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TITLE:  PANAMA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995

                             PANAMA


Panama is a representative democracy with an elected executive
composed of a president and two vice presidents, an elected
72-member legislature, and an appointed judiciary.  President
Ernesto Perez Balladares took office on September 1 at the head
of a multiparty coalition.  He was elected in May in elections
conducted under the auspices of the independent Electoral
Tribunal.  International observers described the elections as
free, fair, and violence-free.

Panama has had no military forces since 1989.  The Legislature
approved a constitutional amendment October 4 to abolish a
standing military.  The amendment went into effect October 24
and contains a provision for forming a "temporary" force under
certain national security circumstances.  The Panamanian
National Police (PNP) under the Ministry of Government and
Justice are responsible for law enforcement.  The Judicial
Technical Police (PTJ) perform criminal investigations; the PTJ
is under the Public Ministry, headed by the Attorney General.
There continued to be credible reports of abuse of detainees
and prisoners by members of both police forces.

Panama has a free enterprise, service-oriented economy which
uses the U.S. dollar.  It grew at least 5 percent in real terms
in 1994, the fifth consecutive year of growth.  Poverty is
pervasive, however, with great income disparities between rich
and poor, and continued high unemployment and underemployment.

Principal human rights abuses continued to be prolonged
pretrial detention, an inefficient and often corrupt criminal
justice system, and overcrowded, oppressive prisons.  There
were also three extrajudicial killings in January.  Violence
against women remained serious, a problem compounded by
socio-cultural factors that inhibited recognition and
treatment.  The Government continued to prosecute some of those
responsible for abuses committed during the 21 years of
dictatorship from 1968 to 1989.  For example, in May a court
sentenced three former National Guardsmen to 15-year prison
terms for the 1971 kidnaping and murder of Hector Gallego, an
activist Roman Catholic priest.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no reports of political killings perpetrated by
government agents.

A presidential decree regulates the use of force by members of
law enforcement organizations.  The authorities are
investigating three unrelated incidents in January in which
seven different PTJ agents may have violated this decree by
using deadly force to stop fleeing suspects.  After an
independent investigation, a review board relieved two of these
officers from duty, administratively reassigned two others
pending outcome of internal investigations, and referred two
officers to the PTJ's legal advisor for consideration of
criminal prosecution.  The seventh officer was in PTJ custody
awaiting trial at year's end.

     b.  Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated abductions or
disappearances.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits use of measures which could damage
the physical, mental, or moral integrity of prisoners or
detainees.  There were no substantiated reports of torture of
either prisoners or detainees during 1994.  Anecdotal evidence
suggests police still use physical violence to control
detainees, particularly during initial arrest and holding
phases.

The PTJ and the PNP have offices of professional responsibility
that act as internal affairs organs to hold officers
accountable for their actions.  Both have staffs of independent
investigators and administrative authority to open internal
investigations which, upon completion, go to their respective
inspectors general for submission to review boards.  The review
boards, in turn, recommend to the service's director the
appropriate action; the service director has the final
authority to determine the disposition of each case.  Penalties
can include reduction in rank, dismissal, and, in severe cases,
criminal prosecution.  As of December, the PTJ had investigated
153 cases of all categories of misconduct; it dismissed at
least 52 officials for their actions and forwarded 16 cases for
possible prosecution in the courts.  Similarly, as of December,
the PNP had investigated 967 cases of all categories of
misconduct; it imposed administrative sanctions on 157 officials
for their actions and forwarded at least 46 cases for possible
criminal prosecution.

Due to a growing number of use-of-force complaints lodged
against the PTJ, the Supreme Court, in collaboration with the
Attorney General, named a commission in March to revise
training procedures, including firearms instruction, for PTJ
personnel.  As part of a 3-week orientation course, the PNP
provided 20 hours of instruction to incoming recruits on laws
and procedures to protect the human rights and legal guarantees
of citizens.  Future PTJ police cadets are to receive human
rights instruction as part of their basic training.

Prison conditions throughout Panama remained deplorable and
threatening to prisoners' health.  Most prisons were built in
the 1950's and are dilapidated; medical care is inadequate; and
escape attempts were frequent.  There were credible reports of
corruption by guards, as well as abuse of prisoners.  The
National Corrections Administration has authority to discipline
prison guards for abuse of detainees or prisoners with either
penal or civil sanctions, depending on the severity of the
abuse.  In practice, however, few prisoners or detainees have
used these measures to seek redress for alleged abuse by prison
guards.

In order to relieve overcrowding, the legislature passed a bill
on December 21 which would quicken the pace of prosecution,
thereby reducing the number of pretrial detainees.  The
Ministry of Government and Justice has also begun a program of
conditional release of certain categories of prisoners.
Neither of these measures has yet had a significant effect in
reducing overcrowding.

