(Author's note: At noon on December 31, Panama regains complete control
over the Panama Canal and the former Canal Zone. What follows is the tale
of the events in January 1964 that, more than anything else, began this
decolonization process. It's a history largely forgotten in Panama and
almost unknown in the United States. A Spanish-language version of this
will be forthcoming in the near future. The author is the editor of The
Panama News, Panama's English-language newspaper.)

THE MARTYRS OF 1964
by Eric Jackson

In January 1963, John F. Kennedy agreed to fly Panama's flag alongside the
American flag at all non-military sites in the Canal Zone where the stars
and stripes were flown. Zonians and their main supporter on Capitol Hill,
US Representative Daniel Flood, complained bitterly.

One Gerald Doyle, the Panama Canal Company's chief architect, sued to block
the display of the Panamanian flag. Kennedy's executive order was upheld in
the Canal Zone's Federal District Court by Judge Guthrie Crowe, who found
that the courts had no power to interfere in such foreign policy matters.
Nevertheless, Judge Crowe blasted the flag policy from the bench, stating
that "[t]he flying of two national flags side by side in a disputed
territory for an undeclared purpose is a position of weakness that can lead
but to further misunderstanding and discord." (1)  The executive order's
implementation was delayed pending the outcome of the lawsuit and the lapse
of the appeal period after the court's decision.

Before the new policy could be carried out, Kennedy was murdered in Dallas.
The incoming Johnson administration put new policies and appointments
affecting the Canal Zone on hold, pending review and possible changes of
personnel and policy.

One month after President Kennedy's death, Canal Zone Governor Robert J.
Fleming, Jr. issued a decree limiting Kennedy's order. The US flag would no
longer be flown outside Canal Zone schools, police stations, post offices
or other civilian locations where it had been, so that Panama's flag would
not be flown either. The governor's order infuriated many Zonians, who
viewed it as a symbol of US renunciation of sovereignty over the Canal
Zone.

The governor was a major general in the US Army Corps of Engineers,
appointed by the president and under the direct supervision of the
secretary of the army. Many Zonians disliked Fleming in the best of times.
His military manners and the swagger stick that he liked to carry were
objects of Zonian ridicule. The hostility was mutual. Fleming did not care
for the ultra-patriotic Zonian attitude and saw his Zonian critics as
uncouth and spoiled. Fleming summarized his take on the latter to The
Saturday Evening Post: "They've been isolated so long they've developed a
reactionary mentality.... It's the perfect place for the guy who's 150
percent American-and 50 percent whiskey." (2)  He stated his nutshell view
of the problems between Zonians and Panamanians to an American engineering
society not long after the situation had boiled over: "The plain fact is
that we must begin treating Panamanians as people." (3)

Now it was time for Zonians to hold flag demonstrations. The first defiance
of the governor's decree was by Canal Zone police officer Carlton Bell, who
raised Old Glory at the Gamboa Civic Memorial. Petitions calling for the
raising of US flags, and only US flags, were circulated. A motorcade with
honking horns picketed Fleming's house.

The American flag was raised at Canal Zone Junior College and Balboa High
School on the Pacific side. The next day it was raised at Cristobal High
School and all of the Canal Zone elementary schools (save those for the
West Indians) on the Atlantic side.

Attempts by school authorities to prevent the demonstrations were
fruitless. Virtually all American junior high and high school students,
both Zonian kids and military dependents, participated. After the first
American flag that was raised at Balboa High was taken down by school
officials, the students walked out of class, raised another flag, and
posted guards to prevent its removal. Members of the local Elks Club and
the Veterans of Foreign Wars, some the parents of the protesters, provided
blankets and meals for participants at an all-night vigil at the Balboa
flagpole. Most Zonian adults sympathized with the student demonstrators.

A high school student leader of the flag raising at Cristobal High, Connie
Lasher, succinctly stated the Zonian case to a reporter for Life magazine:
"We want just the American flag flying-it proves our sovereignty. The next
step, if they have their way, will be just to fly the Panamanian flag." (4)

Governor Fleming, miscalculating the volatility of the situation, left the
zone for talks with his superiors in Washington on the afternoon of January
9, 1964. The crisis would boil over while he was in the air over the
Caribbean Sea.

To further complicate matters, the US embassy was run by a charge
d'affairs. The prior ambassador, Joseph Farland, had submitted his
resignation to Kennedy several months before and had yet to be replaced.
Apparently Kennedy had a nominee in mind when he died, but Lyndon Johnson
wanted to make his own choice and had not done so by the time of the
crisis.

Farland, a symbol of friendship and understanding despite his background as
an FBI counter-intelligence expert, was liked by many Panamanians. Part of
the reputation stemmed from a departure from bureaucratic norms of
inefficiency. In one case the US government had proposed a study about the
possibility of a rural road in Panama's interior, but Farland used funds
for training Panamanian equipment operators to provide on the job training
and built the road for half the cost of the proposed study. (5)  A few
months before the crisis he was given a friendly send-off by some 35,000
Panamanian well-wishers. Farland's popularity with Panamanians was mirrored
by his unpopularity with many Zonians. (6)

To many observers, including Governor Fleming at the time, it seemed in
late 1963 that US-Panamanian relations had never been better. On the other
hand, some leftists who had no use for either Kennedy's Alliance for
Progress or Farland burned the ambassador in effigy. This display, and an
October 1963 molotov cocktail attack on the US embassy in Panama City, was
one of several unheeded signs of the explosive situation that was brewing
in Panama that fall.

In any case, a dangerous situation unfolded with Lieutenant Governor David
S. Parker in charge of the Canal Zone and the US embassy in Panama City
functioning at somewhat less than full capacity. There were no special
preparations for the coming explosion.

A Panamanian response to the flag raisings was expected, though the crisis
took most Americans by surprise. Several years later, Lyndon Johnson wrote
in his memoirs that: "[w]hen I heard about the students' action, I was
certain we were in for trouble." (7)

The Zonian gauntlet was picked up by students at the Instituto Nacional,
the elite Panamanian high school sometimes referred to as the Eagles' Nest.
This school is in Panama City, about a stone's throw away from the Canal
Zone. Led by 17 -year-old Guillermo Guevara Paz, 150 to 200 students from
the institute marched to Balboa High School, carrying their school's
Panamanian flag and a sign proclaiming their country's sovereignty over the
Canal Zone. They had first informed their school principal and the Canal
Zone authorities of their plans before setting out on their march. Their
intention was to raise the Panamanian flag on the Balboa High School
flagpole where the Americans had raised theirs.

When they got to Balboa High, the Panamanian students were met by Canal
Zone police and a crowd of Zonian students and adults. David Blackman,
president of the Balboa High School Students Association, offered a cordial
welcome to the Panamanian students. He was jeered by his fellow Balboa
students. After hurried negotiations between the Panamanian students and
the police, a small group was allowed to approach the flagpole, while
police kept the main group back.

A half dozen Panamanian students, carrying their flag, approached the
flagpole. The Zonians would have none of it. They surrounded the flagpole,
sang the Star Spangled Banner, and nullified the deal between the police
and the Panamanian students. Scuffling broke out. The Panamanians were
driven back by the Zonian civilians and police. In the course of the
scuffle Panama's flag was torn.

