By DPA
Panama City/Washington : Only four days after the formal start of work to expand its world-famous canal, Panama will mark on Friday the 30th anniversary of the historic Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
The agreements that Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos and then US president Jimmy Carter signed on Sep 7, 1977 launched a process, which concluded on Dec 31, 1999 with the US handing control of the canal to Panamanian authorities.
An engineering milestone through which between 13,000 and 14,000 ships pass each year, the Panama Canal was opened in 1914 by the US, after 10 years of construction that cost thousands of lives. It was operated by the US for more than 85 years – a condition for US support of Panamanian independence from Colombia.
The treaties of 1977 ended one of the last colonial enclaves in Latin America, known as the Canal Zone, which was ruled by a governor and had foreign laws.
Many in the US resented Carter’s move to let go of the waterway. Why relinquish for free something that the US paid for and which was an essential instrument of the northern giant’s security?
The Carter administration’s move sought to improve relations with Latin America, to cooperate with Panama for an efficient management of the canal and to secure the perennial control of security along the waterway.
In the presence of Carter, 82, current Panamanian President Martin Torrijos – the son of Omar Torrijos – launched Monday the first major expansion in the canal’s 92-year existence.
It will see a new set of locks added to the existing two, allowing two-way traffic through the waterway, accommodating larger ships and almost doubling the tonnage that can be carried through. The construction is projected to cost around $5.25 billion and is scheduled for completion by 2015.
Thirty years after the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, Panama remains immersed in a debate on national unity, sovereignty and the challenges of trade in the future.
Since Panama took over control of its renowned canal, the waterway’s income has increased from $769 million in 2000 to some $1.4 billion in 2006, with an estimated $1.765 billion expected in the 2007 fiscal year (ending on Sept 30).
The head of the Panama Canal Administration (ACP), Alberto Aleman, said earlier this year that the tonnage carried by the waterway increased from 230 million tonnes in 2000 to close to 300 million in 2006.
“The treaties buried a historic trauma and resolved the issue of the administration of the canal, through a transition mechanism that lasted 23 years. But they are controversial and, like every human work, they are imperfect,” Adolfo Ahumada told DPA.
Ahumada, a member of the canal’s board of directors and an adviser to the Panamanian Foreign Ministry, noted that the challenge ahead is to maintain an efficient management of the waterway.
In turn, the sociologist Marco Gandasegui, director of the Centre for Latin American Studies (CELA), stressed the importance of a national project to look into the future, now that an orderly transfer of the waterway has already been achieved.
“The expansion of the canal creates enormous opportunities to realize an old dream, but it is necessary to put first a national project, which implies the incorporation to general welfare of the 3.2 million Panamanians,” Gandasegui said.
When it was handed over by the US, the canal became a certain and plentiful source of funds for Panama. This year, the ACP approved the provision of $662.2 million as a direct contribution to the public treasury.
However, Gandasegui noted that close to 40 percent of Panama’s population lives in poverty, and complained that “the enormous resources generated by the operation and administration of the Panama Canal are not being invested in the country’s development.”
When Carter attended the solemn handover ceremony in Panama in December 1999, he pronounced a historic phrase: “It’s yours.”
To this day, however, Panamanians continue to debate what to do with this undoubtedly most valuable legacy, in which they agree lies the basis for the small country’s future.