A Movement, a Plan, a Canal

By ADAM CLYMER

Published: March 15, 2008

Washington

THIRTY years ago tomorrow, the conservative movement lost a major battle on the way to winning a larger war. On March 16, 1978, the Senate approved — 68 to 32, with just a single vote to spare — the first of two treaties that transferred the Panama Canal to Panama. Conservatives lamented the result, saying it threatened national security and might put the canal in Communist hands.

But losing the canal led to important victories for conservatives. The transfer of the canal to Panama provided the margins for defeat of five Democratic senators in 1978 and 1980, enough to give Ronald Reagan a Republican majority when he took office in 1981. That majority was essential to Mr. Reagan’s legislative successes.

It was not the first time the transfer of the canal had provided a lifeline for Mr. Reagan. Late in March 1976, his campaign for the presidential nomination was on the rocks. He had lost five straight primaries. The campaign was broke. Nancy Reagan was urging her husband to drop out, and his campaign manager, John Sears, was negotiating with President Gerald Ford’s camp about Mr. Reagan’s withdrawal.

With his back to the wall, Mr. Reagan campaigned intensely on the canal issue in the Republican primary in North Carolina. “We bought it. We built it. We paid for it,” he would say, and Panama should be told that “we intend to keep it.”

Mr. Reagan emphasized that message on the stump and on television. Fifteen of the state’s 17 television stations carried a half-hour speech that stressed the importance of the canal. And he startled the Ford campaign, friends like William F. Buckley and himself by winning North Carolina.

He continued to campaign on the issue in Texas, where Mr. Reagan won all the delegates, and in other Southern states. Mr. Reagan ultimately lost, very narrowly, to Mr. Ford at the Republican convention in Kansas City, Mo. But he won the convention’s heart and became the front-runner for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination.

Thirty years later, with the canal running smoothly under Panama’s control, it is hard to recapture the emotions that made it such a potent issue in the ’70s.

For decades children had read of how, after France had failed, the United States defeated jungle and disease to build the canal, the greatest engineering work in the history of the world. They read of the heroism and determination of the work, if only glancingly of the American military intervention that created a pliant Panama. As one popular 1928 text put it: “American pluck and luck conquered all. The grand dream was realized. In 1913 the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific were united.”

So the idea of giving up the canal — an idea understood and accepted by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and acted on by Jimmy Carter — felt wrong to a majority of Americans. Voters were chagrined by defeat in Vietnam and resentful of a challenge from a tiny country the United States had sired, or at least midwifed.

Months of effort by President Carter and his administration failed to move poll figures showing public opposition to transferring the canal to Panama. Senators later defeated by conservative Republicans knew the risk. “Come on and watch me lose my seat,” Thomas McIntyre, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said to his wife, Myrtle, as he left his office to vote.

The debate left the Panama Canal undamaged, even thriving, but it scarred American politics. The right went after senators like Mr. McIntyre and Frank Church, a Democratic senator from Idaho, with attacks financed by a new wrinkle in campaigning: political action committees with independent-sounding names and no accountability to voters. The tactic foreshadowed single-issue attacks over issues from abortion to gun control.

Pre-emptive attacks on incumbents before any opponents are even running against them, like the ones that wounded Mr. Church, are now commonplace. The ideological nature of today’s politics also has its roots in the debate over the canal; treaty foes sought to punish moderate Republicans, too.

The Panama Canal no longer divides Panama. Instead, the fissures opened three decades ago helped divide the United States.

Adam Clymer, a former Washington correspondent for The Times, is the author of the forthcoming “Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right.”

sumber: nytime.com

ASEAN must enforce charter for Myanmar

We support the United Nations’ initiatives to improve the current situation in Burma (Myanmar) with regard to human rights issues. However, the UN’s special envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari has not achieved maximum results.

What can ASEAN do to help smooth the process?

On Tuesday, March 4, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda spoke before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Hassan made it clear the council should increase cooperation and dialogue with Burma in an effort to develop and protect human rights.

As a member of the human rights community in Indonesia, we fully support that statement, although we are sorry that the special rapporteur in Burma, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, was not allowed to make a follow-up visit to Burma after December 2007. However, we want Indonesia, along with other ASEAN countries, to take a firm stance and strengthen their policies in order to change the situation in Burma.

We know ASEAN now has a charter to live together as one community. This is an important step toward the fundamental principle agreed to by ASEAN, that of “democracy and constitutional government”. Inspired by Latin America, Africa and Europe, ASEAN countries agreed to establish a human rights body.

Regardless of their weaknesses, the charter and the human rights body are a step forward. It shows ASEAN is moving away from a stance of non-interference, long considered an obstacle in our efforts to support freedom, human rights and democracy in Burma.

The UN, civil society groups and human rights NGOs around the region and the world have all tried to achieve this aim. The big question is: how to lead the country out of its political crisis?

One thing is certain, we should not stop trying. We must work together to build a new Burma, a country without a military dictatorship.

We are very sorry to see that Burma is still one of the most unstable countries in Southeast Asia. The global community certainly needs to pay very close attention, both on an international and regional level.

The military junta in Burma has a very bad record when it comes to political violence. The brutal response to the peaceful demonstrations on Sept. 23, last year, was only the most recent example.

In Indonesia, many human rights NGOs condemned this terrible repression. We opposed the violent response to monks and civilians who protested peacefully. We fully supported the secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, as he requested the foreign affairs ministers of China, India and Singapore take concrete steps to promote a peaceful dialogue in Burma.

All the monks and protesters should be released and receive protection from the state, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

What we have seen in Burma also happened in Indonesia. During Soeharto’s authoritarian regime human rights violations were common. We urge Burma to learn from the lessons of the transitional process in Indonesia, which began with the fall of Soeharto — and constitutional reform, legal reform and security reform continues to this day.

In the near future, we hope Burma enters a new chapter of its history. In the presence of international observers ensuring a fair and free referendum is held, a new constitution should be implemented after May 2008 and a general election held in 2010.

However, it is a pity the constitutional drafting process has not yet included consultations with the people of Burma. This is reflected by the fact the draft will disqualify the opposition from being involved in the general election, including its leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In reality, Suu Kyi is still under detention. The draft constitution also gives the armed forces 25 percent of the seats in parliament, to be appointed by the military commander.

The referendum could be the start of a new chapter for Burma and play a significant role in constructing a democratic government and opening dialogue.

It is very important for ASEAN to make sure the military junta involves Burmese civil society in drafting the constitution. The people’s endorsement is crucial to legitimize ASEAN’s aim to build democracy and constitutional governments in our respective countries.

The writer is the executive director of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

sumber: the jakarta post