BOMBING RANGES IN PANAMA

[forlatam@igc.org]

The Economist - March 1998

Panama

Clearing up after Uncle Sam
E M P I R E R A N G E , P A N A M A

THE story begins in the second world war, with the forces of the United
States driving the Japanese back northward from island to island in the
Pacific. As tales flowed back from the battle zone of the damage done to
troops and equipment by heat, damp, mould and other tropical hazards, the
American army looked for a place to test against these, a place
oversupplied with sunlight, rain, humidity and insects. Panama, already in
use for artillery practice, nicely fitted the bill.

When, decades later, the American troops went home, Panama inherited
several areas full of unexploded bombs, shells -- and worse. How to clear
them up? The Americans once told Panama that the job was "impracticable".
In March a Canadian indigenous tribe, the Tsuu T'inas, will start to do it
over 300 hectares (750 acres) of one of these areas, Empire Range.

The tribe acquired its unusual expertise after being told by the Canadian
government that its ancestral lands, part of which had been used as a
firing range by Canada's armed forces, could not be cleared. The Tsuu
T'inas set up their own company to do the job, won funds for it, and did
it. No wonder Panama's Regional Interoceanic Authority (ARI) got in touch.

Empire Range is not alone. In the Pearl Archipelago, south of the isthmus,
San Jose Island is now overgrown with rainforest. But the island was used
from late 1944 to the early 1950s to test not only conventional weapons --
some of them British -- but mustard gas and other chemical weapons. A
declassified official American report lists hundreds of tests, many of
which involved subjecting unsuspecting American soldiers to chemical
nasties to see whether their equipment worked or not. The pearl oysters
that were once the archipelago's main source of wealth disappeared after
the 1950s.

In 1996 a company working for the American defence department hired Rick
Stauber, a former bomb-disposal expert with 20 years in the American army,
to study sites in Panama that might hold unexploded weaponry. His
suspicions fell upon two airfields, at Rio Hato, on the Pacific side, and
France Field, near the Colon free zone, from which aircraft had taken off
to practise bomb-dropping on San Jose. Mr Stauber reasoned that surplus
bombs might have been dumped in the sea or buried near these airfields. But
when he arrived in Panama, officials of America's Southern Command told him
his investigation would be limited to the three main firing ranges,
excluding areas such as these.

Another such is Chivo-Chivo, an area restored to Panama in the 1970s. Mr
Stauber says he has seen documents that show a "function test" firing of a
nerve-gas landmine there. Other sources say almost any non-nuclear weapon
used since the 1940s, including napalm and Agent Orange, the defoliant of
Vietnam fame, has at some time been tested in Panama. Mr Stauber protested
at the limits placed on his work. His contract was not renewed.

The Americans have said little on the topic, even privately -- so little
that the Panamanian government has made a formal request to be shown secret
papers about the tests. American officials maintain that few records were
kept at the time, and that many have been lost since. The American
ambassador has described Mr Stauber's claims as "conjecture". Some testing
still goes on at what is now known as the Tropic Test Centre. But this,
says the ambassador, "is not a part of the ranges . . . It is a laboratory
centre, it's not where they conduct the firing of ammunition."

A promotional leaflet put out by the centre itself is rather less clear
about the distinction: "United States Army South Command ranges, with power
and communications, are available to test most types of weapons, munitions
and explosives, from small arms to 155mm guns." And though much these days
can be done by computer, experts at the sites confirm that it is not just
"virtual" testing they are talking about.

The centre's laboratories are sited on the Corozal base. It is part of the
area proposed for a future multinational anti-drugs centre; so are two
firing ranges, Empire Range, and Pinas, near the Atlantic coast.
Negotiations on the anti-drugs scheme, in which many American servicemen
would be involved, are yet to be completed. But the Tropic Test Centre
plans to stay in Panama even if all the American troops go home: it would
turn itself into a private-sector corporation, ready to do tests for
whoever might hire it.

The United States maintains that most of the unexploded projectiles on
Empire Range have been found and destroyed. Panama's foreign ministry says
21 people have been killed and many others injured since 1979 by explosions
on or near the ranges. In early 1997, a land inspector from ARI was blown
off his feet three times, though not injured, by bombs spontaneously
exploding near a village behind Empire Range. ARI these days is trying to
sell plots on the former American bases to foreign investors. It is having
to cut its prices on some land, to win over buyers afraid of what may lie
hidden underneath.