China's stranglehold on the Panama Canal

A Geopolitical Assessment of the United States’ Legitimate
Security Interests and Sovereign Rights in Exercising the
Neutrality Treaty to Reassert Authority over the Panama Canal

A Strategic Analysis by
The American Defense Center ©2003

INTRODUCTION
In less than four years, the Panama Canal has gone from an engineering wonder – a waterway for commerce as well as security – which the United States maintained as a public trust for the entire world – to a springboard for regional destabilization and direct threats against the United States.

Because of America’s apathy, willful ignorance and misplaced idealism, an integral part of U.S. security is now effectively at the mercy of its adversaries – the People’s Republic of China, Communist guerillas and Narco-terrorists. Had this outcome been even considered, the Senate would never have passed the Neutrality Treaty, which handed over control of the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.

The very idea that the Panama Canal, which the U.S. paid for, built and safe-guarded for nearly a century, would now become a grave security threat would be ironically funny if it were not so perilous. As Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony before the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on June 16, 1998, “We are on what I consider to be a collision course with disaster in the very near future. . . . I truly can’t remember a time when I have been more concerned about the security of the country.”

The longer the United States ignores its legitimate security interests and its sovereign rights in Panama, the greater the dangers and the costs to remedy. The United States signed a bad treaty, not a suicide pact. Even in bad treaties, there are ways out. The Neutrality Treaty and its Amendment provide security guarantees to the U.S. that, because of the situation in Panama, are now being broken. No nation can or should accept a dagger to its throat.

Former Senator Paul Laxalt, leader in the Senate of the opponents to the Panama Canal Treaties, expressed the view that, had he and his colleagues known then what is now known about the current circumstances facing the Canal, there would almost certainly have been the votes needed to reject that accord.

Accordingly, the United States has every right, legal and moral, to take back control of the Panama Canal to preserve and protect its national security and well-being.

THE US WITHDRAWAL FROM PANAMA WAS WRONG
More than a century ago, President Rutherford B. Hayes recognized the practical wisdom that a canal on the Panamanian isthmus must be under American control. Replace “European power” with “foreign power,” and Hayes’ words are as apt and sensible today as they were prescient then: The policy of this country is a canal under American control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European power.... The capital invested by corporations or citizens of other countries in such an enterprise must in a great degree look for protection to one or more of the great powers of the world. No European power can intervene for such protection without adopting measures on this continent which the United States would deem wholly inadmissible. If the protection of the United States is relied upon, the United States must exercise such control as will enable this country to protect its national interests.... An interoceanic canal across the American Isthmus ... would be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and our Pacific shores, and virtually a part of the coastline of the United States. Our merely commercial interest in it is greater than that of all other countries, while its relations to our power and prosperity as a nation, to our means of defense, our unity, peace, and safety, are matters of paramount concern to the people of the United States.

In other words, geo-political realities are like Nature – both abhor a vacuum. Hayes knew then, and it is as true today, that a Transamerica canal must necessarily fall into a great power’s orbit, either for financing or protection. Simply stated, if the U.S. will not be that “great power,” another will. That is a geopolitical fact. After all, no Central American country has had the wherewithal to support such an undertaking as the Canal – certainly not Panama. The United States’ precipitous withdrawal from the Canal has directly led to other powers filling the void.

Once a foreign power takes over, however, this is not merely the changing of the guard but the harbinger of catastrophe, creating a highly destabilizing, volatile situation. Another power pursuing its own agenda in this hemisphere will ultimately lead to confrontation with the United States. As Hayes foresaw, such interference on this continent is “wholly inadmissible.” The result is conflict. And, the groundwork for that conflict is being laid now.

Ignoring geopolitical realities invites disaster. Good sense and practicality – and not the least, a desire for peace – dictate a Panama Canal controlled by Americans. Operating the Canal under the aegis of international compacts or supervision is not enough. It must be American control because America’s interests are at stake. Relying on others for defense is at best a gamble. Self-defense, like charity, begins at home. Long ago, Secretary of War Henry Stimson (under Wilson and FDR) understood “a canal protected by international agreement could not possibly meet the requirements of the United States.” He explained: We could not afford to risk our national security upon the faith that an international guarantee would be stronger in our behalf, in some future crisis, than it was, for instance, in 1793, when Prussia, after having guaranteed only two years before the independence of Poland, joined in the partition of Poland; or in 1807, when Great Britain entered the harbor of Copenhagen, belonging to a nation with which she was at peace and under relations of amity, and destroyed the Danish Fleet; or in 1904, when Japan, after having guaranteed the independence of Korea, violated the sanctity of the harbor of Chemulpho by attacking there the Russian fleet.... To insure, therefore, that the Panama Canal will always be open to our own fleet and closed to the fleet of our enemy, it must be under American control, complete and unhampered, and every step must be taken in time of peace, by the construction of fortifications and the preparation of other military defenses, to make that control effective in the emergency of war.

