The Occasion America Stole A Country

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 9

The Occasion America Stole A Country

[Specially Written for “The Press" by

BRIAN O'NEILL]

JN the eyes of the newly-emerging Asian and African nations, many 7 of whose leaders have read the history books on the shelves of Western university libraries, the former colonial powers—“their virtues else”— stand condemned for a legion of past misdeeds.

The overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam evoked a predictable crop of tales about the subversive role played by the American Central Intelligence Agency; and the troubles in Panama this month recall a similar occasion: the theft of Panama by the United States of America from the United States of Colombia in 1903.

A new century was opening. The Spanish-American war was won. Expanding .westward to include Hawaii and the Philippines, and southward to dominate Cuba and Puerto F.ico, the United States had. taken her place among the colonial empires. The legal government of Panama State was toppled by an American-inspired revolution; the United States negotiated with the de facto government for perpetual ownership of the Canal Zone at a knock-down rental; and American troops prevented Colombians from landing to regain their legitimate property.

. Delusion This was. the affair which has been described as “the little matter of Colombian sovereignty which Theodore Roosevelt laughed off as the delusion of greedy Latin politicos.” Yet the “somewhat scandalous” methods by which President Roosevelt made possible the building- of the Panama Canal caused more amusement than protest. The United States Navy wanted a Central America canal for rapid strategic deployment . of its fleets between the Atlantic and the Pacific; but opinion was divided on the merits of a canal through Panama or one through Nicaragua. A second French attempt had ended ignominiously in tropical disease and bankruptcy four years previously when Roosevelt, in 1903, plunged in where other statesmen had feared to tread. In his masterly account of the American scene between the assassination of President McKinley and America's rejection of the League of Nations (“Mr Wilson’s War.” published by Hamish Hamilton), Jon Don Passos recounts the story this way: Through John Mil ton Hay, Secretary of State, Roosevelt secured from Britain a revision of the 52-year-old

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, according to which any canal was to .have been built jointly. Having made, the decision to continue the French project in Panama, Roosevelt induced Congress ta put up 40. million dollars to pay off the jnvestors in the old company.

Compensation ' Roosevelt offered Colombia compensation for a canal zone —in effect, an American reservation but Colombia failed to ratify a treaty encompassing the offer. This was in October, 1903, and within a month Roosevelt acted. He looked on with amused approval when Monsieur Bunanu-Varilla, de Yesseps’.s chief aide—who had spent his life promoting the Panaman route and was thick with various adventurers on the isthmus—and a Mr Nelson Cromwell, of New York, representing a group of densely anonymous American investors, took their plot from an O. Henry short story, and backed a cast of comic opera characters in the establishment of an independent Republic of Panama.

The revolution was carried out in a rain of gold. When the Colombian authorities sent troops to prevent the secession of the freedom-mad Panamanians, the colonel in charge received a handsome retainer. Protection A couple, of American war-, ships were ordered to stand by to see that nobody played it rough. The United States Government. thoughtfully paid for the transport of the pacified colonel’s troops' back to Cartagena on one of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company liners. A Colombian general and an admiral each- received whopping sums. Even the en-

listed men got 50 dollars each. Amid the popular rejoicings that resulted from the distribution of this flood of baksheesh, the republic was proclaimed in November, 1903. An American officer was so in discreet as to be seen hoisting the new Panamanian flag up a pole. When the sudden tropical downpour drove the demonstrators indoors, the founders of the new republic expressed their patriotic enthusiasm by pouring bottle after bottle of champagne over the head of the defecting Colombian General Huertas, who now became commander of the Panamanian Army. Concession The de facto government was recognised by the United States within 10 days of the coup, and five days after that the two countries signed a treaty making it possible for the United States to build and operate a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, through the Isthmus ,of Panama.

The treaty granted in perpetuity the United States the use, occupation and control of a Canal Zone, approximately 10 miles wide, in which the United States would possess full sovereign rights “to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama any such sovereign rights, power or authority.”. In return the United States guaranteed the independence of the republic and agreed to pay the republic 10 million dollars and an annuity of 250.000 dollars. The United States purchased the French rights and properties—the French had been labouring from 1879 to 1899 in an effort to build the canal—for 40 million.dollars. A treaty in 1936 increased the annuity to 430,000 dollars and, as desired by Panama,

repealed the guarantee of independence. In 1955 the annuity was increased to 1.93 million dollars and the Panama Canal Company turned over to the republic railroad yards and other property worth 25 million dollars. At the end of 1962, when the United States completed a high level bridge over the Pacific entrance to the canal, the flag's of both Panama and the United States were flown jointly over those areas of the Canal Zone under civilian authority. Provocation It was the joint flying of flags which precipitated the most recent demonstrations and riots by Panamanians. The Canal agency has not increased tolls since 1914 and has operated at a minimum net margin averaging well under 4 million dollars a year, after paying its own expenses as well as reimbursing the American Treasury for the net cost of the Canal Zone Government and paying interest on the 490-million-dollar net investment of the American Government in the canal enterprise. The area of the Canal Zone is 648 square miles, 275 square miles of it being water The 1960 census showed the zone had a population of 42,122, a third of them being employed by the Canal agency; 3854 Americans and 9975 others, most Panamanian citizens. There were, incidentally, 13,000 motor-vehicles for 135 miles of road. Justification Passos quotes a student of diplomatic protocol recording years after the seizure that the haste with which Washington acted was “regrettable”; but Roosevelt said: “If I had followed traditional, conservative methods I should have submitted a dignified state paper of probably 200 pages to the Congress and the debate would have been going on yet, but I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on the canal does also.”

(The Jeweller's Window appears on Page 5)