The flag in question had historical significance. In 1947, students from
the Instituto Nacional had carried it in demonstrations opposing the
Filos-Hines Treaty and demanding the withdrawal of US military bases.
Independent investigators of the events of January 9, 1964 later noted that
the flag was made of flimsy silk, thus easily torn.

There are conflicting claims about how the flag was torn. Canal Zone Police
Captain Gaddis Wall, who was in charge of the police at the scene, denies
any American culpability. He claims that the Panamanian students stumbled
and accidentally tore their own flag. David M. White, an apprentice
telephone technician with the Panama Canal Company, stated that "[t]he
police gripped the students, who were four or five abreast, under the
shoulders in the arm pits and edged them forward. One of the students fell
or tripped and I believe when he went down the old flag was torn." (8)

One of the Panamanian flag bearers, Eligio Carranza, said that "[t]hey
started shoving us and trying to wrest the flag from us, all the while
insulting us. A policeman wielded his club which ripped our flag. The
captain tried to take us where the others [Panamanian students] were. On
the way through the mob, many hands pulled and tore our flag." (9)

Panamanian newspapers later ran a photograph which purported to show an
American student ripping the flag. (10)  Canal Zone authorities claimed
that the photo in question showed nothing of the sort, but instead showed
the American student pushing a Panamanian student who had allegedly shoved
a Zonian girl. The picture could be interpreted in different ways. However
the flag was torn, it was the result of an altercation, not an unprompted
clumsy move by a Panamanian student.

The main group of Panamanian high school students moved into the fray, and
several were battered by police. The protesters retreated up the many steps
toward the Canal Zone Administration Building, which is on a big hill
overlooking Balboa High.

The Panamanian students tried to lower the American flag at the
administration building, but were thwarted by police. The angry students
then stoned the building and several cars, breaking windows. They retreated
to Panama City, followed by Canal Zone police cars. To impede the pursuing
patrol cars, the protesters rolled 50 gallon oil drums which served as
trash cans for the well-kept Canal Zone towns into the clean and usually
calm streets. No arrests were made.

As word of the Balboa flag desecration incident spread, angry crowds formed
along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. At several points
demonstrators stormed into the zone, planting Panamanian flags. Canal Zone
police tear gassed them. Rocks were thrown, causing minor injuries to
several of the cops. The police opened fire.

Ascanio Arosemena, a 20 -year-old student, was shot at an angle from
behind, through the shoulder and thorax. His lung was punctured and his
aorta severed. Death came within a minute or two. He became the first of
Panama's Martyrs, as those who fell on January 9, 1964 and the following
few days were to become known.

Arosemena, the captain of the soccer team at the Escuela Profesional
(Professional School), was a good student and not particularly a political
activist. He was from a prominent old family. He happened upon the scene of
the fighting while he was on his way to see a movie at a theater near the
scene of the confrontation. (Ironically, the film that was showing at the
Central Theater where Arosemena had been headed that night was Rampage,
starring Robert Mitchum.) Witnesses say that Arosemena died while helping
to evacuate wounded protesters from the danger zone. The witnesses appear
to be corroborated by a photograph of Arosemena supporting an injured man,
said to have been taken shortly before he was shot. (11)

Panamanian protesters burned cars with Canal Zone license plates or with
Panamanian plates featuring a "Z" that identified them as belonging to
American soldiers and canal employees who resided outside the zone. Traffic
signals were destroyed. The Masonic Temple, a convent for American nuns, a
bar which catered to Americans and the Canal Zone bus depot were
vandalized. One group of angry Panamanians invaded the Canal Zone town of
Ancon (adjacent to Panama City on one side and Balboa on the other) and set
fire to a number of buildings and railroad cars.

The police opened fire again. Panamanian witnesses claimed, and American
authorities denied, that Zonian civilians participated in this shooting.
Panamanian newspapers printed a photograph of a man in civilian clothing
standing next to a Canal Zone police officer, brandishing a shotgun. (12)
The man with the shotgun was not particularly identified by the
periodicals. He may have been a police officer in plain clothes.

A group of about 50 Zonian teenagers gathered at the Ancon playground and
hurled rocks and insults at the Panamanian demonstrators. These gestures
were reciprocated. The police made no effort to disperse the Canal Zone
kids, as their attention was directed to a Panamanian crowd which seemed
intent on burning as much as possible of Ancon. The Zonian youths were
finally dispersed a few hours later by the US Army, when it relieved the
Canal Zone Police Department of responsibility for the defense of Ancon.

Canal Zone authorities asked the Guardia Nacional to suppress the
disturbances. The guardia commanders, mindful of the criticism which their
institution had received for siding with the Americans in the 1959 flag
disturbances, stayed away from the fighting. While declining to side with
the United States against Panamanians, the guardia also ignored the radio
appeals of Thelma King. The leftist National Assembly deputy, a descendant
of one of the earlier waves of West Indian immigration who grew up in a
small town in the interior where hers was the only black family, called for
Panama's combined army and police force to take up arms against the
Americans.

Meanwhile, demonstrators began to tear down the "Fence of Shame" which
separated the Canal Zone from the Republic of Panama, creating gaps in
front of the US District Court and several other spots along the boundary.
This aspect of the January 9 events is one of the images that is most
commonly invoked by Panamanian nationalists. Panamanians were tear gassed,
then several were shot, for pulling or climbing on the cyclone fence.
Probably the most famous photograph of what Panamanians know as the Day of
the Martyrs depicts two demonstrators, one bearing a Panamanian flag,
climbing over the Fence of Shame at Ancon. The opinion of most Panamanians,
and most Latin Americans generally, about the fence in question was
expressed a few days later by Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of
American States: "In Panama there exists today another Berlin Wall." (13)

Panamanians armed with stones and molotov cocktails stormed the house of US
District Judge Guthrie Crowe, which was across the street from the
Instituto Nacional. (It was Crowe who had, with some critical remarks about
mixed symbols of sovereignty, upheld Kennedy's executive order on flag
protocols in the Canal Zone.) While the judge's family fled, Crowe joined
police and fire fighters in putting out several fires. Canal Zone police
repulsed the crowd in front of Crowe's house, first with tear gas and then
with shotguns and pistols.

Several hundred yards down the road from the Instituto Nacional area (and
further yet from Ancon) a large crowd surged out of Panama's slum
neighborhood of El Chorrillo. El Chorrillo had been built in 1904 by the
Americans to house silver roll canal employees. Turned over to Panama after
the canal construction was done, the mostly wooden buildings had seriously
deteriorated ever since. The protesters from El Chorrillo marched nearly
one half of a mile into the comfortable, well-kept Canal Zone city of
Balboa. The police regrouped and tried to disperse them with tear gas, then
began to fire bullets.

The Panamanian crowds grew as nightfall came, and by 8 pm the Canal Zone
Police Department was overwhelmed. Some 80 to 85 cops faced a hostile crowd
of at least 5,000, and estimated by some sources to be 30,000 or more, all
along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. When the
lieutenant governor came to survey the scene, a Panamanian mob stoned his
car.

