that retains the word liberal in its name, the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA) sits in the National Assembly as an ally of the PRD, and fights among themselves mostly over the division of political patronage spoils.

In the Colombian period Conservatives were for Catholicism as the official state religion, while Liberals were for a secular government with no state religion. Imagine the incongruity of MOLIRENA’s best-known politician, San Miguelito legislator Corina Cano, being more or less the leader of the gay-bashing “pro-family” religious right in Panama and recognized as such by the Madrid-based CitizenGo global network. There you have it, but very likely that anomaly will go away because as things normally go Cano didn’t get enough votes to win a seat in her own right. The Electoral Tribunal said that MOLIRENA was owed a seat in San Miguelito and leapfrogged her over a PRD candidate who got more votes. Do all of her speeches in the legislature amount to a following that would get her more votes next time? Might she lead a more-Christian-than-thou Liberal faction as a personal following into some sort of formal or informal alliance come next year? Hard to say.

Meanwhile, what about the party that started out calling itself “Christian,” the old Christian Democrats who are now the Partido Popular? They have no seats in the legislature this time but got enough votes in 2019 to retain ballot status.

These folks have their roots in global Catholic anti-communist politcs, taking a name from an Italian party that the CIA boosted in the early years of the Cold War. Ricardo Arias Calderón and Teresita Yániz de Arias, husband and wife, were their principal leaders. Ricardo is deceased. Teresita, a native of Cuba, served two terms in the legislature and is in many ways the face of moderate Catholic feminism in Panama. When there is a demonstration protesting violence against women, she’s a likely suspect to be there. Look at her occasional social media posts and despite her long and strong commitment to Panama, you will realize that she’s also very much the concerned daughter of Cuba. When a leftist government in Latin America suppresses a critic, she is likely to say something about it.

But her party, having played an outsized role in the opposition to the 1968-1989 dictatorship, fell into a typical game of alliances with larger parties, usually in exchange for this or that. These folks still for the most part stood and stand for a certain civility and a sense of rectitude that do not play well to “What’s in it for me?” crowds. Will they see a comeback? Under whose leadership? In alliance with whom? If we are to see an anti-corruption landslide next year, it may carry some of the former Christian Dems back into office with it.

There are other small formations on the ballot, the Alianza and PAÍS parties, with roots into the fragmentation and personalized politics of the Martinelli era. Alianza is back on the ballot on the strength of getting down-ballot votes for representantes. It may be a model of a new sort of party vehicle.

There is still time – until July – to put other parties on the ballot. Will that faction of the left make a big push to revive FAD – the Broad Front for Democracy, which lost ballot status from a poor showing in 2019 – back before the voters? We shall see.

Il Duce
One of Ricardo Martinelli problems in making alliances is that he has a history of throwing allies under the bus, with his own ambitions sufficient to do so without much provocation. In the background of this portrait in his bombero generalissimo uniform, then vice president and later successor Juan Carlos Varela looks reasonably wary. Photo by the Presidencia.

Grand alliances?

All parties, big and small, talk of alliances these days. The time for those to be finalized will be early next year. Our present laws do not allow independents as such to be allied with parties, but parties can put independents on their tickets.

The eternal problem is the syndrome of politics as a business, in which parties don’t stand for anything in particular. Things boil down to the cynical rather quickly when politicians who don’t much believe in anything get together to merge strategies.

Perhaps via independent candidacies there will be both a hard right and a hard left candidate in 2024 – Zulay Rodríguez and Maribel Gordón do actually stand for certain things. But generally it’s all a game about jobs and contracts for party members.

NA
The current partisan configuration of the National Assembly, as it now is. Do the math. The party that holds the presidency but lacks a workable majority in its own right needs to make alliances in the legislature to effectively govern. This gives small parties larger powers than one might expect. National Assembly graphic.

 

MLs that ain't Leninists
The Martinelli Linares brothers, the ex-president’s sons, in custody in Guatemala. They fought extradition to the United States and lost, then pleaded guilty in a US federal district court in Brooklyn to laundering some $28 million in Odebrecht bribe money — and implicated their father. Guatemalan police photo.