In March prisoners at the David public jail in western Chiriqui
province held a hunger strike to protest the lack of prison
space and the slow movement of their cases in the judicial
system.  The strike quickly spread to the public jail in Colon
and to Panama City's notorious Modelo prison, provoking hunger
strikes at both facilities.  The Government promised to have
qualified personnel visit the prisons at least once a month to
check on the welfare of both detainees and prisoners.  It also
promised  to quicken the pace of prisoner transfer to the new
1,000-bed La Joya facility, even though it still lacked basic
amenities, such as furniture, sufficient potable water, and a
trained administrative staff.

The Government has made only limited efforts to comply with
these promises.  It did arrest the Modelo Prison Director on
December 15 on charges of corruption.  However, the prison
overcrowding that caused the earlier hunger strikes still
persists.  Although the National Corrections Department depends
on PNP personnel, who are not properly trained, to supply its
guard force, the guard response in the riots at Modelo prison
in March and again in December was restrained and appropriate.

The authorities transferred administration of La Joya prison to
trained correctional officers.  For the first time, prison
administrators also classified inmates, a process intended to
determine the appropriate security level needed for prisoners
while also separating them from pretrial detainees.  Although
this was a significant step forward, the La Joya prison houses
only a small fraction of the total prison population.  All
other prisons use PNP guards and intermingle convicted
prisoners with pretrial detainees.

Conditions on Coiba Island Penal Colony continued to be
deplorable.  Approximately 75 percent of the 550 prisoners
still on Coiba await trial, and the majority will have served
almost two-thirds of their potential sentences before reaching
trial.  Despite a plan to transfer prisoners to other detention
facilities, Coiba continued to receive new prisoners from other
prisons as part of an effort to defuse the violence caused by
overcrowding.  Prisoners and detainees reportedly suffer
greatly from malnutrition and shortages of potable water.
Medical care is practically nonexistent.  Reversing a decision
late in the Endara administration to place Coiba under police
control, the new Government named a civilian administrator for
Coiba.  The guard force, however, continued to consist of
police guards instead of civilian correctional officers.
Geographic isolation, plus lack of mail and communications,
separated detainees from their attorneys and caused many to
miss trials.

Conditions at women's prisons were better than those at men's
prisons.  Still, there were credible allegations that guards
and staff at the Women's Rehabilitation Center (CFR) sexually
abused female detainees and convicts.  Female prisoners also
reportedly suffered from overcrowding and poor medical care.
Guards and administrators allegedly trafficked in telephone
access, medicine, and personal hygiene items.  A human rights
group credibly charged in July that the prison administration
intentionally turned a blind eye toward such activities by
guards and staff.  This led to the investigation and temporary
removal from office of the CFR director in July.  The Perez
Balladares Government named a permanent administrator in
September.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The Constitution stipulates that arrests must be carried out
with a warrant issued by the relevant authorities, except when
a person is apprehended during the commission of a crime.  The
law requires the arresting officer to inform the detainee
immediately of the reasons for arrest or detention and of the
right to immediate legal counsel, to be provided by the State
for the indigent.  There were charges of arbitrary detentions
by the new Government during a September operation dubbed
"energy and courtesy" that featured police roundups of street
criminals in heavily populated areas of Panama City and Colon.
The PNP suspended four officers for excessive use of force in
this operation but found no grounds for the arbitrary detention
charges.  Human rights groups confirmed that there had been few
instances of police abuse in the operation.

The Constitution provides for judicial review of the legality
of detention and mandates the immediate release of any person
detained or arrested illegally.  The law prohibits police from
detaining suspects for more than 24 hours without bringing them
before a competent authority.  In practice, the authorities
rarely met legally mandated time limits and often violated the
24-hour time limit for detention by several days.  The
preliminary investigation phase often lasts from 2 to 4 months,
due to extensions granted by the Public Ministry and additional
communications with the court.  While the Public Ministry can
legally grant extensions up to 14 months in most cases, it
often allows case processing to exceed the approved extensions,
leaving the accused in incommunicado detention.  This problem
is exacerbated by an inefficient case tracking system and a
slow, inflexible notification phase.

Extended pretrial detention of those charged continued to be
one of Panama's most serious human rights problems.  According
to government statistics, pretrial detainees comprised 79
percent of the prison population as of August, about the same
proportion reported in July 1993.  Analysis of these statistics
indicates almost 25 percent of the total prison population is
under detention beyond legally permissible time limits.
According to public defenders, the average period of pretrial
custody for a defendant was approximately 16 months; pretrial
detention in excess of the maximum sentence for the alleged
crime was common.  A legal mechanism exists to hold the
gvernment accountable in cases where a detainee spends a
significant amount of time incarcerated only to be found
innocent.  Although the redress procedure is not excessively
complicated, few former detainees seek redress for their time
in detention.

