Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (12 page)

The opposition has a point. They would prefer nice, stable
democratic corruption like we have in the United States. But,
unfortunately for the cause of kick-out-the-wheel-chocks partisan
journalism, the pro-government people also have a point. Panama
used to be run by the normal south-of-the-Rio-Grande kitty litter
box of brain-dead hacienda owners and United Fruit business
squad. Then, in 1968, General Omar Torrijos led an army-backed
coup.

Torrijos was a half-baked socialist and a blow-hard, but he
was lovable and good-looking. He took a predictable, feisty underdog stance toward the U.S. and the local rich shitepokes, swearing
he would fight all of them in a guerrilla war if he had to, which he
knew he didn't. Panamanians, who have absolutely no immunity to
theatrics, went nuts over Omar. Actually, he was sort of an all-right
guy. He had genuine feeling for the poor, started some only moderately useless social programs and maintained a modest style of life,
keeping no more than two or three mistresses on the side. Torrijos
also managed, after decades of negotiations, to wrest a new canal
treaty from the United States. Admittedly, he wrested it from Jimmy
Carter, so it isn't like he played against the varsity, but it gave the Panamanians a patriotic thrill to get the middle of their country
back. And under Torrijos (though, to a certain extent, despite him)
Panama prospered. It became a middle-class country with one of
the highest per capita incomes in Latin America. Thousands of
jobs were added to the government payroll. People came up in the
world.

"Even the men who killed Torrijos loved him," a taxi driver
told me. (Taxi drivers all over the world, by the way, are under
Newspaper Guild contract to give easy quotes to foreign correspondents.) In fact, nobody killed Torrijos. He died of his macho
penchant for flying in bad weather. But such is the romance in the
Panamanian soul that nothing will do except he be a martyr.

When Torrijos bought the rancho, Noriega, his chief of staff,
was the natural heir. Watching him try to act like Omar is like
watching Ted Kennedy try to act like Jack. Members of Noriega's
own government admit he's a pig. But a lot of people are scared the
rabe blancos will bring back the bad old days of venal oligarchy.
(This is unlikely because most of the opposition belongs to the new
middle class, but that's politics for you.) Also, what's the big deal
about corruption? This is Panama, for godsake. The whole country
is a put-up job, sleazed into existence by Teddy Roosevelt so he'd
have someplace to put the Big Ditch. One pro-Noriega legislator
told me, in a fit of candor about peculation, "We are just doing the
same thing the others were from 1903."

The Panamanian government types are also mad about the
U. S. Senate resolution of June 26, 1987, in which the Panamanians were advised their democracy had B.O. and they'd better
send Noriega to the showers with a family-size bar of Dial. Part of
the resolution was in language identical to an opposition manifesto.
And how would we like it if the French Chamber of Deputies voted
for a Democratic Party policy statement telling everybody in America to listen up when Mario Cuomo speaks? Then the United States
trotted out the State Department's human-rights bureau, that feeble
Carter Administration leftover, and sent one of its goody-two-shoes
"human-rights investigators' to pester the natives. How about a
Saudi Arabian human-rights investigator arriving uninvited in
D.C.? "By Muhammad, you are not cutting off enough hands of
thieves! You are not throwing off of minarets enough adultresses! You are not branding your slaves on their bottoms!" We'd appreciate that.

So, although the opposition has a point, the government has a
point, too, and the college students. . . . Well, the college students don't have a point. They're just mouthing the standard Third
World college student take-out order: two anti-colonialisms, an
anti-capitalism with cheese and a small Che on the side. The
students are full of shit. That, however, puts them in perfect
harmony with the nation of Panama. The whole country is full of
shit. Or-since they're very nice people-let's say "the Panamanians have a poetic conception of the truth."

The opposition movement was set off by anti-Noriega accusations from Colonel Roberto Diaz Herrera, who was forced to resign
as the Defense Forces second in command-not exactly an unbiased source. Diaz claimed, among other things, that Noriega and
the ex-chief of the U. S. Southern Command, the hopelessly respectable General Wallace Nutting, planted a bomb on Torrijoss
plane after-get this-luring it off-course by changing satellite
navigational signals. Diaz Herrera also underwent some kind of
religious conversion, then barricaded himself in his walled suburban mansion with the teachings of his spiritual guru and a gang of
armed supporters. He was all but receiving Radio Venus on his
bridgework when the government finally stormed his house and
hauled him off.

Various "eyewitnesses' to the attack on Diaz's house told me
there were five dead bodies on the lawn, told me there were eight
dead bodies on the lawn, told me Diaz's only son was killed, told
me Diaz himself was killed, etc. Diaz has several sons, none of
whom were killed; nor was Diaz. Indeed, the ninety-minute fire
fight at the Diaz home didn't kill or seriously injure anyone, a very
Panamanian touch. Another witness told me Sandinista troops
participated in the battle dressed as Dobermans.

Assorted tales from the government camp were just as silly.
The government press office circulated subliterate books and
pamphlets claiming that the pre-coup president, Arnulfo Arias,
murdered Jews and that the Jewish Eisenmann family, which owns
the principal opposition newspaper, is running an international
cocaine ring.

This is radio bemba, "lip radio," and it is-after money, cars
and Japanese stereo equipment-the ruling passion of Panama.
During one hour in a discotheque, I heard the following nonsense:

1. Noriega has picked every Miss Panama since he took over and
deflowers each of them.

2. The last Miss Panama had to be married off to one of Noriega's
colonels at the insistence of Noriega's jealous wife.

3. Mrs. Noriega killed her husband's mistress when the mistress
was six months pregnant.

4. A pregnant woman was shot by the Dobermans when they
mistook the diaper she was hanging on a clothesline for a white
opposition flag.