Odebrecht and other cases

Ricardo Martinelli and his estranged VP and the successor Juan Carlos Varela will go on trial this year for a bribery and kickback scheme to steer public works construction contracts to the giant Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Martinelli’s two sons are also co-defendants in that one, and in a US money laundering case confessed in a federal district court in Brooklyn to laundering some $28 million of the proceeds of that.

As to the PRD? Very likely folks from the Martín Torrijos administration (2004-2009) were involved in the same sort of operations with respect to Odebrecht, but the statute of limitations has run out by now.

Martinelli will also go on trial for the New Business money laundering and kickback scheme wherein it is alleged that he took the proceeds from skimming public works contracts laundered them through circuitous routes through several countries and with that money bought control of the EPASA newspaper chain – El Panama America, La Critica, Dia a Dia on a daily basis and various weekly inserts and the printing press business. A conviction there could not only get the former president disqualified to run in 2024, it could get those media confiscated and thus deprive any successor of the propaganda advantage of having those publications in his or her favor.

Many other Martinelli administration scandals are percolating in the courts, a lot more could have been officially investigated but never were and now it’s too late, but current and former member of his entourage in various legal difficulties are going to be part of the news backdrop. Whether it’s ‘Varela and the PRD are persecuting The People’s Champion’ or ‘Finally, the long arm of the law reaches out and gets the bad guys’ sort of news coverage, those kinds of stories are not good for someone associated with thepeople caught up in them.

There’s enough sleaze to go around so that some will conclude that what needs to happen is that everybody now in office should be voted out. It makes for a volatile election cycle.

Mauricio
Foco is the best known of Panama’s online-only media, founded by photojournalist Mauricio Valenzuela and later backed by some rather wealthy interests. Valenzuela is politically independent and very much hated in Martinelli and PRD circles. Zulay Rodríguez unsuccessfully prosecuted him for “gender violence” for his report about her alleged cheating of a Mexican law client. Ricardo Martinelli is charging him with defamation and trying to seize all of his assets in the meantime. Graphic from Foco’s Twitter feed. 

Trolls, new media and the old mainstream

Figure a major media slant lineup that looks something like this:

* La Estrella and El Siglo are mostly pro-PRD but try not to look like party organs.
* La Prensa and Mi Diario are anti-PRD and anti-Martinelli.
* TVN is mostly owned by the Motta family and is vulnerable to things like retaliation against the other businesses like Copa Airlines if they too deeply offend. Despite this they are remarkably even-handed and can hit hard at times.
* MEDCOM – Telemetro and RPC – traditionally leans toward the PRD.
* The EPASA newspapers are Martinelista.

More and more, the independent or wild card roles that radio journalism used to play are being supplanted by online media. Most of these as small, many are independent, new ones seem to pop up every other day on the campaign trail. The politicians are wise to the trend and some of the new online media are clearly partisan-aligned, notwithstanding pretenses to the contrary. The most influential of the small online Panamanian media is FOCO, which skewers and gets skewered by the various factions of the political establishment.

This country also has ethnic media — indigenous, foreign-language, expat and immigrant community oriented and so on. A lot of these strictly avoid political coverage and commentary, both to avoid retaliation and the sorts of ‘THIS GUY is supported by the scruffy _______ community’s media’ usages. Perhaps the most influential of the online ethnic-oriented media is Bayano, founded during the dictatorship by Afro-Panamanians of a PRD bent and now more or less the voice of a lot of PRD members from the left side of the party.

Then there are the “call centers,” for-hire Internet troll teams that are sometimes cheering sections but more often attack crews. The Martinelli, PRD and Zulay Rodríguez team so far seem to field the largest and most energetic troll teams. Look for them especially in the comments sections below online news articles about contemporary political matters and on Twitter.

 

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Kolhatkar, Doing the work that’s most important to you

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girl cave
Women can reject the pressure to maintain spotless homes year-round and focus on what really matters to us. Shutterstock gaphic.

