While local media report that the US Department of Defense is preparing plans to send troops to Panama in order to take control of the inter-oceanic waterway, and mention NBC and sources linked to the Government, the administration of Jose Raul Mulino responds that it has not received any reports on the matter.
In a recent forum entitled “The future of the Panama Canal in the time of Trump,” lawyer Alonso Illueca told Prensa Latina that the Executive refuses to resort to multilateralism, as it worked in the negotiations for the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, signed in 1977.
In that sense, the lawyer urged the Government to promote that campaign with more strength in the Organization of American States (OAS), which holds those documents; and also in the United Nations, where since January of this year Panama is a non-permanent member of the Security Council.
For Illueca, the first organism that could have pronounced itself was the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) last January, but the rejection of Argentina made consensus impossible, as established by the rules of this integrationist mechanism for issuing such pronouncements.
Former Foreign Minister José Eduardo Ritter also urged to internationalize this problem and to seek the support of the international community. Other analysts consulted by the newspaper La Estrella de Panama supported the idea that the current foreign policy of the Central American country has deficiencies and there does not seem to be a clear national strategy, which facilitates the imposition of Washington’s interests.
Julio Linares, a lawyer specialized in international law, stated that although President Mulino has contradicted Trump, there is a need to move from reactions to a more active strategy.
Linares advocated assuming a position of defense of multilateralism and an effective and dignified diplomacy.
For his part, the lawyer and president of the Panamanian Maritime Law Association, Joaquin De Obarrio, said that another tool that the government is not using is to add adherences to the 1977 Neutrality Treaty.
De Obarrio explains that the Treaty makes clear that only Panama can have military forces in the Canal.
Hence, any intervention without the authorization of the State would be a violation of the norm.
For Jones Cooper, professor of International Relations at the University of Panama and former Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, the State could invoke the United Nations Charter and the Organization of American States (OAS), instruments that give legal force to the defense of the country.
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