Throughout the last century, the Canal played an enormously valuable strategic role in this country’s wars, both hot and cold – a role this country’s enemies and adversaries have understood and have wanted ended. In World War II, with the United States’ national survival at stake, the Panama Canal ensured that the U.S. Navy could shuttle the necessary forces between the Atlantic and Pacific to provide the sufficient concentration to win. The Canal also proved critical in America’s war efforts in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf. With the end of the Cold War and naval tonnage shrinking, the ability to transfer strategic assets between the oceans can only increase.

The Canal Zone has provided this country other vital security advantages beyond logistic. Howard Air Force Base possesses a strategic aircraft-capable airfield for use in counter-narcotic drug interdictions and other U.S. military operations. Approximately 55 aircraft, including Aerial Warning and Control System (“AWACS”) planes, used to detect and monitor illegal drug flights, and 30 helicopters were at the runway on any given day. Another important facility near Howard was Rodman Naval Station. Rodman was home to the Navy’s Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, which taught all aspects of boat maintenance and navigation courses. (This maintenance training is critical given that most Latin American forces engaged in counter-drug efforts focus on ‘brown water’ (inland/riverines) operations and hence rely on small craft.) Rodman also has facilities for training naval Special Forces. Fort Sherman, located on the Atlantic side of Panama, instructed American service personnel in jungle combat operations and survival skills. Lastly, the Canal Zone was also home to communication/intelligence collection and distribution centers, such as those found on Galeta Island, Corozal and Fort Clayton. Now, all these assets and the security they provided are no longer in American hands.

Incredibly, the Panamanians did not even want the United States to withdraw from the Canal. A poll published in the Panama City newspaper La Prensa in September 1999 found that 61 percent of Panamanians surveyed favored talks on continuing some form of U.S. military involvement after the Canal is returned. John J. Tierney of The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., puts this number even higher. “[T]wenty-nine opinion polls [during the 1990s] revealed a steady 70 to 75 percent of Panamanians in favor of a continued U.S. presence, with most of this due to the economic benefits.”

Fears also stem from the “fact the country has no armed forces capable of protecting its territorial integrity, much less the canal itself, from incursions or even attacks originating across the border in Colombia.” What is more, according to the BBC, there is an abiding suspicion among Panamanians that “this 80km (50 mile) long granite channel will succumb to mismanagement and corruption.” The reporter added: [many] are concerned that Panamanian control is not ultimately in their country’s best interests. As one restaurant owner puts it: ‘Corruption, politics, the manana [tomorrow] culture....you can change the management, but you can’t change a people.’ But as the container ship chugs through the canal this evening, some Panamanians fear their new-found ownership of such an important global asset could spell economic instability, rather than the security and prosperity they desire.

Given Panama’s history of corruption, “transition of former U.S. properties in the Canal Zone into private enterprise is vulnerable to possible bribery and kickbacks.” It is important to bear in mind that the Canal as a money-making venture is wholly new.

The United States, throughout its control, ran the Canal as an international public utility – not as a for-profit business. Indeed, whatever profits were made were farmed back into the Canal for maintenance and improvement. The pressures for profit, now that American support is gone, will increase along with the potential for mismanagement, corruption and influence peddling to the highest bidder. Panama is a small, poor country of less than three million people that possesses an incredible asset it did not create and cannot defend. This does not bode well, and even the Panamanians had the sense to be worried.

Why didn’t the Americans?

Through willful self-delusion brought on by a one-size-fits-all misguided idealism, the United States’ ill-considered withdrawal from the Panama Canal has seriously destabilized one of the world’s most strategic regions. The People’s Republic of China, whose armed forces openly declare that the U.S. stands in their way to dominance, now has a strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere. Furthermore Panama, deprived of the American counterbalance, cannot resist regional forces, in particular, Columbia’s, that threaten to undermine Panamanian sovereignty. After all, democracy is relatively new to Panama. It could easily degenerate into the narco-state it was under Manuel Noriega. None of this is good for the Canal and it is terrifying for the U.S.

