A FEW BASIC FACTS For almost four centuries men schemed and dreamed of building a canal to carry ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rather than follow the 7,000 mile route around Cape Horn. As long ago as 1524 Charles V of Spain ordered the first survey for a proposed canal route over the Isthmus of Panama. One of the first of many American presidents to become involved with the Canal was Ulysses S. Grant who sent a naval expedition to survey the Isthmus at Darien in 1870. The French for two decades under Ferdinand De Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, tried to construct a sea level canal across the Isthmus. When they failed Theodore Roosevelt led Americans in an engineering and managerial feat that was the moon shot of the beginning of the century. To Panama we paid $10 million to obtain the Canal in perpetuity. From the bankrupt French Canal Company we bought its rights and properties to the Canal for $40 million. And to Colombia we paid $25 million in 1922, to the disgust of Teddy Roosevelt. We built a 51 mile Canal with three sets of locks at each end capable of raising and lowering ships 85 feet. The chamber of each lock is 110 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. The gates to each lock are 7 feet thick and 10 stories high. Each filling of a lock requires 52 million gallons of water and takes 8 minutes to fill by gravity. In the building of the Canal enough earth was moved to fill a ditch 10 feet deep and 50 feet wide, stretching from New York to Los Angeles. After an expenditure of almost $400 million, the building of the world's largest earth dam and the creation of the largest man-made lake, the Canal was ready to transit the first ship, the S.S. Ancon, on August 15, 1914. Since building the Canal the United States has spent about $7 billion in improvements, maintenance and investments. Under our sovereign operation of the Canal it has always been available to all nations except our enemies in times of war. The tolls have been reasonable and uniform. Only twice in 63 years of opera ́tion have we raised the tolls; once in 1973 from 90¢ per ton to $1.08 and again in 1975 from $1.08 to $1.29 Since we have lost $27 million on the operation of the Canal from 1973 through 1976, we must wonder what would happen to the tolls if Torrijos were to gain control of the Canal and raise them drastically to produce much needed revenue. Two months ago I partially transitted the Canal on a Danish container vessel carrying a payload of 13,000 tons. She was 690 feet long and 100 feet wide. Her toll charge was $26,000. She saved a quarter of a million dollars by avoiding the extra 10 day journey around the Horn. WE NEED THE CANAL The Canal is important to America's economic growth and essential to our national security. Last year about 13,000 ships transitted the Canal. This is almost twice the number that used the Canal the year after World War II. The Canal can handle 96 percent of the world's shipping. The Canal has been of great economic value to the consumers of America. For example, 42 percent of all cargo going through the Canal originates in the United States and 21 percent of all cargoes are destined for our nation. Approximately 30 percent of all physical commodities transitting the Canal are energy related, such as petroleum, coal and coke. Next month it is anticipated that three large tankers a day will transit the Canal bearing Alaskan oil from Prudhoe Bay to the energy hungry eastern seaboard. Dare we leave such an important transportation link in our economy to a dictatorial communist-leaning regime that has so poorly managed its internal affairs that it now must pay 40% of its annual budget to debt services? We do not have a two ocean navy. Former Secretary of the Navy William Middendorf and other naval experts have made that clear. Hence, the Canal is vital to our national security for the movement of naval vessels from one ocean to the other. The Canal can handle 98 percent of all of our naval vessels, including our nuclear submarines. Only our large aircraft carriers cannot make the transit. After the Singlaub incident we all know that the President keeps a headlock on the military. Active commissioned officers will either say what the administration desires or remain silent. Therefore, we must look to our retired officers for the most accurate and honest appraisal of the importance of the Canal to our security. Earlier this month four retired admirals, each of whom had served as chief of naval operations, namely, Arleigh Burke, Thomas H. Moorer, Robert B. Carney, and George W. Anderson, write to the President as follows: "We note that the present Panamanian Government has close ties with the present Cuban Government which in turn is closely tied to the Soviet Union. "Loss of the Panama Canal, which would be a serious setback in war, would contribute to the encirclement of the United States by hostile naval forces and threaten our ability to survive." I don't know about you, but I find the testimony of those