Bush Nominates Panamanian to Manage Canal

President Bush announced the nomination for the first time of a Panamanian to manage the Panama Canal as he told that nation’s president Monday that the United States “will stand with you in peace.”

Bush, in his first meeting with President Guillermo Endara since the U.S. invasion of Panama last December, also voiced support for Endara’s proposal to speed up a study on the feasibility of widening the 75-year-old canal.

But saying “the struggle is not over in Panama,” Bush chastised Congress for not moving quicker on his $800-million aid package for Panama and Nicaragua. The measure is snagged in the Senate in side disputes, including one on federal funding for abortions.

“I’ve asked and asked again that our aid package to the newly liberated people of Panama be passed and passed swiftly. And still it waits, and with it the future of the fledgling democracy,” said Bush, with Endara at his side, after the two leaders met for 2 1/2 hours.

Endara was installed as president Dec. 20 by U.S. invasion forces who toppled the government of military dictator Manuel A. Noriega.

Bush used the occasion of Endara’s visit to announce he was sending to the Senate the nomination of Gilberto Guardia Fabrega to be administrator of the Panama Canal Commission, a U.S.-Panamanian body designated by the Panama Canal Treaties of 1978 to operate the waterway until Dec. 31, 1999.

Under the treaties, a Panamanian--selected by Panama, nominated by the U.S. President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate--must head the commission during the final decade of the mandate.

As the term of the final American administrator neared its end last year, Bush balked at Noriega’s nominee for the post and refused to send a name to the Senate.