Embrace the mess

by Sonali Kolhatkar – OtherWords

My favorite chair is surrounded by piles of art supplies. There’s yarn stacked high in baskets. Metal boxes of paint and brushes are squashed next to jewelry supplies teetering off the edge of a too-full shelf.

I want so badly to want to clean. But then I invariably set aside such desires and settle in to knit for the night.

This is not what the mini Marie Kondo inside my brain wants. But it’s what my artist’s heart wants. And it’s what all people ought to want as we aspire for a just world.

Cleaning is women’s work. This is not an assertion — it’s an observation.

In spite of the rise of the stay-at-home dad, women still do most of the housework. According to a 2020 Gallup poll, women are “much more likely than their husbands to care for children on a daily basis, shop for groceries, and wash dishes.” Even modern commercials for cleaning products are often gendered.

There’s a strong moral component to clutter. We may harshly judge those people — especially the women — whose messy homes we step into, mentally running our fingers along dusty shelves and noting greasy prints on the refrigerator.

We worry about being judged when people enter our messy homes. We are expected to feel shame over the clutter. Our mental health suffers when we can’t keep up with cleaning, some studies say, likely because we fear being judged.

Countless online cleaning guides offer “secrets” and “tips” to keeping a house clean. But there is no secret to house cleaning except 1) having the desire to do so, and 2) setting aside the time to make it happen.

The first is achieved by that societal messaging and moral pressure. The second is made nearly impossible for working parents. And still, far too many of us waste our precious moments of free time endlessly cleaning our homes.

There is a third (dirty) secret: wealthy families simply outsource house cleaning to domestic workers — who are disproportionately women of color and immigrants who enjoy few labor and legal protections.

The rest of us — Marie Kondo included — eventually succumb to the mayhem of real life.

Kondo, the queen of clean, profiled recently in the Washington Post, found that balancing a life of work and child-rearing leaves little time — and, dare we say, desire — to maintain perfectly clean countertops: “The multitasker seems somewhat humbled by her growing family and her business success,” the paper said.

She revealed: “My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life.” That should have been her message all along.

As a person of Indian origin, I grew up in a sparkling clean home. My grandmothers were relegated to the quiet submission of presenting perfectly clean homes and producing daily multidish family meals, while balancing paid jobs as teachers.

The demand to clean is a direct descendant of the enslavement of women in the home. It’s no coincidence that the labor rights long denied to domestic workers also descended from the exploitation of the enslaved.

Today, I routinely reject the desire to clean and instead embrace all the possibilities of creativity that were denied to my female ancestors.

As a working woman with multiple jobs, responsibilities toward two children and two elderly parents, a home, and more, I’m often asked: How do I write, make dinner and shop for groceries, knit and paint, agitate for political change, and still take time for self-care?

My secret — one rarely revealed in moral exhortations against messy homes — is to not clean until it’s absolutely necessary. And, most importantly, to reject the sexist pressures of guilt and shame that are inflicted on women.

It’s time to take back our time.

 

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The corporate politics of that toxic train wreck in Ohio

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If Norfolk Southern “can pay for lobbyists and politicians, they can pay to clean up the mess they made in our community,” said one local group. A derailed freight train is seen in East Palestine, Ohio. NTSB photo.

Investigation shows rail giant donated to Ohio governor a month before toxic crash

by Kenny Stancil — Common Dreams

An investigation published Monday revealed that just weeks before a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with hazardous materials derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the rail giant donated $10,000—the maximum amount allowed—to help fund the inauguration of the state’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

According to WSYX, the Columbus-based news outlet that conducted the investigation, “This contribution, which is part of $29,000 the Virginia-based corporation has contributed to DeWine’s political funds since he first ran for governor in 2018, is merely one piece of an extensive, ongoing effort to influence statewide officials and Ohio lawmakers.”

“In all, the railway company has contributed about $98,000 during the past six years to Ohio statewide and legislative candidates, according to data from the secretary of state,” WSYX reported. “Virtually all went to Republicans, although Norfolk Southern hedged its support for DeWine in 2018 with a $3,000 check to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray.”

In addition to shelling out loads of campaign cash, Norfolk Southern has also extensively lobbied DeWine, statewide officials, and Ohio lawmakers.