The situation is thick with grim ironies. The United States left a country that wanted it to stay, and it left vital strategic assets, which protected it, in the hands of its potential enemies. As a consequence, the U.S. has arrived at a precipice, where at the bottom will lay the ruins of American national security. For the sake of U.S. welfare and, indeed, international stability, it is time to turn back and retake the Canal.

THE THREAT IS CLEAR, PRESENT AND IMMINENT: RED CHINA
“Communist China is the greatest emerging threat to United States security,” warned retired Coast Guard Captain G. Russell Evans. “It has the largest army in the world, may soon have the second-largest economy, and is rapidly building up its navy and air force.” In the late 1990s, two People’s Liberation Army (“PLA”) colonels wrote a report, published by the PLA, entitled Unconventional Warfare, which assesses American tactics in Kosovo and the Gulf and describes how to defeat them. In 1996, a PLA general threatened to “rain fire” on Los Angeles if the United States interferes with China’s designs to subjugate Taiwan.

From missile testing in the straits of Taiwan to the forced downing of an American reconnaissance plane, Chinese international behavior has been confrontational and belligerent. China’s goal is nothing short of world domination. There can be no mistake: China sees the United States “hegemon” as its future adversary and is preparing to win.

Dr. Richard Fisher, of the office of U.S. Representative Christopher Cox, reported at a round table discussion of the future of the Panama Canal: China is pursuing their own interests, and they are preparing, not just south of our border but around the world, for the day -- sooner, they hope, rather than later -- [when] China will be exercising power, political power, military, economic power, on a par with our own, if not beyond. I am almost certain that this is not an immediate goal, it’s a medium-term goal, possibly by the year 2030, 2050, to be as influential in our hemisphere potentially as we are today. I point to activities that are already underway as signs to me, as demonstrations to me that this process is continuing apace and accelerating.

Accordingly, if an opportunity arose to extend its power at the expense of the United States, China would not miss it. And, the United States afforded China just such an opportunity when it withdrew from the Panama Canal. Former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger observed: In the context of a general ongoing Chinese shift toward more outward-looking activities and in keeping with their three millennia of statecraft, it is not logical to assume that they would pass up a chance to acquire a major foothold in one of the world’s three major naval choke-points – especially if it can be done with little cost or risk. It suits their diplomatic, economic, military and intelligence interests, just as such a capability in potentially unfriendly hands can be a threat to ours.

Sadly, the Chinese were logical and did not “pass up a chance to acquire a foothold in one of the world’s three major naval choke-points” – the Panama Canal. As Weinberger expected, they arrived, but under the guise of an entity innocuously named Panamanian Port Company, or PPC. The Panamanian government saw fit, amidst clouds of allegations of bid-rigging and the predicted corruption involving “buckets of money,” to award PPC control over two strategic port facilities at each end of the Canal, Cristobal on the Atlantic and Balboa on the Pacific. The length of this “lease” is for 25 years with an automatic additional 25-year option. (See Preamble and clauses 2.1, 2.2 and 2.9.) Despite a convoluted and twisted corporate pedigree, there can be no doubt: PPC represents Communist China.

Even President Clinton admitted this in an uncharacteristically candid moment. When a reporter, in late November 1999, asked President Clinton whether he was worried about the Chinese controlling the Canal, he replied, “I think the Chinese will, in fact, be bending over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner.... I would be very surprised if any adverse consequences flowed from the Chinese running the canal.” Although Clinton later retracted his comment and his aides back-peddled in the face of a public outcry, no one can deny the Chinese Communists control the Panama Canal through PPC.

The following day, December 1, Los Angeles Times staff writer Norman Kempster wrote that "Clinton administration officials were aghast at the president’s use of the phrase ‘running the canal,’” which confirmed what Adm. Moorer and his allies were charging.” On December 9, Mr. Clinton stated that his reference the previous week to China “running the canal” was a "misstatement.”

