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Panama History - A Brief Overview

Panama's history has been shaped by its strategic location between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. The native Cuevas and Cocole tribes quickly disappeared after the Spanish arrived with their weapons and diseases in the early 16th century. Panama City, on the Pacific coast, thrived as Spain conquered and plundered Peru. Caravans loaded with gold traveled overland across the narrow isthmus from Panama City to be loaded on galleons bound for Spain. However, this wealth attracted pirates and, in the early 1700s, Panama's Caribbean shore was dotted with so many pirate strongholds that shippers chose instead to sail around Cape Horn to Peru. Panama's importance rapidly declined, and Spain did not contest its inclusion as a province of Colombia when that country won its independence from Spain in 1821.

Panama Canal History

The history of the Panama Canal is fascinating. In the 1880s, Colombia made a treaty with France for the construction of a canal across Panama's narrow isthmus, but yellow fever claimed the lives of more than 22,000 workers over a five-year period, and construction was halted. Over Colombia's objections, one of the French investors negotiated a deal to have the United States construct a canal just at the time that Panama's independence movement needed tactical and financial assistance. When Panama declared its independence from Colombia in November 1903, U.S. troops were already present to "protect" the new government. In return for constructing a canal, the new Panamanian government granted U.S. control over rights on either side of the canal "in perpetuity," and U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt's "Panama Doctrine" began with the eradication of mosquitoes, which carried malaria and yellow fever. The Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and has remained an important shipping route ever since. In 1921, the United States paid Colombia US$25 million in exchange for revoking all claims on Panama, and in 1936, the United States finally gave up the legal right to use its troops outside the borders of the Canal Zone. With the onset of World War II, the canal became one of America's most valuable strategic assets and was heavily protected by fleets of U.S. warships.

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Recent History of Panama

In 1968, the commander of the Panamanian National Guard, Omar Torrijos Herrera, seized control of the government. Although he ruled as a populist dictator, Torrijos Herrera is revered as a hero of Panama because he negotiated the treaty with the United States returning the canal and the Canal Zone back to Panama on January 1, 2000.

After Torrijos Herrera's death in 1983, General Manuel Noriega became head of the Panama Defense Forces. When Noriega's party lost the 1989 elections, Noriega's cronies physically attacked the winning candidate on national television, and Noriega remained in power with the income provided by drug trafficking. In December 1989, Noriega appointed himself dictator and formally declared war against the United States. The next day, a U.S. soldier was killed by Panamanian soldiers and the most powerful country in the world sent 26,000 troops into the streets of Panama City and Col ón. Thousands died in the fighting, and Noriega claimed asylum in the Vatican Embassy. The Vatican staff finally released Noriega into U.S. custody, partly to stop the assault of loud rock music that U.S. loudspeakers directed at the embassy compound both day and night. Noriega was arrested, tried, and convicted on money laundering charges and sent to prison for a 40-year sentence.

Still suffering form his beating by Noriega's cronies, Guillermo Endarra, the winner of the 1989 election, finally took office, but corruption and social unrest were hallmarks of his regime. Ernesto Perez Balladares (El Toro) won the 1994 election with largely fulfilled promises to fight corruption, improve Panama's economy, and implement nationwide health services. Running with the campaign slogan, "The Canal Is Ours" Mireya Moscoso, the widow of a popular former president and head of the conservative Arnulfista Party, won the presidency in 1999 and celebrated with her people when the year 2000 dawned with the canal finally belonging to Panama.

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