At the request of Lieutenant Governor Parker, General Andrew P. O'Meara,
commander of the United States Armed Forces Southern Command, assumed
authority over the Canal Zone. The US Army's 193rd Infantry Brigade was
deployed at about 8:35 p.m.

Brigadier General George Mabry, who had been awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor for bravery in World War II, ordered the police in his
sector (who had been firing from behind barricades) to cease fire. He then
led a group of about 15 soldiers in full battle dress, with bayonets
affixed to their rifles, against a much larger group of Panamanians. The
crowd fell back.

An airplane equipped with loudspeakers flew over parts of Panama City to
urge the crowds to disperse. (This was, strictly speaking, a violation of
Panamanian air space, a fact about which lawyers and politicians later
complained.) US Army armored personnel carriers with machine guns mounted
atop arrived.

The army set up its battle headquarters at the Tivoli Guest House, a posh
restaurant and hotel in a beautiful wooden turn of the century French style
building that has since been demolished. Theodore Roosevelt had slept at
the Tivoli when he visited Panama. Within eyesight of the Tivoli were
Panama's Legislative Palace and residential and commercial areas of Panama
City.

Some Panamanians looted the America Gun Store, while others brandished
their own small arms against the American forces. The Tivoli came under
heavy fire, mostly from revolvers and .22 caliber rifles. Many of the shots
came from around the Legislative Palace.

American-owned businesses in Panama City were set afire. For this purpose,
two men set up a gasoline barrel at Cinco de Mayo Plaza (a stone's throw,
or shall we say a molotov cocktail's throw, from Ancon) from which the
flammable substance was dispensed into bottles. The recently dedicated Pan
American Airlines building (which, despite housing an American corporation,
was Panamanian-owned) was completely gutted. The next morning, the bodies
of 6 Panamanians, who were probably trapped in the burning building while
looting or vandalizing it, were found in the wreckage.

The Chase Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank, the offices of Eastman
Kodak, a Singer Sewing Machine Company store, a Sears, Roebuck and Company
store, Goodyear and Firestone tire outlets, Braniff Airline's reservation
agency and the premises of several American-owned utility companies were
trashed. Truckloads of Panamanian students went from American-owned
business to American-owned business on missions of destruction.

Also put to the torch in Panama City was the recently opened United States
Information Service (USIS) library. Though used by many Panamanian
students, the USIS library was also a symbol of the American propaganda
effort which was part of Kennedy's and Johnson's general counter-insurgency
scheme for Latin America. Leading the assault on the USIS was Floyd
Britton, the charismatic leftist leader.

Britton, the son of a West Indian family who came to Panama via Colombia,
finished his high school education at the Instituto Nacional. While there
he edited a radical newspaper and helped to revive the Panamanian Student
Federation (FEP), which had been disbanded by Remsn in 1953. He led a
movement that forced the resignation of the rector of the Instituto
Nacional.

Graduating from high school in 1958, Britton enrolled in the University of
Panama. Leading the Revolutionary Action Movement (MAR), he railed against
corrupt officials. For his efforts he was shot and wounded in a
confrontation with the guardia. After taking refuge in the Guatemalan
embassy, Britton tried to flee. He was arrested at the airport by Captain
Omar Torrijos. Britton was freed in time to join in the November 1959 flag
demonstrations.

In 1960 Britton joined the People's Party and organized a FEP congress. He
stood on the left of both organizations, arguing against a left electoral
strategy. In 1961, after clashes among students, Britton was suspended from
the university. In January 1964, Britton was leading a small but militant
student faction.

The People's Party quickly swung into action once the fighting started. It
is said that a number of its women activists (who could be identified by
the zebra-striped handbags which they carried) directed action groups
within the crowds. Others say that the student flag demonstrators from the
Instituto Nacional were communist-led in the first place.

However, it seems that Panama's communists were caught by surprise by the
outbreak of violence and commanded the allegiance of only a small minority
of those who fought the Americans on the Day of the Martyrs. A good
indication of the relative communist strength came two weeks after the
confrontations, when the Catholic church sponsored a memorial rally for the
fallen, which was attended by some 40,000 people. A rival communist
commemoration on the same day drew only 300 participants.

The People's Party was (and is) but one of several components of a
fragmented Panamanian left. Soon after the Day of the Martyrs, Floyd
Britton was to split with the party to form another fragment, calling the
orthodox communists "revisionist." The Socialist Party and a diverse
collection of leftist student factions were among the demonstrators of the
Day of the Martyrs.

Chicago Tribune reporter Jules Dubois alleged one giant communist plot,
with Christian Democrats, Socialists, student government leaders and a host
of others controlled by Fidel Castro's strings. (14)  Later writers like
ex-Zonians Herbert and Mary Knapp concurred, going so far as to allege on
purportedly good authority that the flag that was torn at Balboa High
School was torn to begin with. (15)  At best, Dubois exaggerated. At worst,
people like the Knapps (and many other ex-Zonians) persist in promoting a
mythology which is demonstrably untrue, for example by published
photographs of the students marching with their untorn flag just before the
Balboa flagpole incident. (16)

Panama's foreign minister at the time, Galileo Solis, more accurately
summed up the true state of affairs:

*Panamanian communists, like members of other political parties in Panama,
were with the people in the streets of the city during the January events.
But this does not mean that they direct, or, as the American press writes,
"manipulate" the developments in Panama. This contention is a base lie, and
it is being spread to distort the true meaning of the broad patriotic
movement of protest against injustice, a movement that is entirely
Panamanian, without any prompting from the outside.* (17)

Whether or not for fear of an imminent communist takeover, the US embassy
was ordered to burn all sensitive documents. All but two embassy personnel
were evacuated to the Canal Zone. The embassy attracted protesters in the
wee hours of January 10, but the guardia prevented them from entering the
premises. The crowd stoned the building and set fire to a nearby car with
US embassy license plates.

A number of American residents of Panama City, particularly military
personnel and their families who were unable to get housing on base, were
forced to flee their homes. The guardia arrested one Nicolas D'Anello, the
magistrate for Panama City's San Francisco district, for leading a crowd
which vandalized the cars and apartments of Americans living in that
neighborhood. All told, the United States reported that 2,048 US citizens
from all over Panama took refuge in the Canal Zone.

There were many instances in which Panamanians gave refuge to Americans who
were endangered in Panama City and elsewhere. A number of Panamanian
soldiers were among the good Samaritans. A large group of US soldiers and
civilians gathered at the Panama City home of US Army Major Jerry V. Witt,
whose Panamanian neighbors provided him with a license plate without the
"Z" for his car and directed demonstrators away from his home. The guardia
discretely spirited these Americans to the safe haven of the Canal Zone.
Also among those who were sheltered by Panamanians were a number of
off-duty American soldiers who were in Panama City bars when the fighting
broke out.

Some non-American businesses were also attacked. There was looting. This
brought the guardia, which would not assist the American forces at the
border, to intervene and arrest some 17 alleged looters. In the days and
weeks following the riots, the Panamanian DENI (National Investigation
Department, roughly the equivalent of the FBI) raided the homes of many
"well-known hoodlums," recovering stolen property and making arrests. Some
Panamanian merchants brandished firearms to defend their stores.

