INDEPENDENT NEWS

Cablegate: Panama: Gop Holds Cabinet Meeting in Remote Darien

Published: Fri 4 May 2007 03:56 PM
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DE RUEHZP #0729/01 1241556
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R 041556Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY PANAMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0313
INFO RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
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RHMFISS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
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C O N F I D E N T I A L PANAMA 000729
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/CEN
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PM
SUBJECT: PANAMA: GOP HOLDS CABINET MEETING IN REMOTE DARIEN
PROVINCE
Classified By: POLCOUNS BRIAN R. NARANJO. REASONS: 1.4 (B) AND (D).
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SUMMARY
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1. (U) The extreme poverty of Panama's Darien province
should be a source of shame to the country, President Martin
Torrijos said at the April 27 cabinet meeting he convened in
Santa Fe, one of the last towns in the province before the
Interamerican highway ends. The meeting was intended to
offer a public review and accounting (Rendicion de Cuentas)
of the GOP's activities in the Darien. It was the latest in
a series of field cabinet meetings the Torrijos
Administration has held in provincial capitals throughout the
country. The four-hour townhall style event, attended by
POLOFF, also featured distributions of land titles,
presentations by various officials on GOP projects in the
province, and remarks by local residents.
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$30 MILLION TO FIGHT POVERTY
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2. (SBU) The event opened with a series of land title
distributions that Torrijos handed personally to each
recipient. The individuals wore numbers on their shirts to
indicate the order of the distribution, and POLOFF noted
numbers up to the 300s, suggesting the majority of the
audience in the gymnasium/auditorium were land title
recipients. (Comment: This may have contributed to the
overwhelmingly pro-GOP attitudes of the audience.)
3. (SBU) Following the first tranche of distributions,
Torrijos opened the Cabinet meeting and addressed the group.
Torrijos heavily promoted the GOP's Network of Opportunities
program as a way to address the high poverty levels in the
Darien. The Cabinet approved implementation of the program's
$30.4 million second stage at the meeting. The Cabinet also
approved a project to bring electricity to various parts of
the province. While highlighting the GOP's current projects
in the Darien, Torrijos criticized those who "only recently
discovered" the region's poverty, calling it a persistent
problem of long standing. (Note: Recent press reports had
focused on poverty in the Darien, including the death of a
young girl from malnutrition, first reported by UNICEF.
UNICEF's aggressive posture regarding the plight of
marginalized children in Panama has chilled GOP relations
with this UN body.) Such enduring poverty was the shame of
all the administrations that had governed Panama, added
Torrijos.
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EVERYONE LOVES MARTIN- AND OPERATION MIRACLE
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3. (U) Following the Cabinet meeting, which mostly consisted
of the different ministries reviewing their respective
projects in the Darien, the bulk of the program was the
presentation of Darien Province Governor Juana Lopez. She
delivered a PowerPoint presentation with a long succession of
slides listing various projects and programs in the province,
some of which were the same as those mentioned previously.
The Governor focused particularly on the work of the First
Lady's Office, and praised effusively First Lady Vivian de
Torrijos's work with Cuba's Operation Miracle. (Note: The
Governor made no mention of any USG-funded initiatives in the
Darien.)
4. (C) The first in what became a series of obviously
choreographed testimonials by local citizens began during the
Governor's presentation. One after another, a meticulously
selected mixture of Darien residents -- including a person
with disabilities, indigenous persons, mothers with babies
for the President to kiss, senior citizens, and others --
took to the microphone to express their gratitude to the
President for his work on behalf of the Darien. Every
speaker was enthusiastically positive, and nobody mentioned
anything negative in their comments. After several hours of
such testimonials, Torrijos finished the distribution of land
titles to conclude the event.
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COMMENT
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5. (C) This was a unique opportunity to observe one of the
GOP's field cabinet/town hall meetings. POLOFF attended the
event at the invitation of the International Organization for
Migration (IOM), which administers some U.S.-funded
assistance projects in the Darien. IOM had understood the
event to be a donation ceremony involving some of these
projects. In reality, the Governor only gave a brief mention
of IOM at the end of her long presentation. The GOP was
eager to take credit for IOM's work, a phenomenon we have
witnessed with respect to U.S.-supported efforts.
6. (C) The overly rehearsed nature of the testimonials from
the carefully-assembled group of residents (most of whom were
receiving land titles), combined with their one-sidedly
positive comments about the GOP, gave the event a highly
staged, unreal quality. Overall, the event was a
cheerleading session first and foremost for Torrijos and
second for the GOP, not an honest discussion or exchange of
ideas on the Darien's needs. The sunny praise from the
audience contrasted sharply with the marks of poverty visible
on all sides -- for example, the crumbling auditorium, the
lack of plumbing or bathroom facilities, the unpaved roads,
and children and adults with worn clothing and no shoes.
Whether the GOP can effectively alleviate the "shame" of
poverty in the Darien remains a test of the Torrijos
Administration -- and likely, of many administrations to come.
EATON
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