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Panama United States Intervention and Strained Relations
In the very first year of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty,
dissension had already arisen over the sovereignty issue. Acting on
an understanding of its rights, the United States had applied
special regulations to maritime traffic at the ports of entry to
the canal and had established its own customs, tariffs, and postal
services in the zone. These measures were opposed by the Panamanian
government.
Mounting friction finally led Roosevelt to dispatch Secretary
of War William Howard Taft to Panama in November 1904. His visit
resulted in a compromise agreement, whereby the United States
retained control of the ports of Ancón and Cristóbal, but their
facilities might be used by any ships entering Panama City and
Colón. The agreement also involved a reciprocal reduction of
tariffs and the free passage of persons and goods from the Canal
Zone into the republic. Compromises were reached in other areas,
and both sides emerged with most of their grievances blunted if not
wholly resolved.
Before the first year of independence had passed, the
intervention issue also complicated relations. Threats to
constitutional government in the republic by a Panamanian military
leader, General Estéban Huertas, had resulted, at the suggestion of
the United States diplomatic mission, in disbanding the Panamanian
army in 1904. The army was replaced by the National Police, whose
mission was to carry out ordinary police work. By 1920 the United
States had intervened four times in the civil life of the republic.
These interventions involved little military conflict and were,
with one exception, at the request of one Panamanian faction or
another.
The internal dynamics of Panamanian politics encouraged appeals
to the United States by any currently disgruntled faction for
intervention to secure its allegedly infringed rights. United
States diplomatic personnel in Panama also served as advisers to
Panamanian officials, a policy resented by nationalists. In 1921
the issue of intervention was formally raised by the republic's
government. When asked for a definitive, written interpretation of
the pertinent treaty clauses, Secretary of State Charles Evans
Hughes pointed to inherent difficulties and explained that the main
objectives of the United States were to act against any threat to
the Canal Zone or the lives and holdings of non-Panamanians in the
two major cities.
Actual intervention took several forms. United States officials
supervised elections at the request of incumbent governments. To
protect lives of United States citizens and property in Chiriquí
Province, an occupation force was stationed there for two years
over the protests of Panamanians who contended that the right of
occupation could apply only to the two major cities. United States
involvement in the 1925 rent riots in Panama City was also widely
resented. After violent disturbances during October, and at the
request of the Panamanian government, 600 troops with fixed
bayonets dispersed mobs threatening to seize the city.
At the end of the 1920s, traditional United States policy
toward intervention was revised. In 1928 Secretary of State Frank
B. Kellogg reiterated his government's refusal to countenance
illegal changes of government. In the same year, however,
Washington declined to intervene during the national elections that
placed Florencio H. Arosemena in office. The Arosemena government
was noted for its corruption. But when a coup d'état was undertaken
to unseat Arosemena, the United States once again declined to
intervene. Though no official pronouncement of a shift in policy
had been made, the 1931 coup d'état--the first successful one in
the republic's history--marked a watershed in the history of United
States intervention.
Meanwhile, popular sentiment on both sides calling for
revisions to the treaty had resulted in the Kellogg-Alfaro Treaty
of 1925. The United States in this instrument agreed to
restrictions on private commercial operations in the Canal Zone and
also agreed to a tightening of the regulations pertaining to the
official commissaries. At the same time, however, the United States
gained several concessions involving security. Panama agreed to
automatic participation in any war involving the United States and
to United States supervision and control of military operations
within the republic. These and other clauses aroused strong
opposition and, amid considerable tumult, the National Assembly on
January 26, 1927, refused to consider the draft treaty.
The abortive Kellogg-Alfaro Treaty involved the two countries
in a critical incident with the League of Nations. During the fall
of 1927, the League Assembly insisted that Panama could not legally
participate in the proposed arrangement with the United States. The
assembly argued that an automatic declaration of war would violate
Panama's obligations under the League Covenant to wait three months
for an arbitral decision on any dispute before resorting to war.
The discussion was largely academic inasmuch as the treaty had
already been effectively rejected, but Panama proposed that the
dispute over sovereignty in the Canal Zone be submitted to
international arbitration. The United States denied that any issue
needed arbitration.
Data as of December 1987
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