U.S. leaving behind canal, hidden dangers

The handover of the canal zone is supposed to be a boon for Panama. Yet critics say the U.S. is leaving behind a rain forest full of unexploded munitions.

By DAVID ADAMS

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 30, 1999

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- It's one of the biggest real estate bonanzas of all time.

Thousands of acres of prime development land, air-conditioned housing and a road system. Throw in a couple of airports and ports. Estimated value: $4-billion.

All conveniently packaged into a 10-mile-wide strip of land running almost 50 miles across the country. In the middle of it, the Panama Canal, one of the world's greatest feats of civil engineering.

The United States built and owned it all. But by year's end -- noon on Dec. 31, to be precise -- it will be gone, handed over for free.

There's just one problem. It could be decades before Panamanians can safely set foot on several sizeable chunks of their newly restored lands.

For almost a century, the U.S. military has used the rain forest along the banks of the canal for target practice and to test explosives, including chemical weapons.

Now that it's time to leave, the Pentagon says it can't clean up all the hazardous mess left behind.

Buried in the rain forest are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of UXOs, military shorthand for unexploded ordnance or munitions that the Pentagon says cannot be removed. That includes lethal chemical weapons such as mustard and phosgene gases that were either tested or stored in Panama, dating back as far as World War II.

In fact, the bulk of the ranges are being swept clean, about 30,000 acres. But Washington says another 7,000 acres will be fenced and declared off-limits.

That's not good enough, say many outraged Panamanians. "We expect better from the government of the U.S," said Juan Carlos Navarro, a local politician and environmentalist. "But we are powerless. We must rely on the U.S. complying with its political and moral commitment."

Criticism also has come from a growing number of voices in the United States, including former President Jimmy Carter, who signed the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties, which set the timetable for the U.S. departure.

"We are walking away from our responsibilities there," said John Lindsay-Poland, director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a peace group based in San Francisco that is campaigning for a full-scale cleanup. "Is this the legacy we want to leave Panama -- fenced-off areas of rain forest full of explosives?"

U.S. officials reject accusations that Washington has failed to meet its obligations. Under the canal treaties the United States must take all "practicable" measures to remove hazards. Washington contends it has done precisely that. The contaminated area, after all, represents only 2 percent of the 534,000 acres of canal zone being returned.

Military officials argue that because of the uneven and dense jungle terrain it is technically impossible to clean all the explosive "impact areas."

Officials say clearing the rain forest could upset the watershed that feeds the canal, which depends on rainfall to replace the millions of gallons displaced daily by ships passing through its locks. Furthermore, exposing top soil to Panama's heavy rains could cause silting into the canal, exacerbating already expensive maintainance.

Everything humanly possible will be done before Dec. 31, say officials, but after that, Panama will be on its own.

Some U.S. officials have little sympathy for Panamanians who argue their small country -- population 2.7-million -- lacks the resources to deal with the responsibility alone.

"The United States is honoring and will continue to honor its commitments under the treaties," said Lewis Anselem, the U.S. Embassy official handling the ranges issue, in a recent blunt speech in Panama.

"The government of Panama will be responsible for the post-1999 management of risks associated with any residual UXO on the ranges. It will have to devote resources to that job. There is no way to avoid that," he added. "Demands for compensation, or for further expenditure of large amounts of U.S. taxpayer funds on post-1999 range cleanup will get little sympathy in the U.S."

Anselem summed up the feeling of many U.S. officials by suggesting Panamanians should stop complaining and be grateful for what the United States has done for their country over the years.

"Panama has paid very little for the huge economic, security, and political benefits it has gained from its special relationship with the U.S. Let's keep the UXO issue in perspective."

Panamanians were shocked. "Panama hasn't heard language like that since the treaty was signed," said Charlotte Elton, a researcher on the environment at the Panamanian Center for Study and Social Action.

She and others said that Panamanians also have the United States to thank for the corrupt, drug-dealing military dictatorship of Gen. Manuel Noriega, a former CIA asset. While Anselem also reminded his audience that 23 American soldiers died in the 1989 invasion to end Noriega's rule, he neglected to mention the several hundred Panamanians who were killed, many of them bystanders.