PPC is the Panamanian alias for Hong Kong International Terminals, otherwise known as “HIT.” HIT, in turn, is a subdivision of the huge Hong Kong-based conglomerate, Hutchinson-Whampoa Ltd. (“Hutchinson”), which operates port facilities around the world. While the character of Hutchinson and HIT’s dealings and liaisons become murkier and complex, one relationship, however, stands out clearly: it is hand in glove with the People’s Republic of China. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was not simply politically grandstanding when he described Hutchinson as “an arm of the People’s Liberation Army.” As then-Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia observed on the PBS News Hour, “[it's] a classic example of how [the Chinese] operate. They move in fairly slowly, pass a lot of money around and bring their people in and get them into positions of influence…”

PPC is controlled by Hong Kong multi-billionaire and major shareholder Li Ka-Shing who, despite being a businessman and capitalist, “does show up in lots of group photos with Beijing’s Communist leader.” Facts emphatically demonstrate he is no friend to America. Because of his cheek-by-jowl relationship with the China’s Communist rulers, U.S. Treasury regulators announced on April 28, 2003, an investigation of Li Ka-Shing’s proposed purchase of the bankrupt Global Crossing. “Members of Congress and some government regulators have raised concerns that national security could be compromised if a Chinese company were to purchase communications networks used by the federal government, as Global Crossing’s are.” Rather than submit to an investigation, Li Ka-Shing dropped his bid on April 30, 2003, for Global Crossing.

If controlling a high tech fiber optic cable operator caused so much consternation, why doesn’t Li Ka-Shing’s control of the Canal? One wonders who would be more embarrassed by an investigation: Li Ka-Shing or the previous administration?

Even a cursory inquiry reveals Li Ka-Shing’s extraordinarily close ties to the PRC’s leadership. He was a business and political intimate of the late Deng Xiaoping and now enjoys the same close relationship with former PRC president Jiang Zemin. Indeed, Li Ka-Shing and Jiang Zemin’s son are jointly developing property inside Tiananmen Square for the communist government. As an August 1999 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Hong Kong concluded, as one might have already from his associations, Li Ka-Shing is no believer in democracy.

Indeed, what other sort of man would the North Koreans trust? Li Ka-Shing and Hutchinson possess the only outside port holdings in North Korea. It is inconceivable that the North Koreans would give port access to any entities not connected to the Chinese military.

Li Ka-Shing has direct and deep involvement with the PLA’s front companies, such as weapons maker Poly Technologies Inc. A 1997 Rand Corporation Report, documenting Li Ka-Shing’s direct business contacts with the Chinese military industry, observed, “Hutchison-Whampoa of Hong Kong, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing, is also negotiating for PLA wireless system contracts, which would build upon his equity interest in Poly-owned Yangpu Land Development Company, which is building infrastructure on China’s Hainan Island.” The Rand report also noted that Li Ka-Shing’s “China International Trust Investment Company (CITIC), which he formed with two leading members of the Asian Triad organized crime families, has acted as a front for Poly Technologies, Ltd. – the arms manufacturer, which is owned directly by the PLA.”

Although Poly Technologies was founded in 1984 as a subsidiary of CITIC, it has been exposed as the primary commercial arm of the PLA General Staff Department’s Equipment Sub-Department. Poly Technologies was accused of having conspired with China North Industries Corporation’s representative, Richard Chen, and a number of businessmen in California, to import illegally semi-automatic weapons into the United States. In 1996, the Empress Phoenix, a container vessel of the China Ocean Shipping Company (“COSCO”) fleet, attempted to smuggle 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles into the San Francisco Bay area – resulting in the largest single seizure of illegal weapons in U.S. history. These weapons were bound for street gangs in San Francisco and Los Angeles headed by illegal Asian immigrants. Furthermore, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee documented that HIT (which is known as PPC in Panama) has several joint ventures with COSCO, which is in itself owned by the PLA.

As Panamanian educator and journalist Dr. Tomas Cabal testified before Congress, “COSCO is the merchant marine for the Chinese military and has shipped weapons of mass destruction technology and delivery systems to other countries.” These countries include Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Iraq and North Korea. Furthermore, COSCO has also has participated in drug smuggling.

Such is the nature of Li Ka-Shing’s associates and their concern for American security. In fact, an October 1999 “Intelligence Assessment” prepared by the U.S. military Southern Command, declared that Li Ka-Shing’s containerized shipping operations “in the Panama Canal, as well as the Bahamas, could provide a conduit for illegal shipments of technology or prohibited items from the West to the PRC, or facilitate the movement of arms and other prohibited items into the Americas.”