As the shooting became a two-way affair and the crowds turned their wrath
against targets in Panama City, a number of people were shot to death under
disputed circumstances. Various American versions claim that all
Panamanians who were shot to death were either rioters or else shot by
Panamanians. This has been shown by every objective review of the facts to
be untrue.

Various Panamanian versions, also inaccurate, blame all Panamanian deaths
on US forces. (18)  Those who died in the Pan American Airlines building
fire can not reasonably be said to have died at the hands of American
forces. Panamanians did fire shots at other Panamanians on the Day of the
Martyrs, and some may have been killed or wounded that way. Some
Panamanians may have been hit by bullets fired by Panamanians but intended
for American targets. A definitive accounting of all deaths in the events
of January 1964 has yet to be published, and may never be published.

The Washington Post attributed seven Panamanian deaths, including those in
the Pan Am building, to other Panamanians. Some exaggerated American
accounts attributed most or all of the shooting deaths of Panamanians to
other Panamanians, thus minimizing the death toll caused by the US Army and
the Canal Zone Police. Other American accounts made this insinuation by
selective silence. A typical example of this was US News and World Report's
"Inside Story of the Panama Riots," which made two references to alleged
incidents of Panamanians shooting Panamanians, yet failed to mention a
single instance of an American shooting a Panamanian. The Spillway,
published by the Panama Canal Company, also gave a description of events
which failed to mention any killing of a Panamanian by an American,
justifiable or not.

The official Canal Zone Police version is that the police did not shoot
directly at anybody, but only fired over the heads or at the feet of
rioters. (19)  It should be noted that to have fired over somebody's head
in the direction of Panama City from any of the areas of confrontation in
1964 would have likely caused a bullet to land in a densely-populated
neighborhood. Gen. O'Meara, who expressed an unwillingness to dispute the
police account, said that to fire at the feet of demonstrators would likely
cause ricochets. (20)

Canal Zone Police Captain Wall was more categorical in his denials:

*Let's get one thing straight. My men did not panic and they never at any
time deliberately shot anyone... My men say that there was Panamanian fire
directed into Panama. Maybe that did it, but it wasn't the police... I saw
only two Panamanians wounded, and one of these jumped up and ran away after
photographers had taken his picture... My men knew their job and they did
it well.* (21)

The police version was discredited by independent investigators, who found
that the cops fired directly into the crowds and killed Arosemena and a
number of other Panamanians. DENI ballistics experts claim that six
Panamanians were killed by .38 caliber Smith and Wesson police revolvers
fired by the Canal Zone Police.
Part 2 of Eric Jackson's
PANAMA CANAL ZONE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The official Southern Command account implicitly owned up to things that
the police, The Spillway and US News and World Report would not: "Except
for those Panamanian snipers who were shot at by US counter-snipers, all
persons killed or wounded by Canal Zone police or US military action
sustained their injuries while rioting within the Canal Zone." (22)  Yet
this, too, tended to unfairly whitewash the American responsibility for the
deaths of several Panamanians, some of whom were entirely innocent.

Among the martyred innocents was Rosa Elena Landecho, an 11-year-old girl
who was shot to death by a high-powered rifle while standing on the balcony
of her family's apartment. She was killed by the US Army, which had fired
on the apartment building in response to suspected sniper fire. It seems
that there actually was a sniper in another apartment, whose presence was
objected to by the residents of the rest of the building. Landecho, who,
unlike the sniper, was an easy target, paid the price.

Another innocent party who was shot to death with a high-powered rifle,
almost certainly fired by an American soldier, was 33-year-old Rodolfo
Sanchez. This bystander was shot while sitting in his car.

Others who were shot down were clearly demonstrators. It is a politically
loaded question whether to call some of them "rioters." For example, what
to call 18-year-old Estanislao Orobio? His crime was carrying a Panamanian
flag into the Canal Zone. He was mortally wounded by a .38 caliber pistol
shot in the throat, almost certainly fired by a Canal Zone police officer.

Alberto Oriol Tejada, a 36-year-old laborer, suffered birdshot wounds to
his face and chest. One tiny pellet severed his jugular vein, killing him.
A 14-year-old student, Gonzalo France, was killed by a .38 caliber bullet
wound to the abdomen. These two were shot at places and times when police
fired on Panamanian crowds. The fatal shots most likely were fired by Canal
Zone cops.

Victor Garibaldo, an unarmed 29-year-old taxi driver, was killed by a
high-powered rifle shot which felled him in Panama City near the
Legislative Palace. He was killed by American troops, who flushed
demonstrators (including both snipers and unarmed persons) out of the
building with tear gas and shot at those who fled from the choking clouds.

Other gunshot deaths remain mysterious. Evilio (or, by some accounts,
Rogelio) Lara, and elderly fruit vendor, was shot to death while resting at
his fruit stand on Panama City's Avenida Central, several blocks from the
nearest fighting. Lara was killed by a stray bullet of uncertain origin,
but apparently not by a high-velocity rifle round of the type that the US
Army was using.

Within an hour and a half of the first shots being fired, Panama City's
main hospital, Santo Tomas, announced that it was overloaded with
emergencies and asked that the wounded be taken to other hospitals.
Panamanian boy scouts lent their help at the emergency rooms of Santo Tomas
and other hospitals, giving first aid to the less severely wounded patients
who could not be quickly seen by hospital staff, helping to move patients
from ambulances to emergency rooms and operating suites, and running many
small errands which the overworked hospital workers would handle by
themselves in more normal situations.

The fighting ebbed and flowed along the Panama City-Canal Zone boundary for
several days. Small groups and individuals made forays into the Canal Zone
to raise the Panamanian flag, braving the US Army's rifle fire. Snipers
fought off and on battles, particularly by exchanging fire with the
soldiers holed up in the Tivoli. Students gathered rocks and bottles for
unequal combat with heavily armed adversaries. A lone archer shot flaming
arrows at the Tivoli. The Legislative Palace became an informal
headquarters for a ragtag Panamanian resistance, thus came under the heavy
tear gas and rifle fire that took Victor Garibaldo's life. One group made
its way to Shaler Triangle, where they cut down the flagpole where the
stars and stripes had flown. Another crowd battled American troops and
police on the Bridge of the Americas, which the US forces eventually
cleared and closed. The bridge closure isolated Panama City from that part
of the country which lies between the canal and Costa Rica.

When the fighting was over, DENI investigators found over 600 bullets
embedded in the Legislative Palace. Santo Tomas Hospital reported that it
had treated 324 injuries and recorded 18 deaths from the fighting. Panama
City's Social Security Hospital treated at least 16 others who were wounded
on the first night of the fighting. Most of those killed and wounded had
suffered gunshot wounds. Some of the more seriously injured were left with
severe permanent brain damage or paralyzing spinal injuries from their
bullet wounds.

After the fighting, American investigators found over 400 bullets embedded
in the Tivoli. The US Army reported 10 soldiers wounded by gunfire, with
none killed, in the fighting near Panama City. One American soldier, Spec/4
Michael W. Rowland, died when he fell into a ravine while pulling night
time guard duty not far from the scene of the fighting. Nineteen US Army
personnel, 8 members of the US Air Force, 3 US Navy sailors and a Peruvian
naval cadet who was training with the US Navy were hurt other than by
gunfire in Pacific side fighting. Suffering non-gunshot injuries in
violence in or near Panama City were 4 Canal Zone cops and 13 American
civilians.

