Page 113 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

C. “Between the sword and the fraud”

Former Colombian President Alfonso López Michelsen is credited with
49
having defined Panama ass “a country forever between the sword and the fraud”.
López Michelsen, a personal friend of Torrijos’s, had gone to Panama, together with
William P. Jorden, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama and also an old friend of
Torrijos’s, as international observers invited by the government to witness the
elections. To be sure, López Michelsen’s performance did not help change the facts
behind that deplorable image Panama projects abroad. Although he saw with his own
two eyes the forged cards and the ballots that circulated even before the polls opened,
he had nothing but praise for the high civic level of the electoral process, thus
legitimizing that which he would have flatly and strongly condemned in his own
country. Jorden also observed but, unlike López Michelsen, did not say much. They
were back in their respective countries on election night, having performed
magnificently in their role as “friendly” observers.
Acting on its own, however, the Panamanian Human Rights Committee
invited three respected U.S. personalities to observe the 1984 elections. The American
guests were Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J., Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a
prestigious figure in the American Civil Rights, movement; Dr. Raymond D. Gastil, an
international jurist, defender of human rights, poll watcher in several countries; and
Jack Hood Vaughn, an expert in international law, the first U.S. ambassador to Panama
following the break in diplomatic relations between both countries in the wake of the
events of January 1964. All three of them “visited different precincts (in the city of
Panama) and then went to the provinces, where they also visited numerous polling
places. They also visited the Electoral Tribunal, the ADO and UNADE headquarters
and held many meetings with representative figures of Panamanian society”. 50 In
addition, they remained in Panama for several days after May 6. In other words, they
followed the electoral process up close. After returning to their country, they prepared
a report whose conclusions were published by La Prensa on its front page on June 2,
1984. The following excepts have been taken from La Prensa’s feature article (the
emphasis is ours):

“… the generally accepted advantage of the government in the
media and the public facilities, and the narrowness of the
official count, leads to the conclusion that in a fully free
election Arias probably would have been the winner.
With the problem of the May 6 election so fresh in everyone’s

49
La Nación Internacional, San José, Costa Rica, Jone 14-20, 1984, page 14. López Michelsen’s
witticism requires clarification. Panama has been “between the sword and the fraud” since October 11,
1968, when the military came to power. The political system before Torrijos, for all its defects, did
allow the opposition to come to power through popular elections at least twice in recent years, in 1960
and 1968.
50 La Prensa, June 2, 1984, page 1A.