four respected Admirals far more convincing on the question of the importance of the Canal to America's future safety than anything that might be said by Linowitz, Kissinger, Ford or Carter. INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITERS Ambassadors Linowitz and Bunker say that the American public is ignorant about the Panama Canal issue. They are right if they are speaking about the details of the proposed treaty. These two representatives of our international clique of bankers have refused to answer many vital questions put to them by our Congressmen. But if they are speaking about the importance of the Canal to the United States, they are dead wrong. The great majority of Americans know that we paid more for the real estate of the Zone than we did for either Florida or Alaska and that America alone built the Canal and has successfully operated it as a great international waterway ever since. Yes, and these hard working, taxpaying Americans recognize the value of the Canal to the future of our nation. I tell you, Sir, that regardless of the secretive and cowardly plan of the giveaway boys, the average American means to hang on to the Panama Canal forever! And if that means driving from the seats of power those public officials who would place the welfare of the Republic of Panama above that of the United States, then we shall be about that great task at once. For practical purposes Panama is bankrupt. When Torrijos grabbed the reins of power in 1968 without benefit of an election, the public debt was $160 million. Now it stands at $1.4 billion. The current budget for Panama is $607 million. Estimated revenues of $346 million fall far short of the budget. Current debt services is $221 million. The list of banking creditors of the Panama Government reads like International Bankers Who's Who. It includes the Narody Bank of Moscow, the London Branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank, Citicorp International Bank of London, International American Development Bank, Continental Bank of Chicago, the Export Import Bank of Washington, the Marine Midland Bank, and the Agency for International Development. All of these banks are vitally interested in the success of the proposed treaty. They see the American taxpayer as eventually picking up the tab for bailing Torrijos out of hock. But I believe the taxpayers of this land are plain sick and tired of dancing to the tune fiddled by our errant diplomats. I was told recently by American businessmen in Panama that they had a good dictatorship and that a new treaty would help their business. Some of these businessmen were like representatives of those American multinational corporations who supplied Russia with the technology and machinery that made it possible to supply Vietnam with the materials of war used against our American soldiers. Too often, and with disastrous results for this country, businessmen follow the dollar instead of the flag! Some of the businessmen with whom I talked suggested that their American companies would lobby for a new treaty with Panama. I hope that if they do the taxpayers and working people of this nation will mount the biggest boycott in the history of America against all companies that place price above principle. CONCLUSION Gentlemen, we have accommodated ourselves to or retreated before communism since World War II. Now communism is on our southern doorstep. The time is here when we must forget about world opinion, which incidentally has never contributed one depreciated dime to the tax bill of America. Let us think America for Americans. Let us stop worrying about corrupt, blackmailing dictatorships throughout the world, and instead charge our public officials with the welfare of our own citizens. Whether we admit it or not communism is at war with what remains of the free world. In his great address before the Congress, General Douglas MacArthur recognized this elementary fact of modern life. He warned, "The Communist threat is a globl one. You cannot appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its advance in Europe." If we mean to remain a land of the free, then we must immediately regain the initiative from the communist forces of the world. We can do this by making our stand at the Big Ditch. Instead of a public debate over a proposed Give-away Treaty of the Canal, we should demand of our public officials an immediate severance of diplomatic relations with the Republic of Panama as long as it tolerates the flagrant disregard of human rights by its present dictatorial regime! Gentlemen, I respectfully challenge you to join me in sending to the Halls of Congress an emphatic and reverberating "No" to the give-away of our Panama Canal. Hon. DOUGLAS J. BENNET, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Congressional Relations, NOVEMBER 23, 1977. DEAR MR. BENNET: I am enclosing an article entitled "Panama's Blacks: A U.S. Responsibility," which appeared in the November 7, issue of The New Leader. This article raises some disturbing questions