A TOP PANAMA  LEADER GUNNED DOWN, A MESSAGE FOR TODAY
by Mark Scheinbaum American Reporter Correspondent
      PANAMA CITY, PANAMA (13 Mar. 2009)--They laid Anel Omar to rest yesterday with full state honors. The murder of a complex renaissance man who was the type of guy who probably would have attended a funeral such as his own, was also a barometer of growing, uncontrolled violence in Panama.

    Angel Omar Rodriguez, 46, was gunned down on a city street Tuesday, an innocent bystander to a foiled heist of an armored truck. At his death he was Director of the National Institute of Culture (INAC), and those who knew him reported that a simple act of courtesy which was his hallmark proved his last venture in life.

    The President of Panama, the Archbishop of Panama, the political candidates, the artists, the military the high and the mighty joined with hundreds of others Thursday to put it all into perspective. But when all the pomp was over Anel Omar and an unsung security guard Samuel Monroy lay dead from a barrage of gunfire in what could have looked and sounded like a Wild West shoot out outside the National Lottery Building on 31st Street in the Calidonia section of the city.
    Of course the commentators, political candidates in the May presidential election, sociologists, and editorial writers will all have their spin on the incident. The short story is:
    A former Panama ambassador to Cuba, Omar had facilitated a cultural visit by a group of Cuban musicians. The tour was over and on Tuesday morning Omar decided to drive to a local hotel for a final thank you to the artists before they headed for the ride to the airport and back home. As with most of the city these days one is lucky to get a parking spot anywhere near your destination. Omar found a spot a short walk from the hotel next to the side of the National Lottery Building.     As he got out of his car a group of bandits rolled up guns blazing to intercept an armored truck delivering an estimated $70,000 in cash to the loading dock of the Lottery headquarters. As the assault started, Monroy and at least two other guards returned  fire. It must have been like the worst video game you ever saw.Omar was hit with a bullet and died enroute to St.Thomas hospital.


    Two alleged robbers were seriously wounded, Omar and Monroy were dead, three other crooks whose identity the cops say they now have escaped but are being hunted,  and a central business district was thrown into chaos.
    Omar had been a soldier, a writer, an artist, a diplomat, a dad, a public servant, and by all accounts a gentleman. From Havana came messages of shock and outrage from musicians, painters, diplomats and others in the Cuban capital who felt Omar had been a voice of friendship and good will between the two countries.
    But on the streets of Panama people shook their heads. At the exclusive Union Club in the upscale high rise neighborhood of Paitilla Tuesday, the lunchtime crowd buzzed with discussions of violence in movies, TV, lack of parenting, and lack of government crackdowns on Colombian drug lords and street crime.
    In addition to the growth of organized crime the "delinquency" of youth has not been helped by a feud between education ministry leaders and teachers union reps in which demands for more pay led to institution of "less work." The December to March "summer vacation" was delayed until mid March, then April 1st and now April 14th. Kids are bored, teachers are broke, parents are mad, and business owners are furious as parents spend less time working and more time juggling schedules and baby sitting.
    As recently as five years ago an observer could note anecdotally that there was at least some rhyme and reason to crime in Panama. There were Chinese-on-Chinese crimes like the racketeers of Chicago of old. Ethnic Chinese store owners, business entrepreneurs, couriers, restaurateurs and others  either paid for protection or were beaten up. If you didn't get the message you were killed. In rare cases your relatives were killed.
    Trendy boulevard cafes were the favorite venues of a string of "moto" killers. An attorney, usually Colombian or working for Colombians would be out for a cafe con leche or snack when a helmeted rider clad in black on a motorcycle would pull up to the curb, shoot him contract killer-style, and speed off into the traffic. It was horrific and all-too-common but there was a bad guys killing bad guys sense to it.  Tourists were fairly safe, and petty crimes were limited to purse snatching and an occasional car jacking in which thieves were looking for ATM money from victims.
    But somewhere in the past three years as violence in other cities of the Americas grew, the crooks figured out that dead people don't report credit card thefts. And with your code and cards they might use your ATM funds for days.Locals and foreigners alike were targets of home and apartment invasions and violent assaults in the street, in their cars, and at ATM machines.
    Prominent businessmen in the Colon Free Trade Zone were attacked, and the president elect of the local Rotary Club was shot and killed in a botched $10,000 ransom attempt. Jewish business owners reportedly started chartering well guarded helicopters to commute to work, and uniformed and plainclothes security personnel with hidden sidearms, lightweight Uzis, and very visible assault shot guns were beefed up around synagogues and predominantly Jewish residential and shopping areas.
    One presidential candidate a populist former minor Manuel Noriega official named Balbina Herrera started the campaign as a populist friend of the little folks. A defender of the underdog. A spokesman for the underclass.     Now "Balbina" whose most recent media claim to fame was catching a full can of beer with her face while nudging through the Carnival crowds, is the law and order gal. (Without much proof she accused the opposition of arranging the beer can attack).  Billboards have been updated and new slogans rolled out, the gist of which are: "No leniency for minors! Fight Crime with a Hard Hand! (mano duro).
    It all coalesced in the National Cathedral as Omar's wife, sons, and brothers and his former military academy comrades  said good-bye. The handful of pallbearers were augmented by hundreds of people waiting helter skelter to get into the funeral services, who suddenly became silent when the coffin arrived and split down the middle into a double file cortege behind the coffin and into the church.
    President Martin Torrijos, a longtime personal friend of Omar's told the crowd, " He fulfilled every assignment, was an important builder of our nation, a constant and significant example of national loyalty."     In posthumously awarding Omar the nation's Grand Cross award, he added, with a trembling voice:  "He loved with an infinite passion his nation as a political servant, a human rights advocate, a sensitive artist, admired father and son and a coworker of this government."
    Archbishop Jose Dimas Cedeno during a service which included a tribute from the National Symphony Orchestra of Panama, told the mourners:     Omar's "vision of culture is an instrument of peace, the way to diminish violence."
    In a signed editorial in today's La Estrella/Panama Star, Panama's oldest newspaper, political analyst and engineer Jose Blandon tried to deduce some sense from Omar's death--with obvious difficulty.
    He wrote about the end of the Cold War and the replacement of localized violence in the culture especially of the youth of many nations. But he perhaps came closest to expressing the "security" quandary of the folks in the street  when without giving us the exact number he reported that so far in 2009 this city of  more than 1.5 million people had reported "twice the murders in all of 2004."
    Blandon crystallized the political points being made by Herrera and her front-running presidential opponent Ricardo Martinelli (a supermarket chain magnate) with:
    "...The conceptual strategies for confronting the problems of security move along two extremes: those of privilege who want the 'hard hand' and those who consider strong security as repression--and that violence and delinquency hold their origins in poverty and there are no solutions to this situation. It's very difficult to simply reduce (to slogans) this problem."
    For Omar's oldest son the irony of ironies in his dad's murder was that the elder Omar "always maintained thoughts of how to be kind and courteous to his fellow man. He was without doubt someone who did not have to put a price on loyalty."                             -30-