Eupeptic over Progress in Panama

Mardi Gras is being celebrated this week on the small island of Contadora off the coast of Panama, and revelers move from one party to the next to the din of drumbeats. The mood seems auspicious for the resumption of negotiations on the Panama Canal. Never before in twelve years of off-again, on-again talks have U.S. and Panamanian negotiators been more confident of success. In their bungalow, overlooking a white sand beach where they occasionally swim and sun themselves, they are quickly getting down to basics. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance has been described as "eupeptic" over the possibility of finally signing a treaty by this summer --even though sizable obstacles remain.

As soon as he took office, Jimmy Carter put the canal at the top of the agenda of the National Security Council, although in the presidential campaign he had pledged "never to give up complete control or practical control" of the waterway. Vance subsequently held a wellpublicized, two-hour meeting with then Panamanian Foreign Minister Aquilino Boyd. To give the talks a boost, Sol Linowitz, 53, the skilled former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, was added to the American negotiating team. The aim was to make him head of the effort, but he insisted on deferring to Veteran Diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, 82, who views the treaty as the culmination of a career of public service.

The narrow Panama isthmus has become a potentially explosive issue between the U.S. and its neighbors to the south. Almost every Latin American nation supports Panama's demand for control of the canal. The U.S. has gradually recognized that the canal is a colonial acquisition of another age and has conceded the principle of sovereignty. During the life of the treaty, the U.S. and Panama would share control of the canal. At the expiration of the treaty, around the year 2000, Panama would take over. Within three years of signing the treaty, Panama would also acquire legal jurisdiction over the Canal Zone.

The major remaining issue: while the U.S. is willing to turn over some of its 14 military bases to Panama and operate the others jointly with the Panamanian army, it insists on keeping some kind of residual force to protect the waterway in case of armed attack or sabotage. Panama, on the other hand, wants to entrust such a peace-keeping mission to the U.N.--a proposition that the U.S. views with skepticism.

The Americans who live in the zone continue to lobby hard in Congress to maintain the status quo. Last week nine Congressmen flew to Panama to talk to the Zonians. Two Representatives --Iowa Democrat Neal Smith and California Republican Robert Dornan --publicly expressed doubts that the Panamanians sincerely want a treaty.

Though U.S. conservatives have made the canal something of a political issue, public support for American control has waned somewhat in the U.S. because the waterway is not so important as it used to be. Some 10% of all American exports and imports pass through the waterway; if the canal was shut down, American commerce would be hurt but not disrupted in a major way. Increasingly, traffic is diverted from the canal, whose locks are too small to accommodate the growing fleet of supertankers. Since 1973, the Panama Canal has been losing money, and its deficit in the past fiscal year was $8 million.

There may be less give in the Panamanian than in the U.S. position. Strongman Brigadier General Omar Torrijos, who has held dictatorial power for eight years, would be overthrown if he appeared to yield too much.

Before the talks resumed, Torrijos made a gesture to reassure the American Zonians. He told them that their jobs would be safe after the zone reverts to Panama. "I don't want to be thought of as a white Idi Amin," he said. But last week his police arrested a prominent Zonian, William Drummond, an American policeman, as he was about to board a plane for Washington. Drummond was questioned and released a few hours later. Returning to the airport, he was again briefly detained, and friends who photographed the incident had their film confiscated. Zonians responded to the episode: "We told you so."

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