PANAMA CITY, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Decades of the U.S. plotting to make profits at the price of Panama's interests has pushed the Central American country to seek more global cooperation, a Panama-based international relations expert has said.
Julio Yao, former foreign policy advisor to the late Panamanian leader General Omar Torrijos, recalled the history of nonstop U.S. intervention in Panama since the turn of the 20th century in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Panama gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and from Colombia in 1903, though the latter was in essence "a deception" devised by the United States to gain control of the strategic Panama Canal, Yao said.
"From that moment on, the United States took over the so-called Canal Zone," starting a long string of unfortunate events for Panama, he said.
On top of the list was the attempt to establish the failed Kellogg-Alfaro treaty in the 1920s, which was rejected because it aimed to legalize the presence of U.S. troops on Panamanian soil.
"That treaty completely turned Panama into a U.S. military base, that is, a military springboard for the rest of Latin America," the expert said.
Nevertheless, unilateral interventions by the United States persisted in Panama, he said.
For much of the 1970s, the U.S. government was "permanently" pressuring Panama to grant it protection and defense rights over the canal in perpetuity, Yao recalled.
At the time, the career diplomat was advising Torrijos and then Foreign Minister Juan Antonio Tack in drafting treaties, such as the 1974 Tack-Kissinger Declaration, which made a point of setting a deadline on the U.S. occupation of the canal.
"Why did we have to emphasize the fixed deadline? Because the Americans always deceived Panama with a later date and never left Panama," Yao said.
In September 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties were signed by Torrijos and then U.S. President Jimmy Carter, establishing that the Panama Canal would be turned over to Panamanian control on Dec. 31, 1999.
Prior to that, the U.S. "obsession" with controlling the Panama Canal occasionally turned "explosive," Yao said.
On Dec. 20, 1989, a date now known as the Day of National Mourning, U.S. troops invaded Panama to capture Panamanian General Manuel Noriega, later convicting him of drug trafficking and money laundering.
To break with the past, Yao said he believes that Panama should look to more "humanist," multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS.
Such mechanisms have created a counterweight to hegemonic power in several aspects, said the expert.
"The United States is really in a very ruinous position," Yao said, noting that at such a juncture, concepts such as the Global South are relevant today since they shelve religious or political differences in favor of promoting joint development.
The Global South is "a good concept" because it addresses many similar situations in Africa, Latin America and even the Middle East, Yao said.
People want to emerge from underdevelopment or the lack of development, and to that end, BRICS countries have taken "the right path" towards global development, through measures that go beyond resolving local or regional issues, he said.
"I firmly believe in BRICS and I believe very firmly in the Global South," Yao said.
"If you look at the new foreign policy of some African countries, they are on the right track. That is a great awakening for a region that has been very impoverished, very dominated, very interfered with, very manipulated, so I think there is reason to feel optimistic," he said. ■
