"Civic Action" by 5,000 Soldiers Sparks Environmental Conflict
“Civic Action” by 5,000 Soldiers Sparks Environmental Conflict
The U.S. military inaugurated a controversial road-building exercise — “New Horizons” — in Bocas del Toro province on January 24, christened by President Ernesto PŽrez Balladares. The road project will bring 5,000 U.S. soldiers into “areas of difficult access” over a six-month period. Besides building an 8-mile road, the maneuvers include construction of several schools, wells and clinics and visits by medical professionals. A 1993 General Accounting Office study of “civic action” exercises in Panamacited shoddy work and quoted a local Panamanian official as saying the exercises were only North American propaganda. The most recent Southern Command exercises in Panama, “Fuertes Defensas 95,” consisted of a computer simulation of war on the banks of the Panama Canal, and used 1600 U.S. soldiers, mostly from bases in the United States.
Donald Sossa Guevara, president of the Association of Panamanian Ecologists, penned a sharp response to the operation, published in the daily La Prensa on December 28. Sossa Guevara acknowledged the needs of peasants in the region, but objected to the lack of environmental impact assessments, and threatened to take legal action against the exercises. Translated excerpts follow:
These operations have gone on for many years and have never been questioned by our governments. They have caused untold environmental damage to the nation’s life, with construction that does not meet the minimum of requirements, in areas of high-biodiversity and with no environmental impact studies of any kind.
An unfortunate example was the U.S. military exercises in 1985 in the then-recently created Cerro Holla National Park, bringing thousands of men into the only woodland refuge in Azuero province, causing unprecedented violence and environmental damage that were denounced on the front page of La Prensa…
We demand respect for the country’s integrity and life, protected in Chapter 7, Articles 114 and 117 of the Constitution, which guarantee an environment free of toxics, maintenance of eco-systems and avoidance of destruction and environmental losses. Of course, “New Horizons” fulfills none of these precepts…
The operation also violates with impunity Article 7 of the Forestry Law, which requires environmental impact statements…; Article 41 of the Woodland Law; and Article 14 the Rio Biological Diversity Agreement….
The current situation is serious and contradictory, at a moment when U.S. Under-secretary of State for Global Affairs Timothy E. Wirth, during a recent visit to Panama, emphasized the primary importance of protecting the environment to guarantee the world’s stability. He spoke of Panamanian environmental problems, that members of his army are incurring such problems, and that it certainly would not be allowed to hold such exercises in his country, besides the absurd expense of mobilizing thousands of troops.
Our association, together with Panamanian professionals, scientists and environmentalists…, condemn before Panama and the entire international community this new act and attack on the life and environment of the country, and we demand that environmental impact studies be carried out before such a project is approved or contracted. Any other process is illegal and contrary to life, for which we will use the legal mechanisms which the law establishes.
Sources: General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Changes needed to the Humanitarian and Civic Assistance Program, 11/93;La Prensa, 10/20/95, 12/28/95; El Panam‡ AmŽrica, 12/3/95, 1/18/96; Letter from Panamanian environmental groups to U.S. Charge d’Affaires John Bennett, 10/24/95.