Li Ka-Shing also partly owns a firm involved in the illegal transfer of missile technology to the Chinese army. Commerce Department documents show that Li Ka-Shing owns one-third of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings, “AsiaSat,” which in turn, is partly owned by the PLA. AsiaSat satellites regularly carry military communications traffic for PLA units and Chinese military-owned companies. Because of such dealings, U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin had to plead guilty to 30 counts of illegal missile technology exports, specifically “kick-motor” rocket technology, and had to pay the U.S. government $13 million in fines.

One wishes that the Commerce Department and the Treasury Department had reviewed PPC’s bid to control Balboa and Cristobal. The relationship between Li Ka-Shing and the PRC is even more entwined. A May 14, 1997 Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report on the privatization of the Panamanian ports identified PPC as being 10 percent owned by China Resources Enterprise (CRE), which is the commercial arm of China’s “Ministry of Trade and Economic Co-operation.” Then-Senator Fred Thompson described the CRE during the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearings as “an agent of espionage – economic, military, and political – for China.” In short, a Chinese intelligence operation is part controller of the Western Hemisphere’s strategic waterway.

PPC, Li Ka-Shing and the PRC – hand in glove. No matter how many twists and turns, it amounts to the People’s Republic of China having gained a significant strategic presence in the Panama Canal. This is the same Red China that has been so heavily involved in massive espionage efforts to steal our satellite, missile, and nuclear weapons technology; the same totalitarian regime that massacred thousands of students at Tiananmen Square, yet still denies this atrocity; the same Red China that is supplying terrorist regimes such as Iran, Syria, Libya, and North Korea with missiles and weapons of mass destruction; the same Beijing thugs who are threatening Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines, who are helping Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, and who call the United States their “Number One enemy”; the same Red China that has so thoroughly penetrated our government and our military research laboratories during the Clinton Administration. This same Red China is now on the doorstep of America. How long it can so remain depends upon what action America takes.

CONTRARY TO TREATY, PANAMA HAS GIVEN CHINA CONTROL OF THE PANAMA CANAL
Under the Panamanian Public Law No. 5, the contract giving PPC – meaning China – control of the port of Balboa on the Pacific end of the canal and the port of Cristobal on the Atlantic, there are several exclusive concessions that are tantamount to sovereign power over the Canal. In addition to these critical anchorages, PPC has responsibility for hiring new pilots for the Canal. (Pilots have complete control of all ships passing through the Canal, and they determine which ships may go through and when.) PPC also has control of U.S. Air Station Albrook and Telfers Island. PPC also possessed the right (and may regain it) to Rodman Naval Base, a U.S.-built, deep-draft port facility capable of handling, supplying, refueling, and repairing just about any warship. Furthermore, PPC may exercise such sovereign rights as constructing railroads and roads, setting and charging tariff rates, fees and payment “that it considers convenient,” as well as establishing the size and practice of the labor force. More significantly, PPC acquired the right to transfer “contract rights” to any third party – i.e., any company or nation. This means PPC “could transfer rights to China, Russia, Cuba, Iraq, Syria, Libya, or corporate fronts for the Russian mafia or Colombian drug cartels.”

These concessions give China control over the Panama Canal. Retired Admiral Moorer summed it up best: The practical power of controlling anchorages, scheduling, pilotage and services is placed in the hands of a commercial affiliate of a strategic foe that is already on the spot and functioning, one that operates under a system that makes no difference between commercial and strategic planning, because the bulk of its commerce is, in the last analysis, controlled by its military and party apparatus, not by private merchants and entrepreneurs, however wealthy they may become from the monopolies which this apparatus bestows upon them…..The operational capacity of an entity which is so closely tied to the Chinese Communist military to impede our passage through the canal by practical control of services and facilities essential to that passage is by its mere existence a threat and a violation of national security, regardless of the rights of the Canal Authority. In other words, it is clear that Panamanian Public Law Number 5 and PPC amount to handing the Canal over to Red China. The situation can only grow worse, and it is.

In an effort to consolidate its gains, China has commenced an “immigration” invasion of Panama. “There are now some 200,000 illegal and legal Chinese out of a total Panamanian population of just 2 million. According to Ray Bishop, a Panamanian citizen, that ratio is the equivalent of having 30 million Chinese in the United States.” The Chinese have bought key businesses as well as their own schools and newspapers. “Using Chinese organized crime known as ‘Triads,’ according to Bishop, the Chinese government is gaining control over the population and is already showing its muscle.”

