August 15, 1914 was the opening date of the Panama Canal, the interoceanic route between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean.
This June 3 marks 26 years since US soldiers began to withdraw from the Panama Canal, as established by the Torrijos-Carter agreements signed in 1977.
In a first group, at least 1,300 soldiers were withdrawn, after remaining in the Canal for 32 years. The process lasted five years, until December 31, 1999, when the sovereignty of the maritime route fell into the hands of Panamanians under the Torrijos-Carter Canal Treaties.
Already managed by Panamanians for more than 20 years, the Panama Canal Board of Directors reported that fiscal year 2019 closed with total revenues of $ 3,365.9 million, 3.9 percent more than had been anticipated.
However, the question remains:
Who really are the beneficiaries?
According to experts, the common Panamanian isn’t the one who receives the benefits, but the United States (for a military interest) and the privileged classes are the ones who favor the interoceanic route.
For José María Torrijos, journalist and family member of Omar Torrijos – the head of government who signed the 1977 canal treaties together with then-US President James Carter – the powerful economic classes are those who take advantage of the channel through which 6.0 percent world trade go through.
USA military interest
Commercial research specialist Ricardo Rodríguez believes that there is an American military interest. “Everyone in Panama knows that Americans are not interested in being in Panama, they are interested in transit through the canal.”
Torrijos: “The canal at the service of the people”
Analyst Leopoldo E. Santamaría recalled that Omar Torrijos shortly before the signing of the 1977 treaties, stated: “The greatest resource, the greatest wealth that this town has, which is the Canal, must be at the service of the economy of this town and not at the service of a few. Don’t think we are going to change the Yankee masters for native masters. No, that’s lie”.
And in July 1981, in a plane “accident” on Cerro Marta, the nationalist leader Omar Torrijos died.
The specialist maintains that by virtue of the Organic Law of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), approved in 1997, and in legal field, the Canal became the property of the ACP.
In a recent opinion piece for the newspaper La Estrella de Panamá, Santamaría quotes Dr. Julio Yao Villalaz, an expert in international relations, who assures: “They took the Canal from us, before the United States returned it to us.”
Poverty persists
Journalist and TV presenter José María Torrijos stated that people expected that as of December 31, 1999, when the transfer of the Canal by the US was completed, “poverty, illiteracy, the problems would end of health”. Twenty years have passed “and these problems continue to exist.”
For analyst Santamaría, if there were a fair redistribution of Canal earnings, there would be no child malnutrition, illiteracy, there would be complete health care, education and health would be a state priority. “There would be no homeless families, much less without work or unfairly paid.”
“The Canal generates sufficient resources for us to live in conditions of well-being, typical of developed countries, without exclusion; only that for this it is essential that the will to attend to the genuine needs and interests of all prevail and not only that of those who thrive on public power ”, concluded the expert.
