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US Out of Panama: Treaty Keeps Grip on Canal

By VVAW

What is the real story behind the big debate over Carter's proposed Panama Canal treaty? What does this treat really do?

Tremendous controversy is being stirred up with "conservative" politicians--Ronald Reagan and a host of others--attacking Carter for "selling out" and "giving away the canal." "There is no Panama Canal, only an American Canal in Panama" is their slogan. Hundreds of thousands of form letters are being mailed out by them in an effort to stir up popular sentiment against the treaty. The chiefs of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are even organizing their memberships to take to the streets in petition drives.

But what Carter's proposing and what Reagan's saying are two sides of the same imperialist coin. The big debate in Congress is not whether to keep the Canal, but how to keep it. One says they must negotiate a treaty in the interests of being able to hold on to it, rather than allowing the U.S. to lose face with Latin America and maybe lose the canal. The other side says that the U.S. cannot give in to any two-bit government; that the U.S. can't be pushed around and that they're not going to give up any of their land anywhere. Neither of these views are in our interests. Both policies represent different thinking on the part of the ruling class. But deeper than just Panama, these views represent two trains of thought on how the U.S. must conduct its foreign policy in the context of the contention between itself and the Soviet Union; embroiled in desperate needs to extend (or keep) their "spheres of influence" around the world. And more importantly they want to win the American people over, saying that it's in our interests to line up behind them; that we're all in this together and that our national honor is at stake.

An examination of key points in Carter's plan clearly show he's not giving away the canal. Under his plan, the U.S. would give back some of the land around the Canal at once and up its rent from $2.3 million to $50 million a year, in addition to an initial lump sum to be paid to Panama. While the treaty supposedly recognizes Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal, allowing them to fly their flag, it creates a 10 man commission of 5 Americans and 4 Panamanians with an American chief "negotiator" to run it. It allows the U.S. to continue to control all land areas "directly involved in Canal operations and defense" until the year 2000, which means the U.S. will maintain its 14 military bases and 10,000 troops there until then. And furthermore the U.S. would always have the right to intervene militarily to "defend" that right against anyone including Panama. Recently Carter said he'd send in 100,000 troops there if necessary.

In effect, the treaty gives a few token economic concessions plus a few political ones, such as allowing the Panamanians to share in a decision making capacity. For all practical purposes it continues U.S. control over the canal and puts off giving back the canal and puts off giving back the canal for another 20-25 years. This stalling for time factor is important because the U.S. imperialists expect to go to war within those 20 years with their rivals in the USSR. If the U.S. imperialists win, they figure they will be in a strong enough position to restore the old treaty.

This bit of "hallowed ground" was acquired in 1903. The monopolists who first launched the U.S. as an imperialist power at the turn of the century wanted a canal connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific so that they could grab a bigger share of world trade. After the Columbian government turned down a U.S. offer the $10 million for the proposed site, the U.S. engineered a rebellion, set up the country of Panama, backing the play with warships and U.S. Marines. Sound familiar?

Workers from all over the Caribbean were brought in to dig out the mud and blast the rock. For 10 cents an hour in pay, they died at the rate of 500 a mile due to disease, the killing pace of the work and blasting procedures designed to meet deadlines and save money regardless of human life. In all, 25,000 died to build the Canal. Naturally it was the American financiers and Teddy Roosevelt who claimed credit for building it.

Ever since then the U.S. has maintained absolute control over the Canal, and held the Panamanian people, descendants of those whose labor built the Canal at gunpoint. It is this history that reactionaries like California Senator Hayakawa gloated over when he said, "It's our canal, we stole it fair and square."

Since 1951 when the Panama Canal Company was created, $119 million in net profits have been raked in. The Canal is also of strategic importance to commercial shipping. And Panama is known as the "Switzerland of South American", a tax refuge for multinational corporations. The Canal dominates the economic life of Panama. More than a third of the country's jobs are linked to the Canal. Partly because of the Canal, and with the protections of the American troops there, American companies own much of the country's agriculture and industry. The U.S. ruling class hardly intends to give all this up.

The fact that the U.S. was forced to negotiate with Panama and to make any concessions at all is because of the growing fight of the Panamanian people against U.S. domination. The movement in Panama to force the U.S. to give back the Canal has been so militant and powerful that one U.S. diplomat called it the potential beginning of "another Vietnam." The U.S. is afraid that if it doesn't give in a little, then the Panamanian people might just take back what's theirs by force--and now few thousand U.S. troops could stop the. Further, the USSR would surely try to take advantage of the situation to stick its snout it, not to help Panama, but to further their own rivalry with the U.S.

Whether it's Carter's treaty or the ravings of Ronald Reagan, it amounts to the same thing, It's true, as Carter says, that the U.S. has no alternative but to make concessions. And it's true, as Reagan and his forces say, that these concessions will only set the terms for new battles against the U.S. in the future. But the reason why both statements are true is because people won't allow themselves to be ground down and oppressed peacefully, or settle for halfway solutions.

The great majority of Americans have no common interest with these high and mighty thieves in hanging on to the Canal. Our interests lie with the Panamanian people in this struggle. The Canal is in their country, not ours. The people of Latin American gave up their lives building it, not Teddy Roosevelt. The American capitalists exploit the people of both the U.S. and Panama. So why the hell should we line up behind either version of the U.S. ruling class position?

Before the Vietnam War got in full gear, the same arguments were put forward--Bomb Hanoi, send in a million troops, or "we won't allow any Americans to die 10,000 miles away." But what happened? The "peace" candidate did the exact things the "hawk" candidate wanted. The results were that the U.S. got embroiled in a decade long war that was eventually won by the Vietnamese--and rightfully so. The soundings around Panama are similar. Just as we learned that our interests were not with the ruling class regarding Vietnam, so we see that our interests do not lie with them now around the Panama Canal.

At is National Convention the American Legion took the position that:

"Surrender of the U.S. Canal Zone would be tantamount to a major military defeat with enormous consequences for evil. The VFW, speaking about the resistance of the Panamanian people says it is "A bitter and sustained campaign fueled in large part by Cuban and Soviet communist.... The U.S. operation, control and defense of the Canal are non-negotiable."

A Panama Vet Says...
"I was stationed there in the Canal Zone for 18 months from 1967-1968 before I went on a tour to Vietnam. In both places I saw incredible poverty of the common people. In both places the hatred and anger of the people for having to live like animals while the rich ate high off the hog was held in check only by armed force. Many a night after a long session in the bars of Panama City, I would waltz over the hill to Balboa in the Canal Zone, along streets lined with mansions, only a few hundred yards above one of the worst slums seen in either country. Every GI felt the tension among the Panamanian people and stories were still being repeated about the 1964 flare-up when Panamanian students carrying their flag marched into the Canal Zone and were attacked by American MP's. A pitched battle followed; it was finally put down with U.S. tanks, with loss of life on both sides. Whenever elections were held in Panama we were all given riot training. Through time it became apparent to me and to others in my unit that we were being used to enforce the rule of those whose mansions we saw. After Vietnam, all I had left was anger at the rich scum who would chain people into poverty and get hundreds of thousands of people killed all for the almighty dollar."