Fanned Flames

His eyes glinting hatred, a young Panamanian pointed a finger at the U.S. soldier in front of him on the border between the Canal Zone and Panama City. "I am going to kill that one," he shouted. "That one right there." Bombarded with hate-U.S. propaganda from radio stations and newspapers for three weeks since their last flag-planting invasion of the Canal Zone, students and slum dwellers were lusting for violence. Despite last-minute attempts by the wealthy clique that runs the country to turn off the hatred, the rioters' target was again the U.S. and its canal.

The occasion was the 138th anniversary of Panama's independence from Spain, and cooler heads tried to confine it to a university-sponsored sovereignty rally in a plaza eight blocks from the Canal Zone. But even before the first moderate speaker could finish, 200 well-organized rioters took over. They drowned out the speaker with screams of "Viva Russia!" "Viva Fidel Castro!" and "To the Zone!", charged out of the square. Outflanking Panamanian National Guardsmen, they rushed across Fourth of July Avenue (the zone border) and rammed a flagstaff into soft Canal Zone earth. "All right, now," said a U.S. squad leader. "Move them out."

A Pile of Rocks. Soldiers and demonstrators scuffled over the flag. One flag planter got jabbed by a G.I. bayonet; furious, the rioters stoned the G.I.s. Screaming and singing Panama's national anthem, they ran down Fourth of July Avenue; many rioters turned back into Panama City to smash and loot windows of jewelry and department stores.

Lining the zone boundary, 2,000 rioters burned two Uncle Sams in effigy, screamed insults, hurled rocks. As night fell, Panamanian National Guard reinforcements gradually forced the rioters back, and U.S. searchlights flicked on. Five hours later, shaky peace returned.

Calculated Threats. A few weeks ago, this kind of violence had the approval of the clique of rich bluebloods who control Panama's government and businesses. Over the radio and in newspapers, they deliberately stirred up greater hatred for the U.S. after the Nov. 3 riots. Easily swaying the ignorant, ragged masses of the lower classes, the "oligarchy" (in the Panamanian expression) set out to force concessions from the U.S., chiefly greater purchases of zone supplies from Panamanian merchants, a bigger rental for the Canal Zone.

The threats finally brought Livingston Merchant, top U.S. State Department troubleshooter, from Washington. Merchant's answer rocked them back on their heels. He merely reaffirmed Panama's "titular sovereignty" over the zone (as William Howard Taft had done 50 years before) and promised that zone commissaries would adopt a policy of buying only U.S. or Panamanian products--as soon as "normal conditions" were restored. Then he went home, leaving Panama to face the prospect of a mob action all too likely to be turned back on the "oligarchs" themselves.

Beef Baron Harmodio Arias, who controls the U.S. baiting daily La Hora, signed a front-page editorial in his El Panama America calling violence "reckless and imprudent." President Ernesto de la Guardia backed the idea of the university council's peaceful demonstration, desperately urging that the Panamanian flag not be "carried to the Canal Zone by blows." But the flames of violence, fed for weeks by many of the same men who now beg for tranquillity can never be completely quenched.

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