Quarterly reports disclosing the company’s lobbying activities show that DeWine and other statewide officials were targeted 39 times over the past six years, while Ohio lawmakers were targeted 167 times during the same time period.

“Most of the disclosed attempts to influence Ohio leaders came on generic rail or transportation issues,” WSYX reported. “Some efforts, however, were devoted to defeating legislation that would have established tougher safety standards for rail yards and train operations.”

River Valley Organizing, a local progressive group, declared on social media that “this is what we’re up against.”

Norfolk Southern’s successful bid to thwart at least one Ohio bill aimed at improving railroad safety—explained in depth by the local news outlet—mirrors the company’s triumphant campaign to weaken federal regulations.

Before dozens of its train cars careened off the tracks and burst into flames in East Palestine on February 3—leading to the discharge of vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals—Norfolk Southern “helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems,” The Lever reported earlier this month.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been criticized by progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers for his lackluster response to the crisis in East Palestine, sent a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Sunday stating that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause of the derailment and that the Federal Railroad Administration is examining whether safety violations occurred and intends to hold Norfolk Southern accountable if they did.

Buttigieg insisted that the company “demonstrate unequivocal support” for the poor rural town’s roughly 4,700 residents as well as the populations of surrounding areas potentially affected by air and groundwater contamination.

“Norfolk Southern must live up to its commitment to make residents whole—and must also live up to its obligation to do whatever it takes to stop putting communities such as East Palestine at risk,” the transportation secretary wrote. “This is the right time for Norfolk Southern to take a leadership position within the rail industry, shifting to a posture that focuses on supporting, not thwarting, efforts to raise the standard of US rail safety regulation.”

As The Associated Pressreported Monday:

Buttigieg also said that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies “spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose commonsense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others.” He said the effort undermined rules on brake requirements and delayed the phase-in for more durable rail cars to transport hazardous material to 2029, instead of the “originally envisioned date of 2025.”

The transportation secretary said the results of the investigation are not yet known, but “we do know that these steps that Norfolk Southern and its peers lobbied against were intended to improve rail safety and to help keep Americans safe.”

Nevertheless, as The Lever reported earlier this month, Buttigieg is actively considering an industry-backed proposal to further erode federal oversight of train braking systems.

The outlet has published an open letter urging Buttigieg “to rectify the multiple regulatory failures that preceded this horrific situation,” including by exercising his authority to reinstate the rail safety rules rescinded by the Trump administration at the behest of industry lobbyists.

The full environmental and public health consequences of the ongoing East Palestine disaster are still coming into view, as residents question the validity of initial water testing paid for by Norfolk Southern.

Despite state officials’ claims that air and water in the area remain safe, thousands of fish have died in polluted local waterways and people in the vicinity of the derailment have reported headaches, eye irritation, and other symptoms.

Just days after his company skipped a town hall meeting, Shaw visited East Palestine on Saturday and said that “we are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety.”

Norfolk Southern, which reported record-breaking operating revenues of $12.7 billion in 2022, originally offered to donate just $25,000 to help affected residents—an amount equivalent to about $5 per person—but recently announced the creation of a $1 million charitable fund instead.

Lawmakers in Ohio “are now scrambling to make sure the railroad is held accountable,” WSYX reported. “The House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hear ‘informal testimony’ Wednesday from Karen Huey, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and John Esterly, chairman of the Ohio State Legislative Board with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.”

In Washington, US Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) on Friday requested information regarding the handling of hazardous materials from the CEOs of several large rail corporations, including Norfolk Southern.

“Over the past five years, the Class I railroads have cut their workforce by nearly one-third, shuttered railyards where railcars are traditionally inspected, and are running longer and heavier trains,” Cantwell wrote. “Thousands of trains carrying hazardous materials, like the one that derailed in Ohio, travel through communities throughout the nation each day.”

Notably, Norfolk Southern announced a $10 billion stock buyback program last March. The company has routinely raised its dividend, rewarding shareholders while refusing to invest in safety upgrades or basic benefits such as paid sick leave.