Furthermore, given its track record and intentions, China will likely soon have operational control over Howard Air Force Base, Galeta Island, Fort Sherman, SOUTHCOM Quarry Heights Headquarters, Ancon Hill, Amador, and other vital military facilities built by Americans with U.S. taxpayer money. These facilities could provide the bases to launch either terrorist or military attacks against America. Retired Coast Guard Captain Evans cautions, “Red Chinese J-11 attack jets, if launched from air facilities in Panama, could strike the mainland United States. Each J-11 can drop over 13,000 pounds of bombs.”

Where are the cries against colonialism and imperialism that led the United States to give up a major economic and strategic asset? Because of the New York and Georgetown salons’ ephemeral and impulsive obsession with abstract, fuzzy ideas of “progress” and “international justice,” the United States has played into the hands of its enemies. The Panama Canal giveaway, which was wanted by few and understood by seemingly no one, has brought this country an economic and strategic loss that no open war has ever accomplished. It is not too late to turn back. It is imperative to do so. Soon.

OTHER THREATS: REGIONAL DESTABILIZATION
As previously noted, Nature and nations both abhor a vacuum. The rash American departure from the Canal has drawn in other opportunistic predators besides China. Bear in mind that Panama is a small nation with a population no bigger than West Virginia’s. It has no army. Only its limited police force stands between it and any aggressor and disruption to the Canal. Unfortunately, as events have shown, it is poorly suited to prevent even the slightest threat.

[Panama’s] police forces are totally inadequate to dealing with any serious military threat while the U.S. has not maintained any military presence there, contrary to the wishes of most Panamanians as expressed in polls. The police couldn’t even keep the road to Miraflores Locks open on official handover day – though they were all over the place – when several hundred university students carrying banners with Che Guevara and hammers and sickles on them chose to close it down.

Disillusionment with market reforms in some countries could lead to a reaction against the United States that would have repercussions in the canal and elsewhere. If the Panamanian police cannot keep a lock clear of banner-waving students, what will they do when they meet soldiers brandishing rifles? With the U.S. gone, potential adversaries, like scavengers, see opportunity to rush into the gap. In particular, the serious instability in Columbia threatens Panama and the Canal. On both sides of Panama’s 165-mile border with Columbia, an inhospitable, densely forested region ideal for smuggling arms and drugs, there is extensive “activity of Colombian guerrillas, paramilitary groups and drug traffickers.

Between 1996 and 1998 multiple armed confrontations took place between Panamanian National Guardsmen and rebels of the Northwestern Bloc of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). In 1998 the control exercised by the FARC in the Uraba region of Colombia adjacent to Panama virtually collapsed in the face of an offensive by some 1,800 right-wing paramilitary forces led by Carlos Castano. The FARC guerrillas were forced to seek refuge across the border in Panama’s Darien region. But FARC’s Frente 57 continues to operate all along the border, mostly engaged in logistics. In June 1999 the guerrillas briefly took over the border settlement of Sapzurro. Castano and his paramilitaries have declared they will attack any civilians or Panamanian National Guardsmen they suspect of “collaboration” with the FARC. As of mid-1999, an estimated 7,000 Colombian peasants had fled into Panama to escape guerrilla and paramilitary violence.

This situation has heightened tensions between the two countries and has not improved, with incursions reported frequently. Dr. Norman Bailey, former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for the National Security Council, called the Colombian situation extremely dangerous and instable. “You have five different armed forces fighting each other for control of the national territory.” Since Panama has absolutely no capacity whatsoever to control its border with Colombia, FARC and the ELN guerillas as well as the paramilitary forces slip in and out of Panama at will.

Beyond the Columbian guerillas and the militias, Panama also faces the dangers from would-be drug lords. Vice Admiral James Perkins, former Deputy Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command, stated he had witnessed that Panama’s Darien province, which borders Columbia, was “full of narco-guerillas” and that they used the province as a “ ‘rest and relaxation’ camp.”

Venezuela, a neighbor farther to the southeast, also presents a potential menace. You have a former coup leader who’s been elected president of Venezuela. This is a man who is following through on the plan that he developed through many years of conspiratorial activities, and during his time in jail.... What he does have in mind is to become a civilian dictator….[Chavez] also is very actively interfering in his neighbors’ business. He has reawakened the boundary dispute with Guyana on one border and he has actively interfered in the socalled peace process in Colombia, interestingly enough, on the side of the guerillas. He was stationed on the border during a substantial period of his military career and he established excellent relations with the Colombian guerillas and he maintains those relations.

