Hold Back on Returning Panama Canal Sovereignty to Unreliable Noriega

Shortly before he left office, President Ronald Reagan urged the reconsideration of the 1977 Panama Canal treaty because of the unreliability of Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega.

During his confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State James A. Baker III also expressed misgivings about the treaty.

One of President Bush’s first acts should now be to declare the portion of the treaty transferring sovereignty to Panama to be provisionally inoperative. Congress should also play a constructive role in acting on these concerns.

Noriega mocks the transfer’s presumption of continuing Panamanian good faith and ability to prevent sabotage of the canal, and to safeguard its openness and security. International law would thus justify Bush’s suspension declaration.

In 1903 the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty granted the United States perpetual use of and sovereignty over a 10-mile-wide, 50-mile-long Panama Canal Zone. Under U.S. sovereignty, the canal has operated reliably, and without sabotage or interruption. It has significantly boosted the commerce and national security of the United States.

During the Cuban missile crisis, 18 American warships transited the canal overnight, jumping ahead of commercial shipping to fortify a naval quarantine of Cuba. The U.S. warships would otherwise have consumed 13 days to navigate around Cape Horn.

Considering Panama’s history of violence, chronic political turbulence and anti-Yankee sentiments, it is little wonder that the 1977 treaty considers good will and friendly relations as being indispensable to carrying out the treaty’s terms. Since its birth, Panama has had four constitutions. During World War II, pro-fascist President Arnulfo Arias denied the United States defensive rights outside the canal zone.In 1964 Panamanian students rioted in the canal zone, leaving four American soldiers dead and dozens wounded while the Panamanian police and national guard stood aloof.

During the 1977 treaty negotiations, participants from both Panama and the United States openly acknowledged a basic presumption of good faith and political will behind the treaty terms. For instance, Panamanian negotiator Carlos Lopez Guevaro trumpeted: “The canal has no defense without the friendship of the Panamanian people”--a view echoed by the Pentagon and President Jimmy Carter. Similarly, Panama’s chief treaty adviser, Romulo Escobar, insisted: “I think we must begin from one major premise: that the United States and Panama are not enemies.” American Ambassador William J. Jorden recognized that “(a)gainst a threat of sabotage to the waterway, by far the best defense was the good will and cooperation of the Panamanian people and their national guard.”

But Noriega’s domestic- and foreign-policy gambits undermine that treaty assumption. He has thickened ties with Cuba, Libya and Colombian Marxist guerrillas, and harassed the 40,000 U.S. civilians and 12,000 U.S. troops in the canal zone. Indicted by the United States for complicity in drug trafficking and subject to a companion economic embargo, he exploits these actions domestically to bestir Panamanian ill will toward America.

The 1977 treaty terminates U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal and the canal zone in 1999. That stipulation, however, is limited by the higher treaty right of the United States to protect and defend the canal from armed attack “or other actions” that threaten its neutrality or security or the right of U.S. warships to transit the canal expeditiously in cases of emergency. The latter right requires maintaining U.S. troops in the zone whenever prevailing Panamanian conditions are inconsistent with good faith and Panama’s capacity to honor its 1977 treaty obligations--circumstances that exist today.

International law empowers a treaty signatory to suspend provisions when a material unexpressed postulate of the negotiations proves to be false. Thus, during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a shipping convention suspended and inoperative because a continuation of peace was an essential premise of its provisions. Similarly, Bush should inform Noriega that U.S. troops will remain stationed in the canal zoneand that zonal security will remain untransferred in 1999 unless the United States then concludes that Panama is both able and politically dedicated to preventing an interruption of canal operations or a violation of canal neutrality.