With the Venezuelan political crisis continuing to fester, Union of South American Nations (Unasur) foreign ministers agreed in Chile, last week, to travel to Caracas to “accompany, support and advise” the dialogue process initiated by President Nicolás Maduro’s government. But even as Mr Maduro appears to be pursuing the path of diplomacy and dialogue with the support of the continental bloc, there remains the little matter of his having broken off diplomatic relations with Panama on March 5, not to mention his own inflammatory rhetoric directed at those he perceives to be enemies of the Bolivarian Republic.
That is not to say, however, that Panama, which has historically had a close relationship with the United States, is doing its best not to exacerbate the situation. Panama, which projects itself as being at the crossroads of the Americas, with the Panama Canal linking east and west and the isthmus forming a land bridge between north and south, now finds itself at the centre of a growing geopolitical storm and seems set to act as the lightning rod for the latest left-right controversy in the Americas.
Last month, Panama incurred Mr Maduro’s wrath by seeking to convene a meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS) foreign ministers to debate the Venezuelan situation. This led to the rupture in diplomatic relations, with Mr Maduro at the ceremony marking the first anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s death, lambasting conservative Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli as a “bootlicking lackey” of the USA and accusing him of “conspiring” at the OAS against his government, with an “interventionist” attitude vis-à-vis the internal affairs of Venezuela.
It was reported that the presidents of Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua all applauded what Mr Maduro had to say about Panama, for in addition to its spat with Venezuela, Panama has diplomatic differences with Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. These countries, of course, constitute the backbone of Mr Chávez’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and, while there has always been some tension between Mr Martinelli and the chavista camp, there has been a noticeable worsening of relations over the past year.
Last July, Panamanian authorities detained a ship sailing from Cuba to North Korea via the canal, suspecting that it was transporting drugs, only to discover that it was carrying a cargo of missiles, in violation of a UN Security Council ban on such shipments to North Korea. When the matter erupted, Cuba froze contacts with Panama, the Cuban foreign minister cancelled a meeting with his Panamanian counterpart in October and President Raúl Castro declined to attend the Ibero-American summit in Panama that same month. In a diplomatic tit-for-tat, Mr Martinelli was absent from the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (Celac) summit in Havana in January.
But the chill transcends the bilateral relationship. The smuggling of illegal weapons from Cuba to North Korea has upset the delicate equilibrium of the process of diplomatic rapprochement between Washington and Havana. It, moreover, would even appear to have put in doubt the possibility of an invitation to Cuba to attend the 7th Summit of the Americas due to take place in Panama in 2015. Indeed, the very convening of that summit is in jeopardy, as Celac has already indicated its desire to have Cuba present at the hemispheric gathering and Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua have also made this a condition for their attendance.
Then, there is the ongoing war of words with Ecuador. Last October, Ecuador arrested a Panamanian boat carrying 800 kilos of cocaine. Panama is demanding its return, claiming that it was stopped in international waters. The same month, Panama granted political asylum to a former Ecuadorean parliamentarian, Galo Tito Lara Yépez, who had been convicted of involvement in a triple homicide in his country and sentenced to 10 years in jail. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has labelled the Panamanian government “insolent” and accused it of trying to blackmail his own government by linking the Lara case with that of the detained vessel.
Last week, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega added his voice to the hubbub, calling Mr Martinelli the “spokesman for the interests of the empire” and questioning why he was aligning himself with Washington to try to put Venezuela in a corner.
Seemingly undeterred, just a couple of days ago, Panama’s ambassador to the OAS announced that he was prepared to give his seat today, at the OAS Permanent Council, to one of the leaders of the protest movement in Venezuela, the opposition parliamentarian, María Corina Machado, to allow her to address the council, despite the resistance of many states to giving her a hearing. As we go to press, it is impossible to say how this ploy will play out.
As fears of a new Cold War rise in Europe, the last thing Latin America and the Caribbean need is a return to the ideological polarisation of the second half of the 20th century. The present situation is crying out for a lowering of voices and quiet diplomacy. In the not-too-distant past, this would have been a good opportunity for Caricom to offer objective advice and even to mediate. Caricom’s current relationship with Venezuela, however, appears to have deprived it of the knack of maintaining principled neutrality in the interests of overall regional stability.
