No More Tomorrows

An era ends, as the U.S. quits the Canal Zone

In the port of Balboa, workmen nailed up a sign reading BIENVENIDO AL PUERTO DE BALBOA--BRIDGE OF THE WORLD. As evening fell, a solemn, subdued crowd of Americans watched as the Stars and Stripes was lowered--for the last time--at the U.S.-operated headquarters of the Panama Canal Co. Next morning an animated group of Panamanians cheered as their country's white, red and blue banner was run up a new flagpole atop bush-covered Ancon Hill. The Panama Canal Zone, the 648-sq.-mi. enclave that had been under U.S. sovereignty since 1903, had ceased to exist. Its absorption by Panama was the first step in a process that will give that country control of the Big Ditch by the year 2000.

For many Americans the timing of the ceremonies--even though they were mandated by a treaty that the Senate had passed and President Carter had signed --could not have been worse. The furor at home over the Soviet combat troops in Cuba was an uncomfortable reminder that the Caribbean was no longer an "American lake." Those troops, as well as the leftist tinge of the Cuban-assisted revolution that overthrew Nicaraguan Strongman Anastasio Somoza, raised fears that the canal faced a remote threat.

To Panamanians, recovering the Canal Zone, as one local paper quaintly put it, was like liberating a child who had been kidnaped for a long time. "Only five more days," exulted the Panamanian daily El Matutino, awaiting the ceremonies that marked the change in sovereignty. To ensure a large crowd at the festivities, the government declared a national holiday; Panamanians were urged by radio, proclamation and word of mouth to enter the zone and attend a rally at the field of Albrook Air Force Station. There were a handful of anti-American outbursts; shortly after midnight on the day of the turnover, a small band of poor Panamanians tore up an American flag.

Most Panamanians, however, were in a rejoicing mood. More than 150,000 of them (out of a population of 1.9 million) showed up at the Albrook rally, which was attended by Vice President Walter Mondale and the leaders of many Latin American governments. They shrieked in joy as Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, fresh from his summit with Jimmy Carter, praised "the disappearance of the humiliating injustice of the enclave that has long divided" Central America. Notably absent from the ceremonies was Panamanian Strongman Omar Torrijos Herrera, who had negotiated the pact with the U.S. He apparently did not wish to upstage his hand-picked successor as President, Aristides Royo.

The ceremony was a nostalgic but bitter occasion for the 3,500 American canal workers in the zone. The Zonians, as they are called, were witnessing the end of their cherished home away from home, a small piece of America transplanted to a well-tended tropical setting beside the beloved waterway. Anti-American propaganda held that the Zonians had reveled in colonial splendor amid the surrounding squalor of Panama. In truth, their homes were modest by U.S. standards and their incomes only adequate. Said one longtime Zonian, on his way for a last rum punch at the historic Spanish colonial-style Washington Hyatt Hotel in Colon: "We saved the best things of the American way of life."

The Zonians' dismay at the Carter Administration's "giveaway" of the Canal Zone burst into the open at a flag-lowering ceremony at Balboa High School. "Jimmy stinks," chanted a group of American students standing outside the school as the U.S. flag was lowered. Zonians joked that Foul Play, the film showing at the local theater, was grimly appropriate; the movie was replaced the day after the turnover by El Expreso de los Espias, a spy film starring Robert Shaw and Lee Marvin that was titled Avalanche Express in the U.S. Shortly before the switch in sovereignty, many Americans sported T shirts with defiant emblems. One pictured a green monster raising its middle finger and the legend TO JIMMY FROM THE CANAL ZONE.

About 500 Zonian workers and their families have flown back to the U.S. Those who are staying are apprehensive about the future. Panamanians, who already constitute about 75% of the zone's work force, are being trained to replace them. Until the Panamanians are ready, American technicians are needed to operate the waterway. And until 1990, an American will serve as the canal's chief administrator, with a Panamanian deputy; after that, the posts will be reversed. Says Deputy Administrator Fernando Manfredo: "We need to train Panamanians, but instead of being ready in 20 years, I feel we can be ready to take over by 1990."

That may not be soon enough for the most nationalistic Panamanians, who oppose the provisions that give the U.S. the military right to guarantee the canal's security in perpetuity. Lieut. General Dennis McAuliffe is retiring as commander of the 9,200 U.S. troops who will remain in bases near the canal. As the takeover neared, he expressed concern: "I know they will be coming in here planting little Panamanian flags all over the place. Some will even be planting flowers. I just hope they are not going to be planting rocks."

McAuliffe, who will stay on in Panama as the first American administrator of a new canal commission, was referring to the nationalistic riots that helped to persuade the U.S. that it should consider restoring the zone to Panama's control.

By and large, the transition went smoothly. At the stroke of midnight on the appointed day, a team of Panamanian telecommunications workers, led by Torrijo's brother Mardin, took over the Balboa post office from American officials.

Over the next 30 months, Panamanians will assume full control over courts, police and prisons. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government is trying to make things as comfortable as possible for the remaining Zonians. They will have PX privileges at the army bases to compensate for their loss of the subsidized commissary once run by the now defunct Panama Canal Co. They will also receive free postage, and schooling for their children will be provided by the Pentagon. Said Major General Harold Parfitt, the 17th and last governor of the zone, who is going home to Texas: "There will be no tomorrows, only yesterdays, for the Canal Zone."

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