Just days after he sent co-authored letters raising safety and health concerns to the NTSB and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Norfolk Southern is responsible for the East Palestine disaster, which he characterized as another chapter in “the same old story.”

“Corporations do stock buybacks, they do big dividend checks, they lay off workers,” said Brown. “Thousands of workers have been laid off from Norfolk Southern. Then they don’t invest in safety rules and safety regulation, and this kind of thing happens. That’s why people in East Palestine are so upset.”

“They know that corporate lobbyists have had far too much influence in our government and they see this as the result,” Brown continued. “These things are happening because these railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and in the rail lines themselves.”

“Something’s wrong with corporate America and something’s wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists,” he added. “And that’s got to change.”

Another Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials crashed last week near Detroit, Michigan. Like Brown, union leaders and US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have attributed the recent derailments to Wall Street-backed policies that prioritize profits over safety.

As David Sirota, Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook of The Leverpointed out in a recent New York Times opinion piece, the United States is home to more than 1,000 train derailments per year and has seen a 36% increase in hazardous materials violations committed by rail carriers in the past five years.

The rail industry “tolerates too many preventable derailments and fights too many safety regulations,” the journalists wrote. “The federal government must move quickly to improve rail safety overall.”

An inter-union alliance of US rail workers, meanwhile, has called on organized labor to back the nationalization of the country’s railroad system, arguing that “our nation can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership.”

 

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STRI, Los protectores del bosque

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log bridge
Las políticas de conservación existentes rara vez recompensan a las personas locales que cuidan los bosques primarios. En este estudio, los residentes indígenas Emberá trabajaron con científicos para mostrar cómo, a través de su estilo de vida sostenible en comunidades establecidas durante las décadas de 1960 y 1980 en uno de los bosques primarios más prístinos de América Central, actúan como custodios, conservando este espacio compartido. Esta impresionante Ceiba cayó al otro lado del río. Su altura desde la base hasta la parte superior es de 60 metros (197 pies), lo que confirma una vez más la presencia de árboles inusualmente altos en el área.

¿Se conservan los bosques primarios en Darién, Panamá gracias a las comunidades indígenas Emberá?

por STRI

El río Balsas fluye desde las colinas que marcan la frontera colombiana de Panamá, drenando los bosques vírgenes y espectaculares del Tapón del Darién, la única brecha en el tramo de la Carretera Panamericana desde Alaska hasta Argentina. Los investigadores y colegas del Smithsonian se unieron a miembros de seis comunidades indígenas para documentar su exitosa custodia de un bosque dominado por antiguos árboles gigantes.

“Los bosques primarios están desapareciendo en todo el mundo”, comentó Catherine Potvin, investigadora asociada del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) y profesora en la Universidad de McGill en Canadá, “sin embargo, son la cuna de la biodiversidad y contienen enormes reservas de carbono. Nuestra economía occidental no ha logrado encontrar formas de recompensar a los pueblos indígenas que los han cuidado desde tiempos inmemoriales. Con Bacuru Droa, espero proporcionar un modelo de cómo involucrarse con la ciencia puede mejorar los medios de vida de los cuidadores de bosques indígenas bajo presión para unirse a las economías monetarias”.

Los bosques tropicales almacenan más de la mitad de todo el carbono terrestre en su madera y hojas. Cuando se cortan los cortan árboles, la madera podrida libera carbono de vuelta a la atmósfera, donde contribuye al calentamiento global al atrapar el calor del sol cerca de la Tierra. Casi el 40% de todas las tierras naturales comprenden territorios indígenas, hogar de aproximadamente el 80% de todas las especies que viven en la tierra. Mientras la humanidad enfrenta una crisis climática y la sexta gran extinción causada por nuestro voraz consumo de combustibles fósiles y recursos naturales, las decisiones inmediatas de los pueblos indígenas sobre el uso de la tierra y los recursos afectan directamente nuestra supervivencia.

