Word: panama
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That impression has been strengthened still more by the fact that the lawmakers have pushed into 1978?an election year for all Congressmen and 33 Senators?some of the rougher fights: Panama Canal treaty ratification, welfare reform, tax reform. Says Massachusetts Democrat Gerry Studds: "We don't really have a great deal to show so far. The big issues have either not been addressed or are unresolved...
...intervene militarily to protect the canal once Panama is in control...
...question has aroused more anxiety or opposition to the pact. Until 2000, the U.S. will control the canal and its military bases. After that the treaty states that the U.S. and Panama shall maintain the "neutrality" of the canal, a clause that seemed alarmingly vague to many people. When it became apparent that this concern was about to sink the treaty, Panama's head of state, General Omar Torrijos Herrera, went to Washington, and he and Carter issued a joint "statement of understanding." The "correct interpretation," they said, is that each country shall defend the canal against any aggressive...
...very easily, say the people who should know: the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They believe it is in the national interest to cede control of the waterway. Acting alone, surrounded by a hostile population not only in Panama but in the rest of Latin America, the U.S. would need an estimated 100,000 troops to put down a determined guerrilla effort. And even that sizable a force could not seal off the waterway's lock mechanisms, dams and power plants from some kind of sabotage. A band of skilled terrorists, for example, could approach the Gatun Dam through...
...Panama Canal treaty is no historical accident, no caprice of idle statesmen. It has been twelve long, arduous, ruminative years in the making; it is an idea whose time has come-and whose time may be running out, given the objection to the treaty among many Latin Americans, especially in Panama. Strongman or not, Torrijos is faced with opposition, chiefly radicals who are considerably farther to the left than he is. If the treaty is not ratified, if trouble breaks out in Panama, it will be all the harder to draw up a subsequent pact in an atmosphere of mutual...