Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ent state - roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, libraries, a legal system, communication net-
works, even the cherished national lottery.
The rise of nationalism
Despite a
new treaty
limiting the US right of intervention in 1936, resentment of American
control became the dominant theme of Panamanian politics and the basis of an emerging
sense of national identity.
Arnulfo Arias Madrid
, a fascist and Nazi-sympathizer - earning
him the nickname “Führer Criollo” - exploited this while going on to become one of the
country's most popular leaders. Of middle-class farming stock from Coclé, he was the first
Panamanian graduate of Harvard Medical School but abandoned medicine in favour of polit-
ics on his return to Panama. He founded Acción Communal, the political precursor to the
Partido Nacional Revolucionario and present-day
Partido Panameñista
(PP), which es-
poused his nationalistic and initially racist doctrine of
Panameñismo
. After assisting his
older brother Harmodio Arias Madrid to the presidency in 1932, he won office himself in
1940, for the first of three periods (1940-41, 1949-51 and 1968).
During his first term he set about disenfranchising Afro-Antillean and Chinese Panamanians
and pursuing
racist
immigration policies. On the positive side he instigated the social se-
curity system, improved many workers' rights (a policy strand abandoned in his later term),
modernized banking and gave the vote to women. Crucially, he was adamant about pushing
for a better deal with a US government intent on expanding its military defences outside the
Canal Zone. But the US-backed Panamanian Policía Nacional (National Police) and its suc-
cessor, the Guardia Nacional (National Guard), made sure that no president who challenged
the status quo lasted long in office and Arias was ousted by military coup each time, the last
after only two weeks.
Nevertheless,
anti-US riots
erupted periodically over the next thirty years. The ten-
thousand-strong protest in 1947 against the US attempt to extend the lease on World War
II-era bases outside the Canal Zone helped persuade the deputies not to ratify the proposal.
By 1948, the US military had withdrawn from outside the Zone. The most infamous disturb-
ances, however, were the so-called
flag riots
of 1964. The flying of flags was a trivial but
symbolic battleground for Panamanian-US antagonism. To ease tensions, the US government
agreed to the Panamanian flag being flown beside the Stars and Stripes in selected places in
the Zone. When in Balboa High School the US flag was flown on its own for two days in suc-
cession, two hundred Panamanian students arrived at the school to raise a Panamanian flag.
A skirmish broke out during which the Panamanian flag was torn, prompting full-scale mob
violence. The 21 Panamanians who died in the fracas were later elevated to the status of
na-
tional martyrs
, commemorated annually on January 9, Día de los Mártires (Martyrs' Day).
A diplomatic protest about US aggression ensued, going all the way to the UN and resulting
in President Lyndon Johnson's promise of a new canal treaty.
