Panama Range Update

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@cpeo.org>]

Killing Fields Clean-up: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

by John Lindsay-Poland
from Panama Update, Summer 1998

 The United States conducted its first clearance of firing ranges in
Panama in March and April, then announced that it cleared 80% of the 36
thousand acres of active ranges -- while also claiming that 90% of the land
cannot be cleaned up because it is "inaccessible." U.S. Army and National
Guard units found and detonated 527 unexploded munitions during the
eight-week operation, which was suspended in April until the next dry
season begins late this year.
 The contradictory information worries Fernando Manfredo, Jr., who
was appointed in April to chair a cabinet-level commission to negotiate a
range clean-up with the United States. The commission will work with U.S.
officials in an attempt to establish a clean-up plan, when the United
States expects to have results from evaluations carried out during the
range sweeps earlier this year. It will be up to Manfredo's commission and
U.S. diplomats to find a mechanism for cleaning up impact areas in Panama
beyond 1999, when the ranges transfer to Panamanian control.
 But the clean-up talks have started on uneven footing. Panama
flatly rejected a clean-up plan for the three firing ranges submitted to
Panama in January by U.S. Army South, saying it was insufficient and
unacceptable. Panama cancelled a meeting in Washington of the bilateral
Joint Commission on the Environment set for May 19, citing changes to the
agenda which replaced discussions of range clean-up with presentations
about the canal transition.
 Manfredo believes the Army's announcement that it has cleaned up
most of the ranges will give a green light to nearby communities, who will
think that the area is now safe to enter and plant crops, hunt, or recycle
metals found there.
 His concern is reinforced by a rash of recent discoveries of
explosives on lands that transferred to Panama long ago. Panamanian police
destroyed some 30 explosives on April 30 that were found on the former Rio
Hato Air Base, which was used by the United States as a firing range until
1969. The munitions included mortars, rockets and anti-aircraft munitions
and were discovered during reforestation operations of the Natural
Resources Institute. In 1968, a teenaged boy named Marciano Sanchez was
killed by a munition he and a friendpicked up in Rio Hato while looking for
lead to recycle.
 Consultants from the Wolf's Flat Ordnance Disposal Company, which
is owned and operated by the indigenous Tsuu T'ina Nation of Alberta,
Canada, recently surveyed a section of Empire Range that reverted in 1996
and is now being reforested. Seeking leftover munitions and training
Panamanians to do the same, on May 18 they found an anti-personnel mine on
one of the range's "maneuver areas." According to the Interoceanic Regional
Authority's Daniel Escruceria, the mine was live and had enough explosives
to make a bus fly through the air.
 In February, U.S. explosives experts discovered another bomb amid
coral reefs on Iguana Island, on Panama's Pacific Coast. Iguana Island,
like Rio Hato, was used by the United States during World War II and today
is a beach destination for tourists.

Chemical Legacy
 In early April, former consultant to the Pentagon Rick Stauber
reported that chemical weapons were buried at France Field, an airstrip
near the Caribbean city of Colón that was returned to Panama in 1979. The
United States tacitly acknowledged the chemical weapons burial in a
document cited by the daily La Prensa, but asserted that the chemical agent
had "dissipated" and therefore had not notified Panama about its existence
when the land was transferred.
 The Pentagon's treaty implementation director Richard McSeveney
said the same thing about chemical munitions -- "they have a short shelf
life" -- in a meeting with representatives of the FOR and the Panamanian
Center for Research and Social Action on April 24.
 U.S. Army South's Colonel Michael DeBow, who is responsible for
carrying out the military's base clean-up programs in Panama, said that
chemical munitions had not been used on the currently active firing ranges,
and that "really" the Panamanian government should not be worried. But he
added that "if there is a specific concern, we can explore and we are open
to doing it."
 Panama's Legislative Assembly is expected to ratify the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC) before the close of its June session, which will
trigger new obligations to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned in Panama
by the United States. The CWC also requires the United States to notify
Panama of any chemical weapons abandoned on its soil, but to date the
United States has not given Panama a single document regarding chemical
weapons storage or testing in Panama, according to Panamanian Foreign
Ministry officials.
 The Fellowship of Reconciliation and five other organizations will
issue a report in July on the history and legacy of the U.S. military's
chemical weapons programs in Panama. The report describes how the United
States first brought chemical weapons to Panama in the 1920s as part of a
project to defend the canal against potential invaders by contaminating
both Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Beginning in the 1940s, Panama became a
key location for testing chemical weapons (and other military equipment)
under tropical conditions. Weapons tested included mustard gas, phosgene,
VX nerve agent, and sarin (also a nerve gas). The report is sponsored by
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Panamanian Center for Research and Social
Action, Center for Latin American Studies, Greenpeace, Chemical Weapons
Working Group and the Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund.
 Some idea of how large a chemical weapons program the United States
ran in Panama can be had from the following statistic. Dugway Proving
Ground was for many years the headquarters for chemical weapons field
tests. A keyword search at Dugway's technical library for documents
concerning Panama found 2246 documents. For a copy of the report in
English or Spanish, contact the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Action Appeal:

Write to Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Davidow to urge that the
United States (1) comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention by disclosing
to Panama all documents related to the testing, storage and disposal of
chemical weapons in Panama, and (2) agree to cleanup canal-area firing
ranges in Panama beyond 1999, in order to truly do all that is
"practicable" to remove explosive hazards from the ranges.

Write to:
Madeleine Albright
U.S. Secretary of State
2201 C Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20520
Tel: (202) 647-6607
Fax: (202) 647-7120

Sources: Crítica 4/30/98; La Prensa, 4/30, 5/4/98;El Panamá America, 4/19,
4/30/98; Panama News, 4/12/98.

For more information:

Fellowship of Reconciliation
Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean/ Panama Campaign
995 Market St. Ste. 1414
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 495 6334
(415) 495 5628 (fax)