Most of the injuries suffered by Americans resulted from thrown rocks or
bottles. One severe injury was suffered by a young Zonian who was caught in
his car in Panama City when the fighting broke out, picked the wrong route
back into the Canal Zone, and lost an eye to a brick thrown through his
windshield.

The confrontation was not contained in the Panama City area. Word of the
fighting quickly spread all over Panama by radio, television and private
telephone calls. One Homero Velasquez, a journalist for the leftist Radio
Tribuna (which was partly owned by Thelma King), set up a makeshift
broadcasting booth in a bar a few blocks from the Canal Zone boundary,
where runners kept him posted with reports from the various scenes of
fighting. These reports, retold in lurid "play by play" style over the
radio, led the Canal Zone authorities to lay much of the blame for
mobilizing anti-American crowds at Velasquez's feet. Thelma King and other
militant leaders broadcast appeals for action over Radio Tribuna and other
stations. (@#)

Attempting to counteract the inflammatory broadcasts was Minister of
Education Manuel Solis Palma. The minister, who had been a leader of the
1947 anti-bases protests, got on the radio to call for an end to the
violence. While condemning the Americans and praising the patriotism of the
demonstrators, Solis Palma assured the people that the government would act
on their behalf and questioned the wisdom of fighting the well-armed
American forces. His advice went mostly unheeded that day.

After a day and a half of fighting, the Panamanian government shut down
Radio Tribuna and all other independent broadcasters. For their part, the
Southern Command's English-language radio and television stations broadcast
emergency instructions but little news about the events. The suppression of
news on both sides may or may not have calmed the crisis compared to what
might have happened had freedom of broadcasting been maintained. In any
case, electronic communication was only partly cut off, as the telephone
system was still working.

The incomplete censorship had the side effect of contributing to wild
rumors on all sides. One popular but inaccurate Zonian rumor, fueled in
part by references to the "American Canal Zone" in US news media, that the
Panama Canal Zone had been renamed "United States Canal Zone" and would
henceforth be an outright possession of the United States.

News and rumor instantly traveled the 50 miles from Panama's south coast to
its north coast. The country's second city, Colon, which abuts the city of
Cristobal, then part of the Canal Zone, erupted within a few hours after
the start of hostilities on the Pacific side.

Colon, a mostly black city, is and was much poorer than Panama City. Its
economic dependence on the canal is and was far more pronounced than the
capital's. Prostitution and all sorts of vice are and were major industries
in Colon.  The town has and had a bad reputation for common street crime.
Colonenses, as the locals call themselves, often vote and hold opinions
which are contrary to trends in the capital and elsewhere in the country.
Colon's people often feel neglected and abused by the national government.
In January 1964, Colon distinguished itself in another way. The fighting
against the Americans there was conducted with a deadly fury that far
surpassed that on the other side.

The Colon protest started a little after 8 p.m. on January 9, when about a
dozen people, carrying the Panamanian flag and singing El Himno Istmeqo,
Panama's national anthem, marched up Bolivar Avenue, which separates
Cristobal from Colon. A crowd soon gathered. The protesters marched on
further into Cristobal, to the Atlantic side's Panama Canal Company
administrative offices. There they raised the Panamanian flag. After the
flag raising, Colon mayor Daniel Delgado Duarte and Captain D. V. Howerth,
Cristobal district commander of the Canal Zone police, urged the crowd to
disperse.

Delgado and Howerth were mostly ignored. Militant leaders, including
members of the Colon city council and local labor union officials, led some
1,500 Panamanians in continued protests within Cristobal, marching around
to Panama Canal Company offices and storage buildings, the Cristobal YMCA
and the Masonic Temple (an affiliate of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts).

A group of American teenagers was leaving a Rainbow Girls meeting at the
Masonic Temple as the crowd approached, prompting a retired US Army
sergeant who lived next door at the YMCA to brandish a shotgun "to protect
the girls." (24) The crowd let the girls go away, then let loose with a
hail of rocks and bottles. Windows were smashed at the Masonic Temple, the
YMCA and the Panama Canal Company buildings. Rioters broke into these
premises and proceeded to smash things, loot that which was valuable, and
set fires. The nearby railroad station and the telephone exchange were
stoned and firebombed. A portion of the Panama Railroad's tracks was
destroyed, thus disrupting rail access to the Cristobal dock area.

Captain Howerth led a group of police into the YMCA and found that there
had been serious property damage, with the steel grill gate to the gift
shop crushed and the store's contents looted, a water fountain ripped from
the wall and water flowing all over, broken light fixtures and furniture
and about 100 people inside the building engaged in destruction or looting.
The Canal Zone Police fired no shots in the YMCA, but made four arrests
before retreating from the Panamanians.

Shortly thereafter, about 700 troops of the US Army's 4th Battalion, 10th
Infantry, commanded by Colonel William Sachse, moved to the unmarked and
unfenced boundary between Cristobal and Colon. Armed, but under orders not
to fire their weapons, the soldiers ousted Panamanians from the
American-owned buildings, put out some of the smaller fires and strung
barbed wire along the streets which divide the twin cities.

Some Panamanians suffered bayonet wounds during these initial
confrontations with the American soldiers. Nobody was killed by a bayonet.
While some Panamanians alleged a bayonet charge with deadly intention,
SouthCom denied this. It seems that the injuries came from pushing, shoving
and grabbing among the massed Panamanian demonstrators and the line of
American soldiers who were trying to move them out of the Canal Zone by
moving slowly forward with bayonets fixed upon their rifles and pointed at
the Panamanians.

The Panamanians threw stones. The Americans threw tear gas grenades. The
Panamanians escalated the fight, first with molotov cocktails, then with
sniper fire. Colonel Sachse's troops fell back to a Panama Canal Company
storage building and the YMCA. They were ousted from these refuges with a
hail of molotov cocktails which burned down the former and completely
gutted the latter. The US Army retreated to the Masonic Temple, located at
a corner where Cristobal is bounded on two sides by Colon, which was the at
the time the tallest building in the twin cities. There they ousted a
number of Panamanians who were on the lower floors. The soldiers fortified
the building with sandbags.

Intense fighting continued for the next two days. The Cristobal office of
the Canal Zone Credit Union was damaged by fire. The Cristobal branch of
the US Navy Oceanographic Office was completely demolished. American-owned
business in Colon, including a Sears store, reservation offices for Braniff
and Pan American airlines and branches of the Chase Manhattan Bank and the
First National City Bank were heavily damaged.

Some 20 Panamanian-owned businesses were looted. A hastily organized
committee of local business owners and other Colon citizens took to the
streets to nonviolently and effectively persuade Panamanians to stop
violence and looting against fellow Panamanians.

A fair-skinned young woman of American parentage and long Colon residence
was chased by a crowd which identified her as a gringa. (The word means a
female US national-males of that ethnicity are gringos-and is commonly used
by Panamanians without the derogatory connotations that it carries in some
parts of Latin America.) The object of the chase turned on her tormentors
and let loose with a torrent of vulgar abuse in perfect Colon vernacular,
with all the right inflections. Convinced that she was a colonense who
should not be bothered, the crowd let her go on her way.

