(The following statement was issued September 1 by the Liga Socialista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Socialist League, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Panama) and the Socialist Workers Party. We have taken the text from the September 16 issue of the Militant, a revolutionary-socialist newsweekly published in New York.]
For the exploiters in the United States and throughout the world, the Panama Canal is a vital transportation link and a key base for U.S. military and counterinsurgency activities throughout Latin America.
Ever since stealing the canal more than seventy years ago, Washington has been determined to keep it.
The negotiations between Panama and the American imperialists are the result of the struggles of the Panamanian people against the twenty-one interventions that Yankee troops have carried out in Panama.
Prior to 1964, the United States refused all calls to negotiate a new treaty. But when the Panamanian people decided to mobilize and openly confront the imperialists on January 9-10, 1964, Washington agreed to negotiate a new treaty because of the national and international pressure that followed their cowardly massacre of the Panamanian people.
Now President Carter and Gen. Omar Torrijos are presenting a new treaty that contains certain partial gains for Panama on questions of territory, administration, tolls, mail, and so forth. But the Panamanian government makes serious concessions in the treaty on "questions of national dignity" such as the legalization of the Yankee military presence and joint defense "through a parallel neutrality pact that gives the United States the right to intervene forever to guarantee the canal's neutrality."
That this is what the United States really wanted out of the negotiations is shown by the fact that they were carried out while 9,000 U.S. soldiers are encamped at fourteen bases in the Canal Zone. Genuine negotiations are impossible under such conditions.
The Panamanian government of General Torrijos was a party to the secret talks that produced this pact. Now Torrijos says he will submit the agreement to a plebiscite for approval by the masses. But there can be no genuine debate among the people of Panama as long as the antiimperialist foes of the pact are in forced exile and access to the mass media is denied to the different mass organizations in Panama.
We of the Revolutionary Socialist League of Panama and the Socialist Workers Party of the United States feel that this treaty does not satisfy the historic aspirations of the Panamanian people for total sovereignty over their national territory and for the expulsion of Yankee soldiers from Panama once and for all. It is designed only to cover up continued U.S domination of the canal, to retard the struggle of the Panamanian people, and to deny them their self-determination.
The working people of the United States have a special interest in supporting their Panamanian brothers and sisters in the struggle against "U.S. rights to the Canal Zone," an enclave of imperialist domination. The government that has forced this new treaty on Panama is the same government that oppresses working people in the United States and throughout the world.
Against the proposed treaty as well as against those reactionary U.S. politicians who oppose it because, they claim, "the agreement gives up U.S. rights to Panama," the Revolutionary Socialist League and the Socialist Workers Party say:
Washington has no right to be in Panama-not today-not in the year 2000—not ever!
We call on the working people of the whole world to raise their voices alongside sid amd dimediate sovereignty for Paours, demanding:
nama!
O.S. troops out of Panama.
Dismantle all U.S. military bases in the Canal Zone!
Turn over the canal to Panama now!
U.S. hands off the canal and Panama!
Suicides, Divorces Up
Among Whites in Zimbabwe
According to social workers in Zimbabwe, the suicide rate among whites in that country is rising. A spokesman for the Samaritans Organization said September 4 that calls for help from white women under stress had increased fourfold since the beginning of 1977.
On the average, the spokesman said, one white commits suicide every day and the figure is going up.
At the same time, many white couples emigrating from Zimbabwe are getting divorced before they leave. Strict currency export controls imposed by the Smith regime make this financially advantageous.
"A married couple leaving the country normally is allowed to take a maximum of $1,620 in cash," an Associated Press dispatch reported September 1. "As individuals, each partner can take out more. In addition, a separated or divorced wife can claim maintenance suited to her normal standard of living. With children, the amount increases even further."
However, the article said, "many couples do reunite once they are safely out.