The Constitution prohibits exile, and there were no reports of
forced exile in 1994.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

The President appoints nine Supreme Court magistrates to
10-year terms, subject to Legislative Assembly confirmation.
The Supreme Court magistrates appoint appellate court judges,
who, in turn, appoint circuit and municipal court judges in
their respective jurisdictions.  The Attorney General, who
heads the Public Ministry jointly with the Solicitor General,
appoints the superior and district attorneys.

At the local level, municipal mayors appoint administrative
judges similar to justices of the peace.  These justices
exercise jurisdiction over minor civil and criminal cases in
which they may impose fines or sentences of up to 1 year.  This
system has serious shortcomings:  Defendants lack adequate
procedural safeguards, the officials need not be (and normally
are not) attorneys, and some allegedly engage in corrupt
practices.  In practice, appeal procedures are nonexistent.
More affluent defendants tend to pay fines while poorer
defendants go to jail, one of the chief factors leading to
current prison overcrowding.

The Constitution provides that persons charged with crimes have
the right to counsel and are presumed innocent until proven
guilty.  If not under pretrial detention, the accused may be
present with counsel during the investigative phase of the
proceeding.  Judges can order the presence of pretrial
detainees for the rendering of statements, amplifications, or
confrontation of witnesses.  Trial proceedings are conducted
orally with the accused present.  The Constitution establishes
trial by jury in some circumstances; by law, however, jury
trials are not an option in most cases.

The Constitution obliges the Government to provide public
defenders for the indigent.  Although many public defenders are
still appointed after the investigative phase of the case, many
more public defenders than in past years were assigned to cases
prior to commencement of the investigative phase, increasing
the defense's opportunity to present evidence.  Public
defenders' caseloads remained staggering, numbering hundreds of
cases per attorney and seriously undermining the quality of
representation.

Panama continued to hold political prisoners in 1994.  Eduardo
Herrera Hassan, an ex-member of the former Panama Defense
Forces (PDF) who became director of the National Police force
and reportedly attempted to foment action against the Endara
Government in December 1990, was held without charges until he
received a presidential pardon in September.  In addition to
Herrera, the Government has held an additional 30 to 50 persons
in pretrial detention since December 1990, for offenses related
to the coup attempt.  The presidential amnesty of September 23
released some of these prisoners, but many remain in extralegal
detention.

The judicial system continued to prosecute those responsible
for human rights and other abuses committed during the Noriega
period.  The Government brought to trial, convicted, or
sentenced a number of the most notorious defendants.  In
January courts sentenced former Panamanian Defense Force (PDF)
members Felipe Camargo, Luis Cordoba, and Nivaldo Madrinan to
5-year terms in prison for the 1988 illegal arrest and torture
of Eduardo Sanchez Pena, an anti-Noriega activist.  In May
Madrinan, former head of the National Investigation Directorate
(DENI), received an additional 5-year prison term for his role
in the 1971 murder of Colombian priest Hector Gallego.  In
September the courts found six ex-PDF members, including
Camargo, guilty of human rights violations against anti-Noriega
activists Alberto Conte and Leonardo Figueroa, as well as
former anti-Noriega coup participant Milton Castillo.  Over 25
cases are pending against ex-PDF major Felipe Camargo
(convicted of human rights abuses both in 1992 and 1994).
Ex-PDF major Luis "Papo" Cordoba and Lt. Colonel Madrinan, both
defendants in the Spadafora trial, were also scheduled to stand
trial for the 1985 kidnaping and torture of Dr. Mauro Zuniga,
president of the National Civic Coordination, an organization
opposed to the Noriega regime.

In June President Endara granted individual pardons to over 500
Noriega-era officials and politicians who had committed
"political" crimes, i.e., support for antidemocratic policies.
On September 23, President Balladares granted amnesty to 216
persons whom he described as having been convicted or detained
for crimes of a political nature.  He granted conditional
release to 46 more detainees.  The amnesty included five of the
six suspects in the slayings of U.S. citizen Raymond Dragseth
and U.S. Embassy employee Fernando Braithwaite, civilians the
PDF executed during Operation Just Cause in 1989.  This left
only 1 of the original 23 defendants charged with either
homicide, kidnaping, or conspiracy to stand trial in connection
with these brutal killings.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Constitution provides for the inviolability of the home and
communications.  The authorities may not examine personal
documents, monitor communications, or enter and search private
residences except by written order.  However, there were
credible complaints that PTJ agents failed to follow legal
requirements for arrest and search warrants and instead
conducted indiscriminate searches of entire apartment buildings
or housing complexes.  Such complaints continued during the
first months of the Perez Balladares Government.