Meanwhile, the siege of Colonel Sachse's men continued. Panamanians hurled
firebombs and fired shots at the Masonic Temple from nearby rooftops. The
army was pinned down by sniper fire from several directions. Private David
Haupt was shot in the head and killed, becoming the first American to die
at the hands of Panamanians in the fighting of January 1964.

Still without orders to fire, the 4th Battalion continued to take
casualties. First Sergeant Gerald A. Aubin and Staff Sergeant Luis Jiminez
Cruz (a Puerto Rican) were shot to death. Twelve other American soldiers
were wounded by sniper fire along the boundary between Colon and Cristobal.
The order to use live ammunition was given on the afternoon of January 11.

Unlike in Panama City, Panamanian authorities in Colon had made early
attempts to separate the combatants. Soon after the fighting had started,
the guardia had rescued the American consul in Colon, who, clad only in his
underwear, had been chased from his house. A Panamanian soldier had been
hurt by a thrown rock when he tried to stop the initial violence at the
Cristobal/Colon boundary.

Canal Zone police were in constant contact with the Colon garrison's acting
commander, Major Bolivar Rodrmguez. (Heading the guardia's Northern
District, which included Colon, was one Major Omar Torrijos. He was
occupied elsewhere during most of the hostilities.) Also in close contact
with the Americans was Colonel Josi D. Bazan, Colon's fire chief and the
second vice president of Panama. The guardia and the firefighters (the
latter known to Zonians as well as Panamanians by their Spanish name, that
is, the bomberos) evacuated several hundred Americans from Colon, many by
sea.

Special protection was also given to Colon's British residents. These
people were (and are) for the most part employed in the shipping industry.
They gathered at the British consulate, which was protected by the guardia,
lest they be mistaken for Americans and attacked.

A guardia jeep driving down the street near the Masonic Temple became
entangled in the barbed wire laid down by the US Army. It was fired upon
with birdshot from the upper floors of the Masonic Temple and rifle fire
from the Cristobal docks area. The Guardia Nacional's Sergeant Celestino
Villareta, a passenger in the jeep, was hit in the chest by a high-powered
rifle bullet. An ambulance sent to rescue Villareta and his wounded driver,
Victor G. Jiminez, was also fired upon. The 43-year-old Villareta died.

The US Army denied responsibility for Villareta's death. Panamanians point
to the fact that the Cristobal docks were held by American troops at the
time of the shooting. That area had been the first part of Cristobal which
Colonel Sachse's men secured on the evening of January 9. Witnesses claimed
that both Villareta's jeep and the ambulance had come under rifle fire from
the docks.

At a press conference which addressed this controversy, SouthCom's General
O'Meara and US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel L. J. Churchville claimed that
US troops had fired on Villareta's jeep with birdshot only from the Masonic
Temple, and only then in response to shots which Villareta and Jimenez had
fired at the American soldiers. The Americans emphatically denied that any
US soldier in Cristobal had orders to fire a rifle at the time.

Jiminez later said that he and the other Panamanian soldiers in the jeep
repeatedly called for the US Army to stop shooting, but that each such call
was met by increased fire. Jiminez bitterly summed up his opinion of the
incident: "As a Panamanian, I solemnly accuse the spoiled Zonians of taking
the life of Sergeant Villareta." (25)  Independent investigators raised the
possibility that the fatal rifle shot was fired against orders by an
American soldier. (26)

The most innocent life that was lost in the events of January 1964 was that
of a six-month-old girl, Maritza Avila Alabarca, who was overcome by the
tear gas which was liberally used in the neighborhood where her family
lived. The US denied that this infant's death was linked to the gassing of
her neighborhood, in keeping with its claim that CS tear gas is not a
lethal agent. (In the many years since 1964 in such diverse places as
Vietnam, Northern Ireland, South Africa and elsewhere, it has been rather
conclusively shown that CS gas can kill infants, old people, people with
respiratory problems and even healthy young adults who get massive doses
while in enclosed places.)

Colon's third martyr was Carlos Renato Lara, an 18-year-old student who was
shot to death by American soldiers. Lara may have been a sniper. In any
case he took an American bullet intended for a sniper.

Panamanian accounts have it that at least 13 persons were shot, two
fatally, by the US Army along the border at Cristobal and Colon. SouthCom
held that no more than 10 Panamanians were shot by Americans in the Colon
area. Panamanian hospital sources reported 167 Colon citizens injured in
the fighting, many of whom who suffered bayonet wounds or had been beaten.

The city of Colon, a former island which was connected to the isthmus by
landfill, was an enclave of Panamanian territory surrounded by the Canal
Zone. It was connected to the capital by a Panamanian-controlled corridor
which ran from the Panamanian village of Cativa through the Canal Zone
entering Colon near Rainbow City (or Arco Iris, the Spanish name for
rainbow, as it is now called). This corridor formed the northern part of
the Trans-Isthmian Highway.

The US Army set up defensive positions alongside the highway between Cativa
and Colon. The guardia had a checkpoint at Cativa. The Trans-Isthmian
Highway was closed for a time, which stranded many Panamanians who were
trying to get home from work. Worse yet, claimed the Panamanian government,
urgently needed blood plasma and medical personnel were prevented from
reaching Colon, where a number of seriously injured persons needed blood
transfusions and the hospitals were running short-handed.

Coco Solo Hospital, the American hospital on the Atlantic side, was along
the Trans-Isthmian Highway. It was kept well-supplied and well-staffed
during the fighting. The US Army set up firing positions near the hospital,
including some behind and beside the house where the author, then an
11-year-old boy, was living. A shotgun blast was fired from under a bedroom
window by an American soldier.

The shot led to rumors that a Panamanian had been killed, which in turn led
to an angry crowd of some 250 protesters marching on the highway from
Cativa toward the hospital. Soldiers from the US Army's 8th Special Forces
Group took up positions on the road, in Panamanian territory outside the
Canal Zone limits, to stop the crowd. The tension was defused by a guardia
lieutenant, who addressed the crowd and convinced it to disperse.
Eventually it was agreed that people who were stranded at Cativa would be
allowed passage to Colon after being searched at the guardia checkpoint for
weapons.

Another US roadblock restricting access to Colon was set up nearer the
city, where the Colon Corridor intersects Randolph Road. The latter linked
the towns of Coco Solo and France Field (and US military installations at
those towns as well as Fort Randolph and the Galeta Island navy base) to
the rest of the Canal Zone. At the time of these events the Colon Corridor
was closed for repairs, so that people driving to Colon from Panama City
had to detour through the Canal Zone towns of Rainbow City or Mount Hope.
While the roadblock was for the ostensible purpose of restricting access to
the Canal Zone, it also controlled access to Colon. The US claimed that
access to Colon was not blocked at this point, some Panamanian accounts
differ, but in any case the roadblock was turned over to the guardia on
January 10.

