Panama Update Archives

Back to Archive Listing

March 1998
Back to Panama Update

53 Organizations Demand Sovereignty and Independence

A total of 53 organizations sent some 350 delegates to the Conference for the Defense of Sovereignty on January 10 in the main auditorium of the University of Panama. The organizers of the gathering said it exceeded all their expectations. The six groups that organized and called for the event laid the foundation for the creation of the National Movement for the Defense of Sovereignty. The groups included the Association of Independent Teachers, the Panama Association of Teachers, the Committee for Rescuing Sovereignty, the National Council of Organized Workers (CONATO), the Sovereign Panama Front, and Organizations Against the Military Bases.

Among the gathering's agreements are objectives and actions that the group will carry out. These include ten principle objectives:

1. Create awareness about the importance of sovereignty and national independence.
2. Struggle against all forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism.
3. Fight the neo-liberal policies that impoverish Panamanians and struggle for a better distribution of wealth.
4. Incorporate the transferred lands of the former canal zone into country's integrated development.
5. Reject the presence of foreign military bases in the country.
6. Struggle in an organized way to prevent the approval of the Multilateral Counterdrug Center in Panama.
7. Prevent the continued presence of the Tropic Test Center of the U.S. Army in Panama.
8. Assure that the Panamanian isthmus becomes a neutral territory.
9. Create a unified front of all Panamanians for national liberation.
10. Mobilize grassroots participation at all levels of decision-making in the country.

The organizations represented in the Conference also defined concrete tasks that must be carried out to ensure the fulfillment of these objectives.

Actions approved by the Conference for the Defense of Sovereignty:

1. Inform organizations as well as the general public about the contents of the agreement on the Multilateral Counterdrug Center (MCC) and the future of the military bases, using written media, the Internet, marches, workshops, conferences, pickets, gatherings, and sticker handouts.
2. Organize meetings with parents, students and communities, as well as with the negotiating team of the military agreement.
3. Broaden these initiatives to the interior of the country.
4. Demand democratic freedoms from the Electoral Tribunal, as well as debate and financial support under equal terms in the preparatory campaign to the referendum on the MCC.
5. Denounce before the Supreme Court [of Panama] the violations of the Constitution and national laws represented by the military base negotiations.
6. Elevate to the international arena everything related to the negotiations for the MCC, using the Internet and other media. Send declarations to international organizations and seek global support to abort the future military bases in Panama.
7. Send protest letters to the foreign ministers of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, rejecting the MCC.
8. Organize a continental meeting in May against the regional militarism of the United States.
9. Organize patriotic marches on important dates (for example, March 8, April 15, May 1).
10. Call together a Second Conference for the Defense of Sovereignty in the first half of 1998 [currently scheduled for June 6-7, 1998].

For further information on the National Movement for the Defense of Sovereignty and the struggle to end foreign military presence in Panama, visit the movement's web-site:

www.pk2000.com/monadeso

Back to the Top

Fellowship of Reconciliation
Panama Campaign
Produced by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
2017 Mission St., #305, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel: (415) 495-6334, Fax: (415) 495-5628, E-mail: forlatam@igc.apc.org