about the status and likely treatment to be accorded Panamanian “blacks" with respect to their future employment under the terms of the proposed Panama Canal agreements. I would appreciate the Department's comments on this article and may make both the article and the response a part of the hearing record established by the Committee on Foreign Relations. With best wishes, Sincerely, Enclosure. CLIFFORD P. CASE, U.S. Senator. [From the New Leader, Nov. 7, 1977] THREATENED BY THE TREATY-PANAMA'S BLACKS: A U.S. RESPONSIBILITY (By Steve C. Ropp1) Nearly every big power retrenchment of the past 30 years has brought with it a "refugee" problem. Not only must new jobs and homes be found for the displaced citizens of the disengaging nation, but there is also frequently a community that, because it served the departing country, finds itself unwanted or endangered. In the case of Vietnam, for instance, the United States has so far rightly provided a haven to some 145,000 South Vietnamese fleeing from the wrath of the victorious Communists. 1 Steve C. Ropp is associate professor of government at New Mexico State. The pending Panama Canal treaty involves a roughly analogous situation. For although the U.S. is now preparing to withdraw from Panama, while there it benefitted from the labors of a group that will fall to the tender mercies of General Omar Torrijos Herrera's regime if Washington does not offer it adequate protection. These people are the estimated 15,000 black employes-all nominally Panamanian citizens-of the U.S. government in the Canal Zone. But their plight lacks the high drama of retaliation for wartime cooperation. Indeed, few people in this country are at all aware of their precarious position. The blacks' current predicament is rooted in the history of railway and canal construction on the Isthmus of Panama. In 1849, when some New York entrepreneurs decided to build a railroad there to expedite travel to the California gold fields, they imported about 2,000 Jamaican workers, who were more resistant to the ravages of malaria and yellow fever than their Chinese and Irish counterparts. During the late 19th century, France, under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps, attempted to repeat its magnificent Suez performance across the swampy Panamanian isthmus. But health conditions were much worse than in the Middle East, prompting the French to follow the earlier American example and hire blacks from Jamaica, Barbados and the smaller Caribbean islands. Thus when the United States picked up where the French had left off, it inherited equipment, a partially completed ditch-and a sizeable black work force that it continued to supplement from the islands as construction progressed. The canal completed, the blacks successfully competed for the menial bluecollar and service jobs that became available with the start of operations. They had two advantages over native Panamanians: They spoke English and were Protestant. Pressure to integrate them into the white community, however, always has been strenuously and, for the most part, successfully, resisted. For example, when the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling confronted white Zone residents with possibly having to desegregate their schools, it was suddenly stressed that blacks living in the Zone were Panamanians. Consequently, the argument ran, the issue here was not one of racial discrimination but rather of nationality: Being Panamanians, the blacks had to attend schools that taught the Spanish language and culture. This began the phase of "integrating" the workers into Panamanian life, a polite way of saying that white Zonians wished to rid themselves of the whole problem. Not unjustly do the blacks refer to themselves as the "forced Panamanians." Segregated and discriminated against by the Americans, blacks have fared even worse with their fellow citizens. Spanish-speaking Panamanians view them as privilegiados (privileged ones) who should have been repatriated to their countries of origin after the canal was built. They resent the fact that 5,000 blacks continue to live in special Canal Zone communities, and that all 15,000 receive salaries which, while considered the minimum wage in the United States, are triple what the average Panamanian makes. Moreover, present racial antagonisms have a long history in Panama. The man General Torrijos overthrew in 1968, Arnulfo Aris, head of the nationalist and racist Panamenista party, advocated denial of citizenship or expulsion back to the islands for West Indian blacks. In short, the blacks are a classic case of social marginality. Panamanians who work for Americans, they are disowned by both communities. Even under present conditions, whenever employment opportunities decline within the Zone, the black worker is the first to go. Displaced into Panama's economy, racial and linguistic difficulties leave him with slim chances of finding work. Not surprisingly therefore, the prospect of an eventual United States departure from the Zone is so delicate a matter to the black community that few black canal employes living in the Republic of Panama are willing to comment on it. There can be no doubt, though, that they fear the treaty, believing their jobs endangered, and covertly wish to see President Carter's ratification effort fail. These feelings are sensed by the native population, heightening its resentment. The blacks who reside in the Canal Zone are more outspoken, openly expressing concern and reservations. In testimony two years ago before a House subcommittee, representatives from the U.S.