Antes de que los españoles llegaran por primera vez a Panamá hace 500 años, los indígenas vivían en pequeños grupos familiares a lo largo de los grandes sistemas fluviales que drenan la provincia de Darién en Panamá y el vecino Chocó colombiano. En 1980, el entonces presidente de Panamá creó el Parque Nacional Darién sin la debida consulta con los residentes Emberá, cuyas comunidades estaban incluidas en el parque. En 1981, las Naciones Unidas reconoció el parque como Patrimonio de la Humanidad basándose, en parte, en la presencia de flora y fauna consideradas exclusivas del sitio o en peligro de extinción. Los derechos territoriales de los residentes indígenas, miembros de las Tierras Colectivas de Río Balsas, nunca se han aclarado formalmente. Algunos Emberá también han expresado su frustración porque de un canje de deuda por naturaleza de $10 millones entre los gobiernos de EE. UU. y Panamá en 2004 para proteger el Parque Nacional Darién, no fueron compensados ​​​​por su papel como cuidadores del bosque.

Las comunidades del río Balsas se fundaron entre 1962 (Manené) y 1980 (Pueblo Nuevo). Debido a que no hay carreteras que accedan al área, la ecologista forestal Catherine Potvin fue una de las pocas extranjeras que visitó regularmente la comunidad de Manené, navegando río arriba, un viaje en piragua de 13 a 18 horas desde el puerto más cercano, para encontrarse con el abuelo de uno de sus alumnos, un anciano respetado y guía espiritual (jaibaná) hace más de 25 años. Actualmente ella está trabajando con las comunidades para documentar la historia del uso de la tierra en el área. El coordinador local del proyecto resultante, Alexis Ortega, expresa la intención de las comunidades como un intento de “demostrar al mundo que siempre han conservado el bosque”.

Juntos, el grupo intercultural confirmó la hipótesis de que la presencia tradicional de los Emberá en la tierra es compatible con la presencia de bosques primarios intactos.

Se formularon tres interrogantes: 1) ¿Ha cambiado significativamente la vegetación en el área desde que se fundaron sus comunidades; 2) ¿Ha cambiado su “huella”, el impacto de sus comunidades en la tierra? y 3) ¿Cuál es la composición actual de los bosques ahora y qué implicaría conservarlos en el futuro?

La científica emérita Dolores Piperno es experta en fitolitos tropicales, diminutos microfósiles de plantas depositados cuando el agua que contiene el mineral sílice fluye a través de las células vegetales. Estas estructuras vítreas permanecen en el suelo después de que las plantas se pudren. Al comparar las formas de los fitolitos de muestras de suelo, tomadas a diferentes profundidades con fitolitos en una colección de referencia de fitolitos de 2,300 especies de plantas modernas, Piperno y su equipo descubren qué especies de plantas eran comunes hace cientos e incluso miles de años.

Su grupo en el Centro de Paleobiología y Arqueología Tropical de STRI en la Ciudad de Panamá analizó núcleos de suelo de 10 ubicaciones en 8 sitios boscosos en el área del río Balsas para descubrir qué especies de plantas crecieron allí en el pasado. Casi todos los fitolitos eran de especies de árboles forestales. También buscaron carbón vegetal en las muestras, pero encontraron muy poca evidencia de incendios forestales o fuegos intencionales. La única evidencia fuerte de intervención humana en los sitios boscosos fue la prevalencia de fitolitos de palma.

Durante cientos de años, el caminar Emberá en el bosque enriqueció la presencia de palmeras como la Trupa (Oenocarpus mapora) al incrustar las semillas expuestas en el suelo, lo que resultó en arboledas de estas palmeras. Trituran la madera de trupa y recolectan aceite de palma, que se usa para freír alimentos.

“Nuestros resultados de fitolitos y carbón vegetal indican que los pueblos indígenas del Darién utilizaron los bosques de manera sostenible durante miles de años, manteniendo su alta diversidad y estructura”, comentó Piperno. “Se han obtenido resultados similares en regiones de la Amazonía”.

