Panic in a Tropical Playground

While "Zonians"fret, Panamanians prepare to move in

JUNK FOR SALE says the sign in front of the three-bedroom house for which Leigh DuPre pays the Panama Canal Co. $169 a month. A clerk in the company's rate office, DuPre, 40, is going home with his wife and four children after nine years in the Canal Zone. "We don't want to live where there is no U.S. jurisdiction," he explains simply. Janet DuPree (no kin), 33, a kindergarten teacher in the zone and granddaughter of one of the workers who helped dig the big ditch, betrays the festering bitterness of many of the 33,600 American Zonians. "I'm not leaving my garden to some Panamanian," she says. "Before I go, I'm going to throw all my plants and rocks into the canal."

The zone has long offered an almost idyllic playground--comfortable, secure living isolated from the social traumas afflicting either the U.S. or Latin America. "If away you long to steal/ to a real/ Shangrila/ If your heart you wish to heal/ visit Panama," runs a song in Panama Hattie, a Cole Porter musical of a generation ago. For 3,500 American employees of the Government-owned Panama Canal Co., 9,000 G.I.s and 21,100 other family members, Uncle Sugar provides everything from commissary-and post-exchange privileges to bowling alleys and movie houses, swimming pools and tennis courts. At the same time, Zonians cannot own their homes or go into business for themselves within the zone; they are not even supposed to have guests in their homes overnight without permission --and can be fired and ordered to leave the zone within 30 days.

The Zonians' basic objections to the new treaty range from chauvinistic to sentimental to mercenary. "There is no Panama C,anal," says the message on the bulletin board of the Panama Pilots Association in downtown Balboa. "There is an American Canal in Panama."

At the bar next door, senior American pilots speak despondently of the future. "It's been a real tropical oasis," says one old pilot, "but it's getting more like a mirage with every passing day. There is no future, and the younger pilots know it and are getting out." Most of the 202 pilots (only two are Panamanian citizens) doubt that they will be paid adequately after Panama assumes that responsibility --or that the canal will be efficiently run.

The current and probably last of the Canal Zone's 17 American Governors, Major General Harold R. Parfitt, 56, spends much of his time trying to persuade canal employees to stay on. He objects to the term "exodus," but admits there has been "an increase and a trend" in resignations, even though most of the people could remain for the next 23 years under the agreement, working for the new "entity" that would replace the canal company until Panama gains full control. Says Pilot Marshall Irwin: "I don't intend to work for a dictator."

The dictator in question, of course, is Panama's "Maximum Leader of the Revolution," Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera, who seized power from the old oligarchy nine years ago. At 48, he has led Panama through its longest period of internal stability by a combination of stirring leftist rhetoric and a pragmatic respect for free enterprise. His philosophy can embrace almost anything --from government ownership of mines and industry to a hospitable climate for foreign banks, 70 of which have established branches in Panama, with assets of around $12 billion.

For all his political and diplomatic success, Torrijos may find himself in trouble if he fails to improve economic conditions for the mass of Panama's 1.7 million citizens. Primarily mestizos (of mixed-blood descent), the Panamanians earn an average of $1,180 per year, one of the highest per capita incomes in Latin America. But much of that wealth is in the hands of rabiblancos (rich financiers) or Mercedes-driving urban entrepreneurs who live in the flashy high-rise condominiums of Panama City.

Torrijos, son of rural schoolteachers, frequently visits the countryside and delights in slogging through waist-high water in the jungle. "Once in a while," he has said, "a leader must get his feet wet and mud on his boots." But his laws against dismissal of workers and eviction of tenants for nonpayment of rent have contributed to the country's economic problems. Panama's foreign debt is now $700 million, while unemployment has soared to 12% nationally, and is much higher in urban areas. The economy has remained virtually stagnant since 1974.

Now that he has struck his bargain with the Americans, Torrijos frets about convincing radical students that his leftist credentials are still valid. The question is a critical one along the Fourth of July Avenue, the boundary line between American and Panamanian control in Panama City. Panamanians ngw call the thoroughfare the Avenue of the Martyrs as a reminder of the 1964 riots, in which 21 Panamanians and four Americans were killed in several days of fighting along the line. The words BASES NO, painted on billboards and walls around the city, reflect the overwhelming sentiment among volatile students. "The treaty will have to be X-rayed by the university," says Anayka Mercado, 19, a student at a private technical school.

The final irony could be that Torrijos, once fond of bandying about anti-American statements himself, may have to rely upon the American economic and military aid promised as part of the treaty package to fend off the radical threat. Torrijos has sent his National Guardsmen, many of them graduates of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas on Gatun Lake, on operations to hone their effectiveness against potential guerrillas. Last spring 1,000 guardsmen spent five days traversing the Isthmus. When they arrived in Colon, they were greeted by the cheers of the populace.

For the moment, though, most Panamanians have more pleasant things on their minds than the possibility of civil conflict. "As soon as the territory becomes ours, Panama City can expand naturally west and north," notes Bank Clerk Julio Icaza, gazing upon the rich green hills of the zone from his apartment. "I would like to build a house over there. My children would have plenty of place to play, and Panama will have a lot of pride."

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