The American departure from Panama has only emboldened these forces of international anarchy. Rather than righting a so-called previous injustice, the U.S. withdrawal from Panama has created turmoil and insecurity. A reasonably prosperous Central American country now dangles close to chaos. As one commentator put it, “Panama is beginning to resemble the bar scene from Star Wars where every thug from the universe gathered.” This situation will continue to deteriorate and become more perilous unless the United States recognizes that the best interests not only to itself but also to the region demand retaking
control of the Panama Canal.

THE UNITED STATES HAS THE RIGHT TO RETAKE CONTROL OF THE PANAMA CANAL
Every country has the right to self-defense. No nation can be expected to stand idly by while its adversaries prepare to undermine its national security. Even a treaty as poorly considered as the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, otherwise known as the “Neutrality Treaty,” recognizes this basic fact. Accordingly, given what PPC really is and what has become of the Canal, the United States has every right under the Neutrality Treaty to take back the Canal it built.

The Neutrality Treaty clearly establishes that the United States has an important national interest in the continued operation and unfettered access to the Canal. For example, Article VI of the Neutrality Treaty recognizes “the important contributions of the United States of America and of the Republic of Panama to the construction, operation, maintenance, and protection and defense of the Canal” and thus directs that naval ships of both nations “shall, notwithstanding any other provisions of this Treaty, be entitled to transit” the Canal “expeditiously.” The amendment to Article VI is even more explicit. Significantly, the Amendment to Article IV of the Neutrality Treaty specifically declares that the United States has the right to protect the Canal’s operation, including military intervention. It states: Under the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (the Neutrality Treaty), Panama and the United States have the responsibility to assure that the Panama Canal will remain open and secure to ships of all nations.

The correct interpretation of this principle is that each of the two countries shall, in accordance with their respective constitutional processes, defend the Canal against any threat to the regime of neutrality, and consequently shall have the right to act against any aggression or threat directed against the Canal or against the peaceful transit of vessels through the Canal.

To drive the point home, the Conditions to the Amendment again stresses that the United States possesses the right to intervene militarily if the operation of the Canal is jeopardized. It reads in pertinent part: Notwithstanding the provisions of Article V or any other provision of the Treaty, if the Canal is closed, or its operations are interfered with, the United States of America and the Republic of Panama shall each independently have the right to take such steps as each deems necessary, in accordance with its constitutional processes, including the use of military force in the Republic of Panama, to reopen the Canal or restore the operations of the Canal, as the case may be.

The meaning of these provisions cannot be clearer: the United States has crucial national interests in the Canal and, more importantly, may safeguard those interests by military intervention if those interests are threatened. Clearly, the Chinese control of Cristobal and Balboa ports is a glaring breach of the Neutrality Treaty and its Amendment. As has been emphatically demonstrated above, Li Ka-Shing and his associated enterprises are at worst pawns and at best in league with the People’s Republic of China – the nation which promises to rain fire down on Los Angeles, which sees and has openly declared that the United States as its future enemy and which seeks to frustrate and undermine U.S. interests at every turn. The nation that now has ramparts in the Panama Canal.

How much clearer does a threat against the United States’ access and use of the Canal need to be? There is no need to wait for the J-11 entering U.S. airspace. The Neutrality Treaty has already been broken. Yet, Li Ka-Shing and his PRC masters are still in control of the Canal.

TAKE BACK THE PANAMA CANAL
As Benjamin Franklin stated, “[he] who lives on hope will die fasting.” The United States cannot die in hope by ignoring an obvious pattern of behavior on the part of the Chinese. Too often, our leaders, convinced and impressed by their own sophistication, persuade themselves that they need not accept at face value the mere words of totalitarian powers. From Lenin to Stalin to Hitler to Mao to Pol Pot to Khomeini to Saddam, however, it is unavoidably clear that totalitarian regimes mean what they say.

The Chinese mean to challenge the United States. They mean to win. They mean to weaken the U.S. by depriving it of its strategic assets. By giving away the Canal, America is complicit in its own hanging. The question is not whether but when. A Chinese presence in this hemisphere means a confrontation is coming. Either the United States will make the decision on its own initiative or it will be forced upon us later. It is safer if America chooses to control events rather than react to them.

It is not too late. It requires first recognition of the danger and then the will to act. The Canal should be under American control. It is good for the United States, the region and the cause of peace.