Para comprender mejor cómo ha cambiado la huella, el área afectada por los Emberá, el anciano de la comunidad de Manené, Manuél Ortega, inició creando un mapa dibujado a mano del Alto Balsas y marcó importantes sitios culturales y características del paisaje, como ríos, antiguas zonas familiares, asentamientos y pueblos actuales. Los residentes llaman al mapa Dai Ejua, “nuestro territorio”. Luego, el equipo visitó estos lugares, marcando sus ubicaciones GPS en un mapa contemporáneo.

Después de una búsqueda de imágenes satelitales Landsat de la NASA/USGS del área tomadas entre 1986 y el 2021, los investigadores compararon el suelo descubierto expuesto durante el período de 1986 al 2000 con el área expuesta del 2013 al 2021 y calcularon que los asentamientos Emberá solo afectaron alrededor del 1.3 por ciento del área de todo el territorio, una huella muy pequeña que se mantuvo estable durante los últimos 35 años.

En cada una de las seis comunidades, la mayor parte del desarrollo se concentra a lo largo de la orilla del río, donde se ubican las casas, los corrales de animales, los platanales y los jardines. A 1 km del río, en bosques más húmedos, los Emberá crían cerdos y cultivan plantas silvestres para medicina y otros usos domésticos. Más atrás del río, en bosques de secundarios, cosechan una cantidad limitada de árboles para obtener madera.

En los mismos lugares donde se recolectaron las muestras de suelo, equipos de técnicos y científicos emberá utilizaron escáneres láser terrestres para obtener imágenes de la estructura 3D del bosque, teniendo cuidado de incluir los árboles más grandes para estimar la altura máxima y el diámetro de los árboles. Se sorprendieron al encontrar muchos árboles más grandes por hectárea que en muchas otras áreas. El más alto se elevaba a más de 65 metros (185 pies) sobre el suelo. Los árboles más grandes contienen una cantidad desproporcionadamente grande de todo el carbono forestal, pero son difíciles de estudiar porque generalmente están muy separados y son muy longevos.

La altura máxima de una especie (Faramea occidentalis) se registró en 10 metros en los bosques de la estación de investigación del Smithsonian en Isla Barro Colorado en Panamá Central. En las parcelas forestales de la cuenca del río Balsas, los investigadores midieron 55 árboles de más de 10 metros de altura y 8 árboles de más de 20 metros, ¡el doble de la altura máxima informada!

Mientras exploraba el área río arriba, el equipo se encontró con un enorme árbol caído de Ceiba pentandra. La altura del árbol caído se estimó en más de 60 metros y su diámetro sobre el contrafuerte medía 2.7 metros. Más tarde, pudieron ver la copa del árbol en imágenes satelitales tomadas antes de que cayera y el espacio que dejaba, y concluyeron que cayó en algún momento durante la temporada de lluvias en el 2018.

“Cuando descubrimos el árbol caído sobre el río Balsas, todos en el equipo estaban asombrados”, comentó el coautor Mattias Kunz, “¡Su gran tamaño y diámetro eran asombrosos! Allí estábamos, los 20 miembros del equipo técnico, con espacio para muchos más. Usando sensores remotos pudimos localizar muchos otros árboles gigantes que confirman que en realidad son comunes en el área de Balsas”.

Con base en sus hallazgos, el equipo propone tres acciones: Primero, pedir a los responsables políticos internacionales que reconsideren las políticas que hacen que los bosques maduros sean “esencialmente invisibles” desde el punto de vista de la mitigación basada en el clima. Las tierras boscosas no gestionadas que permanecen boscosas actualmente están excluidas de los inventarios nacionales de carbono forestal. 2) incluir iniciativas de conservación de bosques en el cálculo de las reservas de carbono y 3) reconocer los derechos territoriales indígenas.

Los autores de este artículo concluyen:

“Treinta años después de las negociaciones del Protocolo de Kioto que excluyó de facto a los bosques en pie de la caja de herramientas de mitigación climática… ha llegado el momento de generar un flujo sostenible de ingresos para jurisdicciones como los territorios indígenas, a cambio de su compromiso continuo con la protección de los bosques. como lo han hecho en el pasado, según las normas tradicionales”.

Toque aquí para ver mapas por Global Forest Watch.

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

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