A third US Army roadblock was set up near where the closed Colon Corridor
intersects Bolivar Highway on a narrow neck of landfill near the limits of
Colon on the one hand and the zone's Mount Hope industrial area and Rainbow
City residential area on the other. American soldiers first positioned
themselves on Bolivar Highway (in the Canal Zone) but a crowd of protesters
began to outflank them by walking down the closed corridor toward Rainbow
City. The US troops then occupied the Panamanian corridor to prevent this,
relinquishing the position to the guardia when the latter appeared shortly
thereafter.

Rainbow City remained quiet. Despite historic tensions between West Indians
and other Panamanian ethnic groups, it was not attacked by Panamanians.
American authorities, on the other hand, were afraid that the West Indian
community at Rainbow City would join in a Panamanian attack on the adjacent
Zonian residential community of Margarita. The army evacuated the Sixth
Street area of Margarita, which would have been vulnerable had there been
snipers under the bluff and across the drainage canal in Rainbow City. No
such violence took place.
PANAMA CANAL ZONE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
by Eric Jackson


While the fighting was deadly in areas near the canal, anti-American
rioting took place in other parts of Panama. In David, the country's third
largest city and the capital of Chiriqui province, a large crowd gathered
at Cervantes Square, moving from there to set fire to the local branch of
the Chase Manhattan Bank and several other American-owned business. In
Santiago, capital of Veraguas province, one thousand people signed a
petition calling for war with the United States. There were anti-American
demonstrations in Chitre, the capital of Herrera province. In Aguadulce, a
town on the Pan-American Highway in Cocle province, crowds attacked a Gulf
Oil service station and the homes of Americans.

About one hundred car loads of angry Panamanians invaded the US base at Rio
Hato, setting fire to two wooden barracks which housed American soldiers
during maneuvers. Before the crowd arrived, American military personnel
fled in a helicopter. While preparing to flee, the soldiers disabled
vehicles which were left behind and carried away whatever valuable property
that could be taken away. An Air Force fire truck which was left behind at
the Rio Hato airstrip was vandalized.

Rural Panama also arose. An American-owned papaya plantation in the San
Carlos corregimiento of Las Uvas, the largest in Panama, was ruined when a
crowd cut down all of the trees. The owners, Captain and Mrs. Graham, were
a Panama Canal pilot and a Balboa High School geometry teacher
respectively, were notorious in the town for their hard-nosed labor
relations, and though there were other Americans in the area who could have
been attacked, the Grahams were the only ones whom the townspeople
bothered.

Banana workers at the United Fruit Company's subsidiary, the Chiriqui Land
Company, went on strike and destroyed company cars and buildings. The
corporation's American employees and their dependents from Puerto Armuelles
after its manager was threatened. Striking dock workers left some 65,000
stems of bananas to rot on the Puerto Armuelles docks.

The attacks led to the evacuation of 158 American United Fruit employees
and dependents from David to Costa Rica. Major Omar Torrijos, whose normal
duty station was Colon, went to David to help in this evacuation. Dozens of
other American residents of Chiriqui province, including coffee plantation
owners and a number of retirees, made their way to nearby Costa Rica in
automobiles or small aircraft.

On the morning of January 13, the fighting died down and the guardia moved
into the border areas of Colon and Panama City to maintain order. That same
day, President Chiari and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Panama, Marcos
McGrath, (27)  joined a procession variously estimated to include between
100,000 and 250,000 mourners at the funeral of 14 of the martyrs. On the
Atlantic side, Colon's Bishop Serrano, Mayor Delgado and Education Minister
Solis Palma led a large crowd to Puerto Pilon Cemetery, where Colon's
martyrs were laid to rest. Solis Palma gave the graveside oration.

On January 16, General O'Meara turned control over the Canal Zone back to
Governor Fleming. On January 17, a Panama Canal Company work crew rebuilt
the Fence of Shame.

Various casualty figures for the several days of fighting which became
known to Panamanians as the Day of the Martyrs range from 20 to 30 dead and
200 to 579 injured. The total number of dead and wounded is disputed not
only due to political motives and different judgments about how to
attribute certain incidents. For a number of reasons, not the least of
which was fear that jobs or pensions with the Panama Canal Company could be
lost, many of the injured were not taken to hospitals, or injuries of those
who were taken to hospitals were not officially reported. Moreover, during
the heaviest fighting, the hospitals were so overcrowded with severely
injured people that those whose injuries were relatively minor were unable
to get or unwilling to seek hospital treatment.

Generally, Panamanian figures include all Panamanians who died in the
violence as martyrs, whether they died directly at the hands of the
Americans or not, whether they took an active part in the fighting or not.
January 9 became a national holiday and an enduring symbol or Panamanian
resistance to foreign domination. The fallen became legendary symbols of
patriotic sacrifice. Less than flattering accounts which might contradict
the legend were more or less taboo in Panamanian society.

Some American critics, like former US ambassador to Panama William J.
Jorden, object to the designation of those who died in the Pan American
Airlines building in a fire set by Panamanians as martyrs. (28) Yet in
paying homage to its legends of patriotism, Americans sometimes use the
methods which Jorden denigrates. For one example, there are a number of
fallen American soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial wall
who died from so-called "friendly fire." Rare is the US citizen who
suggests that the sacrifices of these soldiers should not be honored.
Indeed, most American accounts of the January 1964 events count four or
five American dead, including a soldier who fell into a ravine while on
guard duty and sometimes another who died in a jeep crash along with those
who were shot to death in Colon.

The typical Zonian response was to count all Panamanians who were killed as
thugs who got what they deserved. This latter reaction was shared by a few
Panamanians. The attribution of such sentiments to Arnulfo Arias (whether
accurate or not) probably cost him the presidential election that took
place later in 1964. (29)

Though some Panamanian sources give different names and numbers, the list
of Panama's martyrs can be found at the Martyrs Memorial (where the remains
of Colon's martyrs were re-interred) in Colon. The 22 as listed there
include Maritza Avila Alabarca, Ascanio Arosemena, Luis Bonilla, Josi Del
Cid Cobos, Teofilo Belisario De La Torre, Gonzalo A. France, Victor M.
Garibaldo, Josi Enrique Gil, Ezequiel Meneses Gonzalez, Victor M. Iglesias,
Rosa Elena Landecho, Carlos Renato Lara, Evilio Lara, Gustavo Lara, Ricardo
Murgas Villamonte, Alberto Nichols Constance, Estanislao Orobio W., Jacinto
Palacios Cobos, Ovidio L. Saldana, Rodolfo Sanchez Benitez, Alberto Oriol
Tejada and Celestino Villareta. (As is common in Panama but confusing to
some North Americans, some Panamanians use Spanish-style names, i.e., they
use two surnames, first their father's and then their mother's, while
others use only one surname, and some may use different forms of their name
for different occasions.) La Hora Panama, a tabloid which was never well
known for its high journalistic standards, gave the names of 5 other
Panamanians who were allegedly killed in the fighting, but lists a total of
20 killed. (30) Other Panamanian accounts put the Panamanian death toll
variously between 17 and 24.

Most US accounts put the number of Americans killed in these events at
four, though others put the death toll at three or five. Those who died
fighting for the American side include Luis Jimenez Cruz, David Haupt,
Gerald St. Aubin and Michael W. Rowland.