-administered communities argued that their interests were being ignored in the negotiations and that their loss of jobs under the 1955 treaty boded ill for the future. A close reading of the new treaty indicates that U.S. negotiators did try to build a measure of protection for black workers into the document. Under the provisions, those fired from jobs transferred to Panama would, if possible, be placed by the United States in other positions. A special optional early retirement program is to be implemented, too, that would benefit both black and white Zonians who would find themselves jobless once the U.S. pulled out. Nevertheless, the terms of the treaty are too qualified and too vague to offer the black population much real protection: Those holding administrative positions that come under Republic of Panama control are to be retained "to the maximum extent feasible"; displaced employes are to be offered "special job placement assistance" by Panama. Given the historical attitude toward blacks in the Republic, the treaty seems a rather weak feed for them to lean on. This is particularly true for relatively young people. The treaty may be sufficiently generous to senior workers, allowing them to retire with a modicum of dignity and money. But younger blacks working for the U.S. have no future either in Panama or in the Canal Zone. They see the problem they face being resolved only if the United States agrees to grant them preferenial immigrant status. The black community in Panama has in fact proposed that such legislation be enacted as a necessary aspect of the treaty's adoption. There seems little chance, though, that it will be. For one thing, letting in the Panamanian blacks would raise a host of difficulties vis-a-vis noncitizen Federal employes in other countries. For another, the President's new illegal-alien plan threatens to create a “raise-the-drawbridge" mentality on Capitol Hill that would hinder consideration of special cases. And unlike the trauma of Vietnam, which was sufficient to jar Congress into appropriating $203 million for refugee absorption, the situation of the blacks in Panama is barely known, not to mention understood. This, perhaps more than anything else, may mean the question of our moral obligation to a community that has served us so well, and at such a high cost to its social position in the Republic of Panama, will not even be raised. Hon. CLIFFORD P. CASE, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, D.C., December 19, 1977. DEAR SENATOR CASE: One of the main concerns of the U.S. negotiators during the negotiating process was to obtain fair and adequate treatment, and employment assurances for the Canal work force, including both U.S. citizens and nonU.S. citizens. Throughout this process, Panama expressed special concern about smoothing the process of integration into Panamanian society of the Panamanian nationals now living in the Canal Zone. In this regard, Panama agreed to special provisions for these persons in several areas, in addition to the general protections built into the Treaty for Canal enterprise employees which Mr. Ropp mentions in his article. The Housing Article of the Agreement in Implementation of Article III contains special provisions which assure these people that they will be able to continue to occupy, at reasonable rates, and perhaps purchase, the housing units they currently occupy in the Zone. In addition, Panama agreed that the dependents of these people who are now being integrated into the Canal Zone school system may continue to attend the U.S. schools until graduation, in order to avoid a further disruption of their education. Mr. Ropp mentions the need to provide opportunities for some of these persons to immigrate to the United States. The Administration certainly recognizes that fairness may require some special treatment for these persons, most of whom have always lived under U.S. jurisdiction with no opportunity to obtain U.S. citizenship. Current legislation does provide special immigrant status for U.S. Government employees abroad in exceptional circumstances. However, in view of this unique situation, the Administration is now developing proposals for liberalizing this legislation in the case of certain of these employees and will be submitting such proposals to the Congress at the appropriate time. Thank you for sharing Mr. Ropp's views with us. Sincerely, DOUGLAS J. BENNET, Jr., 21-955 - 78 - 38 Assistant Secretary for |