Elton also worries about the future risk UXOs pose to human life. "There's no provision for what's going to happen," she said. "People are going to die."

Panama says at least 21 people have been killed over the years by UXOs. U.S. officials dispute that figure and say they can find records of only seven deaths.

Environmentalists warn that putting up fences and warning signs will go only so far in solving the problem. Signs tend to make good firewood for low-income residents living in growing squatter communities nearby.

"The signs are going to have to be replaced on a regular basis. Patrols will be needed and there will have to be money spent on education and training," said Elton. "Who is going to pay for all this stuff in no-go areas?"

Ironically, the ranges were never deemed likely to be a problem. It was long assumed that Panama's own military would simply take them over for the same purpose. But when the U.S. invaded Panama in 1989, a new government abolished the country's tarnished armed forces in favor of a civilian-run police force. Panama suddenly had no military use for the ranges.

Critics say the United States took too long to adjust to this new reality. The cleanup only began last year, whereas similar programs undertaken by the Pentagon in the United States have taken up to 10 years. According to a 1994 study published in the Ecology Law Quarterly by two Washington lawyers, Richard Wegman and Harold Bailey, the Pentagon is applying double standards.

"The United States is prepared to take far less environmental action in overseas base closures than in domestic military closures," they found.

U.S. officials say everything in Panama has been done in a timely fashion. "We started on time," said Col. David Hunt, the chief treaty implementation officer for the U.S. Southern Command. "We will be able to do everything that needs to be done."

A history of controversy

Leaving Panama was never going to be easy. The U.S. presence in Panama has been controversial from the outset, starting with its very birth as a nation in 1903. To get the canal built, the United States first manufactured the separation of Panama from Colombia, and then created its own colony around the waterway.

Throughout this century Panama has been a vital link between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. The U.S. military bases played a strategic role in defending U.S. national interests across the hemisphere.

New military and communications technology, and the end of the Cold War, changed all that. Keeping the canal zone suddenly became a luxury in an era of military cutbacks and base closings.

The U.S. military Southern Command, formerly headquartered atop a hill overlooking Panama City, has already moved to Miami. Other military components are moving to Key West, Puerto Rico and Honduras.

Despite Panama's new insignificance to U.S. interests, resentment over losing the canal still lingers. Carter, in a recent interview, acknowledged that signing the 1977 treaties was one of the most unpopular moves he ever made. He still receives letters every month condemning him for giving it away.

The adjustment has been hard for Panama too. Many Panamanians still do not think the United States is just going to walk away. And finding appropriate commercial uses for military bases isn't as easy as it might seem.

In fact, the "draw-down" -- which began several years ago -- has gone surprisingly smoothly. At the canal, 94 percent of its 10,000 employees are already Panamanian, quieting those doubting voices who said corrupt Panama could never be trusted to run the canal efficiently.

Panama has attracted interest from foreign investors hoping to turn the canal zone into the principal maritime services center of Latin America. Other ambitious plans seek to develop the bio-diversity of the canal rain forest into an eco-tourism destination.

Ports at both ends of the canal have already been privatized, and the Kansas City Southern Railway has also bought an abandoned railroad that runs alongside the canal.

One former U.S. radar station on the banks of the canal reopened last month, imaginatively converted into an eco-lodge with stunning panoramic views over the jungle canopy.

Nearby, U.S. scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute have signed on as consultants for a Rain Forest Resort being built on Gatun Lake. Frank Gehry, the renowned California architect, whose wife is Panamanian, is also involved in a project to convert Fort Sherman, a former U.S. base on the Atlantic entrance to the canal, into a world-class conservation studies center.

With the handover seemingly going so well, some analysts worry that the UXO issue threatens to spoil the big end-of-year party. "It has poisoned the situation at a dangerous moment," said Roberto Eisenmann, former publisher of La Prensa, Panama's main daily.

The good news is that both sides are still talking. And there are signs that the United States may be softening its position.

An agreement on dealing with the UXOs could still be reached outside the confines of the 1977 treaties. Some U.S. officials privately concede that Washington has a moral obligation to provide some post-1999 assistance.

Something better be worked out soon, says Eisenmann. Otherwise, in the long love-hate relationship between the two countries, "We are in danger of reviving the hate part."