Years after the events of January 1964, a number of US Army historical
documents were declassified, including Southcom's figures for ammunition
expended. (31) The official account has it that the US Army fired 450 .30
caliber rifle rounds, five .45 caliber pistol bullets, 953 shells of
birdshot and 7,193 grenades or projectiles containing tear gas. Also, the
army claims to have used 340 pounds of bulk CN-1 chemical (weak tear gas)
and 120 pounds of CS-1 chemical (strong tear gas). The same account said
that the Canal Zone police fired 1,850 .38 caliber pistol bullets and 600
shotgun shells in the fighting, while using only 132 tear gas grenades.

As with the estimates of human casualties, there are divergent figures
given for property damage. These estimates begin at a low figure that
exceeds two million dollars. In its annual report for the 1964 fiscal year,
the Panama Canal Company reported that 25 fires were set in the Canal Zone
during the disturbances, causing several hundred thousand dollars worth of
damage. (32) The damage in the fire at the Pan American Airlines building
alone probably surpassed the Canal Zone's fire damages. One hundred eighty
US military personnel who lived in Panama City filed claims for some
$72,000 in personal property that was destroyed. More than 160 automobiles
were destroyed or damaged.

Despite the widespread death and destruction, the operation of the canal
was never disrupted during the violence of 1964. However, at least one
respectable international journal attributed a drop in Wall Street stock
prices to rioting in Panama. (33) This alleged macroeconomic effect was
short-lived. Individuals whose injuries left them unable or less able to
work, the families of those killed or disabled who were left without
support, and those individuals who suffered uninsured property losses were
the ones to feel real economic effects. (34)

International reaction was unfavorable to the United States. The British
and French, who had been criticized by US administrations for their
colonial policies, pointed to the hypocrisy of a power whose Zonian
citizens were as obnoxious an any other group of colonial settlers.
Nasser's Egypt suggested that Panama nationalize the Panama Canal as it had
nationalized the Suez Canal. Not surprisingly, the People's Republic of
China, the Soviet Union and Cuba denounced the Americans in strident terms.
>From the other end of the ideological spectrum, Spanish dictator Francisco
Franco's right-wing Falangist Party joined in accusing the United States of
aggression against Panama.

Significantly, other governments in the western hemisphere which had long
backed US policies declined to back the American position. Venezuela led a
chorus of Latin American criticism of the United States. The Organization
of American States, on Brazil's motion, took jurisdiction over the dispute
from the United Nations Security Council. The OAS in turn put the matter
before its Inter-American Peace Committee. The committee held a week-long
investigation in Panama which was greeted by a unanimous 15-minute
Panamanian work stoppage to demonstrate Panama's united opinion. No action
was taken on Panama's motion to brand the United States guilty of
aggression, but the committee did accuse the Americans of using unnecessary
force.

Panamanians from all walks of life joined in bitter denunciation of the
Americans. From the poorest laborers to the richest rabiblancos,
Panamanians called for an end to American control of the canal and
expressed revulsion at the Zonian actions leading up to the violence. The
Canal Zone police and the US Army were branded as murderers. Virtually
every professional organization, every labor union, every city council and
every student group passed a resolution denouncing the Americans. Panama's
political parties, though divided for the upcoming presidential elections,
presented a united front for sovereignty over the Canal Zone.

When analyzing the violent events, some members of Congress pointed to the
same underlying causes that most Panamanians identified. Senator Wayne
Morse said that "[i]t's been a terrible mistake to develop this colonial
group in the Canal Zone." (35) A New York Times editorial held that "[t]he
Canal Zone is about the only place in the world where the United States
still has citizens with a colonial mentality." (36) The Washington Post
called the status of the Canal Zone an "anachronism." (37)

Yet the main body of American opinion blamed the clashes on Cuban agents.
Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance claimed that the Panamanians had arrested
10 communist agitators for inciting the riots. The Panamanian government
denied it. Pressed for more details of alleged Cuban involvement, Secretary
of State Dean Rusk said that: "[u]ndoubtedly Castro and agents of Castro...
have taken a direct hand in one way or another." (38) Former president
Truman best stated the inherent paternalism in mainstream American
thinking: "The children you do the most for are the ones who cause you the
most trouble, and Cuba and Panama are perfect examples of that." (39)

Despite the wild accusations of civilian politicians, a more sober analysis
came from the Department of Defense. For Commanders: This Changing World, a
department publication for military officers, put out a special edition on
Panama. It pointed to the importation of West Indians, the creation of
Canal Zone commissaries and "most important of all, the creation of an
extraterritorial zone in the midst of the Republic under United States
control and de facto sovereignty" (40) as causes of Panamanian friction
with the United States. It noted the "deep-seated resentments of
Panamanians, whose country is bisected by an American-controlled enclave
where the standard of living is far higher than theirs." (41) It found that
"Communists were not the cause of the riots, but they have taken full
advantage of them for their own purposes." (42)

The flag riots echoed in the US courts. The Cristobal district officers of
the Canal Zone police force were on 24-hour call until the summer of 1964.
They were not allowed to take vacations, leave the Atlantic side, leave the
limits of the Canal Zone or go anywhere where there was no telephone during
this period. Many of the main attractions of life on the quiet north coast,
like the secluded beaches and the hunting and fishing, were thus off
limits. The cops sued for overtime pay but lost in the United States Court
of Claims. (43)

The Sojourners' Lodge (owner of the Cristobal Masonic Temple) and the YMCA
sued for compensation for damages to their buildings in Cristobal. They
claimed that the army's use of these buildings greatly added to the damage
which were inflicted upon the properties. This case ended in the United
States Supreme Court, whose justices ruled that when the army takes a
private building to use it as a fortress against a hostile crowd, the
government does not have to pay for the use of the building or the damage
resulting from such use, if the defense of the building was an intended
purpose of its occupation. (44)

The International Commission of Jurists, in response to a request from the
Panamanian Bar Association (ICJ), conducted an investigation of the events
of January 1964. The investigating committee was composed of three eminent
jurists, Professor A. D. Belinfante of Amsterdam University in the
Netherlands, Judge Gustaf Petrin of Sweden and Navroz Vakil, a lawyer from
Bombay, India.

The ICJ's investigation was inconclusive as to the truth of the flag
tearing incident and several of the deaths. The ICJ contradicted the
American versions of several other deaths. Although it did not condemn the
Canal Zone police and the US Army for using force once the fighting had
begun, the ICJ took the police to task for failing to protect the
Panamanian high school students from their Zonian counterparts at the
Balboa High School flagpole. It also criticized the guardia for failing to
intervene to disperse the crowds.

The legality of the Panama Canal treaty and of Panamanian claims of
sovereignty in the Canal Zone were not addressed in any significant way by
the ICJ. However, it found that the Zonians "have developed a particular
state of mind not conducive to the promotion of happy relations between
them and the people of Panama... [T]he United States... should reflect on
these sad facts and take effective steps to make possible a reorientation
and change in outlook and thinking of the people living in the Canal Zone."
(45)

Whatever the verdict of international jurists or Americans of any sort,
those Panamanians who fell in the events of January 1964 became the
subjects of the most sacred of Panamanian legends. January 9, 1964 is
commonly reckoned as the most significant of Panamanian days.