Panama and the United States: The End of the Alliance

Introduction

Introduction Since the era of Latin American independence, the governments and peoples of Panama and the United States have had fairly constant dealings with one another. These relations have not been as tempestuous as those between the United States and Mexico, Cuba, or Nicaragua, for example, but they have been troubled, at best, and unsatisfactory to large numbers of people in both countries. This book surveys Panamanian-U.S. relations over nearly two centuries in an attempt to lay out the story succinctly and to offer interpretations of its most important episodes. It is cast as an authoritative reference work to be available to the general reader interested in how Panama and the United States have dealt with one another over the decades. I also hope that it will be used as a casebook or supplementary reading in courses on international relations. For the educated layman this book provides background for better understanding relations between the two countries in the twenty-first century. Panama and the United States is set in the framework provided by Professor Lester D. Langley's America and the Americas (1989), the general introduction to the United States and the Americas series. This approach emphasizes a broad range of interactions between the countries involved, not just political and military but also cultural, economic, migrational, linguistic, and symbolic. In this view, an athletic contest or labor strike may be more significant than a president's speech or a foreign minister's correspondence. Perceptions that peoples have of one another and public opinion in general may play a larger role in international affairs than the professional conduct of diplomacy. And one need not be a Marxistto assign a preeminent role to economic factors in binational relations. This book portrays the mutual experiences of the United States and Panama in this broad fashion. Beyond this innovative approach, I believe this book has other 1 2 PANAMA AND THE U N I T E D STATES strengths that will make it valuable to the reader. First, it treats the actors as real human beings, whose behavior, dreams, fears, and personalities play important parts in the unfolding of history. I have described the Panamanians and the North Americans who led their nations' affairs as honestly and understandably as possible. My acquaintance with some of these actors goes back to the mid-igSos, when I first lived and worked in Panama. Second, this book offers a long sweep of history in which isolated events can be seen from a longer perspective. Third, it draws to some extent on new documentation , interviews, and interpretation and goes beyond a mere synthesis of the secondary literature. In the course of writing this book, I have stressed certain themes and subjects that are particularly crucial for understanding U.S.Panamanian relations. Foremost is the notion of a forced and unequal alliance. The historical trajectories of Panama and the United States were destined to cross one another and to bond together. Panama has always aspired to become an international crossroads for commerce, travel, communication, and profit. The United States had long sought to create a maritime link between the Atlantic and the Pacific and to become the preeminent hemispheric and then world power. These two dreams began to merge with the U.S.-built Panama Railroad in the 18505 and became permanently joined in 1903, when the United States abetted Panama's independence in exchange for the right to build and operate a ship canal. The alliance is forced, however, in the sense that the two partners needed each other in order to fulfill basic national aspirations. Once the alliance became embodied in the waterway and military bases in the former Canal Zone, it was forced in another sense too: the United States used its enormous power and wealth to impose its will upon the weaker partner. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty conceded canal rights "in perpetuity/' TheUnited States and Panama then played a classic game of great power-small power relations. Throughout this century, the colossus (as Panamanians sometimes refer to the United States) has used its tremendous influence to dictate policy to Panama. The latter has had to give in, retreat, stall, compromise, and 3 Introduction protest since it had no forceful means of resisting such pressure. As a Panamanian diplomat wrote in 1927: "When you hit a rock with an egg, the egg breaks. Or when you hit an egg with a...