Business as usual in Panama

Business as usual in Panama

PANAMA CITY — The principal opposition group, Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), on April 27 severely criticised the involvement of a US army colonel in tenders submitted to the Panamanian government for the supply of electricity.

PRD secretary-general Ernesto Perez Valladares told reporters, "It's a case of incredible immorality" that Colonel James Steele should be among the foreign companies which are trying to sell electricity to the government.

Steele led a support group during the December 1989 US invasion, during which 4000 civilians were killed and 18,000 others were left homeless.

According to Perez, Steele will try to make personal profit at the expense of the energy supply difficulties which Panama is facing. Electricity supplies have been rationed throughout the country since early April.

One foreign company has offered to sell electricity to the government-operated Hydraulic Resources and Electricity Institute at seven cents per kilowatt-hour.

Enron Citizen, whose president is Steele, has offered to provide electricity at 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.

On the same day, attorney-general Rogelio Cruz warned that the social and economic conditions exist for a military coup.

He said the government had displayed an irresponsible attitude in failing to meet the people's requests for social changes. It had also failed to solve the unemployment problem and to answer the complaints of resentful military personnel.

In February Cruz warned that a military coup was pending and that the former police chief, Colonel Eduardo Herrera, was masterminding it. Herrera is now in custody.
[From Inter Press Service/Pegasus.]

From GLW issue 55