(The United Secretariat of the Fourth International issued the following statement on September 15. A similar statement was adopted jointly by the American Socialist Workers Party and the Revolutionary Socialist League (LSR) of Panama. In addition, a joint statement was adopted by nine Central American revolutionary Marxist organizations which appeared in Inprecor, No. 7 new series, May 26, 1977.]
Ever since it stole the Canal Zone of Panama over seventy years ago, Washington has been determined to maintain its grip on it. The Panama Canal is a vital transportation link for U.S. imperialism and the exploiters throughout the world The United States maintains key military bases in Panama and utilizes the Zone as a staging area for counterinsurgency activities in the Caribbean and throughout Latin America. The original treaty which imperialism imposed on the Panamanian people gave the U.S. control over the canal "in perpetuity." In face of continued resistance to the U.S. occupation over the years, Yankee troops have intervened twenty-one times to maintain Washington's domination.
The negotiations which have led to the new treaty were themselves forced upon Washington by the struggles of the Panamanian people. Prior to 1964 the United States refused all calls to negotiate a new treaty. But after the mobilization of the treaty. But after the mobilization of the Panamanian people on January 9-10, 1964, which was brutally suppressed, the imperialists decided they had to adopt a new stance and agreed to negotiate a new treaty. Washington's hypocrisy is evident in the delay in even carrying out these negotiations. In fact, Washington has no right to negotiate anything in Panama-it should get out immediately and unconditionally.
Now a new treaty has been negotiated in secret between Carter and General Omar Torrijos. Washington's aims are to present a facade of reasonableness in dealing with the people of Latin America, while at the same time maintaining its essential interests. The new treaty contains certain partial gains for Panama on questions of territory, administration, tolls, mail, and so forth. The Panamanian government is presenting the new treaty as a victory. But in supporting this treaty Torrijos makes unwarranted concessions to imperialism. The new treaty is not a genuine abrogation of the old accord. On the contrary, it legalizes the U.S. military presence and provides for joint defense "through a parallel neutrality pact that gives the United States the right to intervene forever to guarantee the canal's security."
Moreover, Panama will not even assert formal sovereignty over the canal until around the year 2000. There is no guarantee that Washington will honor this promise even then. The negotiations themselves were carried out under the guns of the imperialists. While they were going on, 9,000 U.S. troops were stationed 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. Torrijos says he will submit the agreement to a plebiscite for approval by the masses. The real attitude of the Torrijos regime is expressed in the fact that it has sent into exile antiimperialist fighters who have demanded that the U.S. get out of Panama immediately and unconditionally. There can be no genuine debate among the Panamanian people as long as the anti-imperialist foes of the pact are in forced exile and access to the mass media is denied to the different mass organizations in Panama.
A joint statement issued September 1 by the Liga Socialista Revolucionaria (LSR- Revolutionary Socialist League) of Panama and the Socialist Workers Party of the United States says, "
... 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 their selfdetermination."*
Certain reactionary politicians in the United States oppose the new treaty because, they claim, it gives up U.S. "rights" to Panama. This has tended to shift the axis of the debate onto which imperialist-imposed treaty should be supported, the old one that codified the imperialist take-over of the canal or the new one that maintains imperialist control, but in a form better suited to disguise and justify that domination. Against both the proponents of the new treaty as well as those of the old, the Fourth International says that the U.S. has no right to be in Panama at all, and no right to impose any treaty on the Panamanian people.
We call on the working people and oppressed peoples of the world to raise their voices alongside the anti-imperialist fighters in Panama and the United States in demanding:
Full and immediate sovereignty for Panama.
U.S. troops out of Panama.
Dismantle all U.S. military bases in the Canal Zone.
Turn the canal over to Panama now.
U.S. hands off the canal and Panama. O
*For full text see "Joint Statement by Panamanian and American Trotskyists" in Intercontinental Press, September 19, 1977, p. 1006.