5. Werewolves are loose in the Panamanian countryside.

Of course, an important part of radio bemba is blaming
absolutely everything on the United States. The opposition tells you
the U. S. isn't supporting them because Noriega is a tool of the CIA
(usually right after they've told you Noriega is in the pay of Danny
Ortega). The government tells you the opposition is controlled by
the U.S. embassy DCM, John F. Maistro, because he used to be in
Manila where he overthrew Marcos. And the college students tell
you all sorts of things very loudly in Spanish while shaking empty
pepper-gas cannisters under your nose. In this case the students do
have a point. TRIPLE CHASER GRENADE/FEDERAL LABORATORIES/
SALTSBURG, PENN. read the cannister labels. I don't know about
you, but it makes me sleep better at night knowing the U. S.
Defense Department keeps our allies supplied with these. Why, if
Panama should ever have to come to our aid in a war against
Russia, the Panamanians could just fill the air with pepper gas and
make the Soviet air force pilots sneeze like the dickens.

Three thousand words here and it seems I still haven't answered the question, "What's happening in Panama?" Darn these
Apple Its anyway. Where's the BRIEF INSIGHTFUL SUMMARY key on
this thing?

The rabe blancos are acting like wimps. When the government
moved on Diaz Herrera and simultaneously closed all the opposi tion newspapers, opposition leaders responded by hiding. ProNoriega salsa bands took over the streets. On July 26, after nearly
two months of agita, somebody finally got killed-a quiet, well-
bahaved business-administration student named Eduardo Enrique
Carrera. Eduardo and some friends apparently yelled, "Down with
the Pineapple," at a police cruiser, and the police shot him. Not a
single major opposition leader showed at the funeral.

As for the rabe blanco demonstrations, I was talking to a
senior official in the Panamanian Foreign Ministry, a black guy
whose grandparents came from Jamaica. He just laughed. "Man, I
went to the toughest high school in Panama City," he said. "We
knew how to riot. Oh, these people should check the confetti in
Beirut."

On the other side, the government hacks are acting like
morons. They're swamped with debt but spending millions on pep
rallies and early bonuses for public employees. Reuters correspondent Tom Brown, the only U.S. reporter based full-time in Panama,
was expelled for reporting a Civilian Crusade general strike as 85
percent effective. "You have twenty-four hours to leave the country
voluntarily," Brown was told. And on June 30 the government
launched what might be the lamest ever "spontaneous' attack on an
American embassy. Five thousand government workers were required to participate in the demonstration in order to receive their
paychecks. These not-very-enthusiastic anti-imperialists were
bused to the embassy compound where cheerleaders led them in
dispirited chants while thirty hoodlums threw rocks at the building. Washington presented a bill for $106,000 in damages to the
Panamanian government, which promptly apologized and paid up.

Meanwhile, the economy of Panama goes to hell. It's not like
they make or grow anything. The whole country is based on
international banking and a canal the United States can take back
any time it wants with one troop of Boy Scouts. Right now the
contents of Panama's banks are on a greenback-salmon run to
Luxembourg, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.

Noriega's getting to be more trouble than he's worth to the
other corrupt military officers. He'll probably "retire" in favor of
some more acceptable general. Or maybe he'll hang on. The
opposition might even win, and its hundred factions will squabble merrily until the next coup. People knowledgeable in Panamanian
political affairs ask themselves, "Who gives a shit?"

The night before I left, I watched an NBC producer who'd
been in the country for two months sit on the floor of his hotel room
drunk, swaying and keening to himself over and over again, ". .
the rumors, the honking, the confetti, the tear gas, the rumors, the
honking, the confetti, the tear gas . . ." Panama can drive you
around the bend. Believe me, I know. I went back to my room and
put on my best Central Intelligence Agency seersucker jacket and
rep tie. Then I went down to the hotel bar to leave the Panamanians
with a little of their own radio bemba, a sort of going-away present.
"Buenos noches, Ramon," I said, speaking to the unctuous bartender in a stentorian American voice. "Looks like those rich rabe
blancos are too scared to get their own hands dirty."

"Si, comb no," Ramon agreed.

"You know, I was up at Southern Command today," I said,
looking around as though we might be overheard. "I hear the rabes
are hiring some out-of-work death-squad guys from Argentina." I
leaned over and whispered loudly to Ramon, "And they're getting
help from the Mossad, M15 and the KGB." Then I downed my
drink and smiled, knowing the news would be all over Panama by
morning.

During the past couple years I've had to do my share of driving in
the Third World-in Mexico, Lebanon, the Philippines, Cyprus,
El Salvador, Africa and Italy. (Italy is not technically part of the
Third World, but no one has told the Italians.) I don't pretend to be
an expert, but I have been making notes. Maybe these notes will be
useful to readers who are planning to do something really stupid
with their Hertz #1 Club cards.

ROAD HAZARDS

What would be a road hazard anyplace else, in the Third
World is probably the road. There are two techniques for coping
with this. One is to drive very fast so your wheels "get on top" of the
ruts and your car sails over the ditches and gullies. Predictably,
this will result in disaster. The other technique is to drive very slow.
This will also result in disaster. No matter how slowly you drive into a ten-foot hole, you're still going to get hurt. You'll find the locals
themselves can't make up their minds. Either they drive at 2
mph-which they do every time there's absolutely no way to get
around them. Or else they drive at 100 mph-which they do
coming right at you when you finally get a chance to pass the guy
going 2 mph.