Panama Question

The Panama Question is the dispute over the Panama Canal Zone, the strip of land on either side of the Panama Canal that the United States has governed since 1903. Panama and the South American Confederation hold that the Zone is Panamanian territory. The European Federation has supported the Panamanian claim since the killings of January 1964, and describes its position as the liberation of the Zone's Panamanians from American rule. The American government holds the Zone under the treaty of 1903 and describes the Federation's position as an attempt to gain control of the canal.

The Zone's Panamanian population has been governed under American emergency regulations since 2019, and armed resistance groups have been active there since 2021. As of 2028 the United States holds the Zone with a military garrison, and the Panama Canal carries a small fraction of the traffic it carried before 2021.

Background

The Panama Canal crosses the Isthmus of Panama between Colón on the Caribbean and Panama City on the Pacific, about 82 km, and is the shortest sea route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Panama declared its independence from Colombia on 3 November 1903 with American support, and on 18 November signed a treaty granting the United States the use, occupation and control of a zone about 16 km wide along the route of the canal, in perpetuity and with the rights it would have "if it were the sovereign". The United States built the canal between 1904 and 1914. About 5,600 workers died in its construction, most of them labourers from the Caribbean.

The Zone was governed as an American territory under a governor appointed in Washington, with its own police, courts and schools. Colón and Panama City lay outside it, as Panamanian enclaves on its edges. Its workforce was divided into a "gold roll" of American employees and a "silver roll" of Panamanian and Caribbean employees, with separate pay, housing, shops and schools. The rules of the silver roll were tightened in 1939.

History

First Euro-American War

In the First Euro-American War the canal was the United States Navy's only route between its Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The Zone was fortified and garrisoned through the war, and the Federation's forces never came within operating range of it. The canal remained under American control at the Cessation of 1947, which did not address it.

Kaltkrieg

On 9 January 1964 Panamanian students raised their country's flag in the Zone. In three days of rioting the Zone police and the United States Army killed 64 people. Panama broke off diplomatic relations with the United States for three months. The Federation's Council of Ministers condemned the killings and recognised Panama's sovereignty over the Zone. It was the Federation's first formal position on the canal.

Panama joined the South American Confederation in 1968, and the Confederation adopted the Panamanian claim as its own. American administration of the Zone continued without a transfer treaty. Panamanian workers in the Zone remained subject to its police and courts, and the Federation's foreign ministry raised the Zone in most of its Kaltkrieg exchanges with Washington.

In 2016 a strike by the Zone's lock workers was broken with about 400 arrests. In 2019 the American administration of the Zone introduced emergency regulations, including curfews, restrictions on assembly and detention without charge, which the Federation's government and press described as a crackdown. The Federation's Foreign Secretary called for the liberation of the Zone's Panamanians.

Since 2020

The United States asked for the Panama Question to be placed on the agenda of the First Canadian Summit in 2021, and the two delegations did not agree whether it should be discussed before or after the Canadian line (see Second Canadian Summit). The summit closed on 6 October 2021 without a communiqué.

Armed attacks on the Zone's police posts and installations began in late 2021. The American government said that weapons and money had reached the resistance groups through Colombia from the Federation's intelligence services, and the Federation denied it. The emergency regulations were extended in 2022, and the American administration reported between 300 and 700 arrests in each year from 2022 to 2027.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in February 2022 the Zone was placed under military government. No Federation forces have operated in the Zone or in Panama.

Effects of the infestation

Canal traffic fell from about 13,800 transits in 2019 to fewer than 2,000 in 2023, as Devourer attacks on shipping from 2021 closed most ocean routes to insured cargo. Since 2026 most transits have been American naval and supply vessels. Parasites were recorded in the Darién, on the Colombian border, in 2021. As of 2028 most of the isthmus outside the Zone is infested, and the Zone's garrison answers to the federal government at Omaha.

Positions

Panama and the South American Confederation hold that the treaty of 1903 was imposed on a state fifteen days old, and that the Zone is Panamanian territory under American occupation.

The European Federation recognises Panamanian sovereignty over the Zone, and calls for the end of the emergency regulations and the withdrawal of American forces. It has proposed no arrangement for the canal other than its transfer to Panama.

The United States holds that the treaty grants it the Zone in perpetuity, and that the Zone's defence is a matter of national security. It describes the resistance groups as terrorists armed by the Federation, and the Federation's position as an attempt to gain control of the canal.

See also

• Kaltkrieg
• Second World War
• Second Canadian Summit
• Marine insurance crisis