Despite the view of some that the Constitution prohibits all
wiretapping, the Government maintains that wiretapping with
judicial branch approval is legal.  Under the guidelines
established by new antinarcotics legislation passed in July,
the Public Ministry may engage in undercover operations,
including the use of "videotaping and recording of
conversations."  The Supreme Court will ultimately have to
decide whether wiretapping is constitutional and, if so, under
what circumstances.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

Panamanians generally enjoy freedom of speech and press as
provided for in the Constitution.  Six national daily
newspapers, 3 commercial television stations, 2 educational
television stations, and over 95 radio stations provide a broad
choice of informational sources; all are privately or
institutionally owned.  While many media outlets took
identifiable editorial positions, the media carried a wide
variety of political commentaries and other perspectives, both
local and foreign.  Panamanian and foreign journalists worked
and traveled freely throughout the contry, and the population
had access to foreign media.

There were no substantiated cases of Government harassment of
journalists.  The Government has legal authority to place both
direct and indirect restrictions on the media but took no such
actions in 1994.  This election year was characterized by a
high level of official tolerance of the media, which openly
reported on candidates and their platforms.

Libel is a criminal offense subject to fines and up to 2 years
in prison.  Opinions, comments, or criticism of government
officials acting in their official capacity are specifically
exempted from libel prosecution, but a section of the law
allows for the immediate discipline of journalists who show
"disrespect" for the office of certain government officials.
The Government did not use the antilibel provisions of the law
to restrict freedom of the press, but the existence of the law
may inhibit some writers' self-expression.

President Balladares took steps to abolish certain laws which
restrict freedom of the press.  The media opposed these steps
since complete abolition of the laws would also end many press
privileges.  Among these laws is one which establishes a
censorship board.  There were no reports of the board taking
any restrictive actions in 1994.

The law provides for academic freedom, which was freely
exercised in public as well as private universities.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides the rights of peaceful assembly and
association, and the Government generally respects these
rights.  No authorization is needed for outdoor assembly,
although prior notification for administrative purposes is
required.  Panamanians have the right to form associations and
professional or civic groups without government interference.
They may form and organize political parties as they like,
though parties must meet membership and organizational
standards in order to gain official recognition and participate
in national campaigns.

During the 1994 election campaign, citizens frequently gathered
and marched to protest as well as to support government
policies.  There were no reported instances of inappropriate
government action against such marches.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

The Constitution provides for religious freedom.  All religious
groups are free to worship and to proselytize without
government restriction or interference.  Clerics are
constitutionally prohibited from holding public office, except
as related to social assistance, education, or scientific
research.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

The Constitution grants Panamanians the right to move freely
within the country and to depart and return freely.  These
rights are respected in practice.  There were no cases of
forcible repatriation of refugees or asylees.  A 9 p.m. curfew
for minors under 18 years of age in Panama province, imposed in
1992, remained in effect although it was enforced mainly in
high-crime areas.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

The Constitution provides for a representative democracy with
direct popular election by secret ballot of the president, two
vice presidents, legislators, and local representatives every 5
years.  The independent National Electoral Tribunal arranges
and supervises elections.  Panamanians enjoy the right to join
any political party, to propagate their views, and to vote for
candidates of their choice without government interference.
The Government respected these rights throughout the year.  The
Electoral Tribunal implemented the June 1993 electoral reforms
during the 1994 campaign, resulting in a transparently free
national election.

There are no legal barriers to participation by women or people
of African, Asian, or indigenous descent, but in fact their
presence in senior leadership positions in government or
political parties is not yet proportionate to their numbers
within society.  However, representatives of these groups are
increasingly visible in midlevel political and governmental
positions.  The Government provides semiautonomous status to
the San Blas reserve, populated mainly by indigenous Kuna
Indians.  San Blas has two representatives in the Legislative
Assembly, proportionate to its population.  Locally, the
reserve is governed by tribal chiefs, who meet in a general
congress twice a year.

A woman ran for president and finished second with over 28
percent of the vote.  The newly elected President of the
Legislative Assembly is a woman, and Panama City residents
elected a woman as mayor.  However, women held only 5 of 72
Legislative Assembly seats and 3 of 11 Cabinet positions.

Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

Panamanian human rights organizations, including both church
and secular groups, generally operated without governmental
restrictions.  These organizations carried out a full range of
activities, including investigations and dissemination of
findings.  Human rights advocates generally had free access to
government officials while investigating complaints.  The
Government did not favor an investigation by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights in response to a complaint filed
about Operation Just Cause, but it did not obstruct inquiries
related to the investigation.