Monument Changes Hands, But Where’s the Fanfare?

On Dec. 31 the United States will transfer the Panama Canal and the remainder of its isthmian bases to Panama.

The transfer, which began in 1978, is one of the most significant events of the century, one that makes the hoopla and fanfare of the return of Hong Kong to China two years ago seem commonplace. There, the weaker party relinquished to the stronger, something done every day, though not always so gracefully. Here, the world’s most powerful state cedes to one of the tiniest, a singular occurrence.

In addition, the transfer concludes a unique bilateral relationship, one not always blissful but, on balance, beneficial to both parties and to the world in general. Its first consequence, often forgotten these days, was cleansing the isthmus of malaria and yellow fever, the century’s greatest public-health effort. Its more illustrious offspring, the canal, contributed signally to our country’s defense, until the advent of nuclear weapons made dependence on it a liability, and it continues to contribute to world commerce.

In bringing this relationship to a close, the canal transfer culminates an era of boundless energy but insufficient restraint. The predatory exuberance of President Theodore Roosevelt’s “I took the isthmus!”--if just barely, in 1903--gives way to fairness and moral leadership.

Finally, the transfer is an act of national self-definition through which the United States distinguishes itself from other nations past and present. It completes an act of national self-assertion with one of unprecedented generosity. In this, it resembles our postwar treatment of Japan. There, having waged war as implacably as any other nation, the United States made a concerted effort to leave an enemy better off for having been defeated. To invoke Hong Kong again, British rule there allowed trade to flourish, but the British neither built nor left behind anything like the Panama Canal.

It is lamentable that the Clinton administration, so far, intends no special ceremony to mark the transfer, nothing commensurate with the event’s transcendence. Some mid-level politicos apparently fear the transfer may harm Democratic candidates in next year’s election. Other mid-level officials have allowed themselves to become resentful toward Panama over slights dispensed by the country’s former president. These groups’ approach to the transfer is for someone like a deputy assistant undersecretary of transportation to drop the key to the canal into some Panamanian official’s mailbox in the dead of night.

This will not do. A great nation’s policy shouldn’t be influenced by petty matters. The canal transfer will be noticed no matter who represents the United States. Some people will decry it. We are a large country with many different strains of opinion on how we should behave toward our neighbors. But the point here is that transferring the canal to Panama is something we agreed to as a nation, openly, formally, constitutionally, after thorough debate. How we mark it is not something a candidate’s convenience should determine.

Nor need we take into account the actions of the last president of Panama, Ernesto Perez Balladares, who left office after being overwhelmingly repudiated by his own countrymen when he attempted to change the constitution last year to allow himself to run for reelection. To cite Cervantes, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”

The Panama Canal is a national monument, arguably mankind’s greatest engineering achievement, our counterpart to the pyramids and China’s Great Wall. The Clinton administration has an obligation to the American people to mark its transfer in due fashion. This is an obligation that extends to past generations, who built it, operated it and defended it, and to future generations, who will take greater pride in it because of the transfer.

From a different standpoint, no responsible administration would pass up so excellent a public-relations opportunity. Washington has plenty of enemies adept at exploiting its errors and distorting facts to portray the United States as a sump of evil. The transfer demonstrates an example of the nation’s decency.

On Sept. 1, a new president took office in Panama: Mireya Moscoso, chosen last May in the fairest and friendliest election ever held here. She will represent Panama at the canal transfer. President Bill Clinton should be on the podium with her to honor the past and usher in the future--the land divided to bring nations together, the imperialist era laid to rest with the millennium. *