Omar Torrijos Herrera
Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera (Santiago, February 13, 1929-Cerro Marta, July 31, 1981) was an army officer and later dictator of Panama, who, along with Boris Martínez and José H. Ramos Bustamante, led the coup d'état of 1968. He was head of State of the Republic of Panama from 1968 to 1981. In the 1972 Constitution he was named "Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution".
He was the father of Martín Torrijos Espino, who was president of Panama from 2004-2009.
Early Years
He was born in Santiago, province of Veraguas, Republic of Panama, being the sixth of twelve children of teacher parents, the Colombian José María Torrijos Rada (Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca) and the Panamanian Joaquina Herrera Gordillo. He studied at the Juan Demóstenes Arosemena school and won a scholarship at a military academy in San Salvador and completed his military training at the US-run School of the Americas in the Panama Canal zone. He graduated with a commission as a second lieutenant. He joined the Panamanian National Guard in 1952 and was promoted to captain in 1956. He married Raquel Pauzner, with whom he had three children: Dumas Torrijos, Raquel de María Torrijos and Omar José Torrijos.[ citation required] He had three more children out of wedlock, Carmen Alicia, Martín Torrijos Espino and Tuira Torrijos.[citation required]
Trajectory
In 1959, as a captain in the National Guard, he was tasked with putting down an armed uprising of young insurgents on Cerro Tute in the province of Veraguas.
He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1966 and in 1968 he participated, along with other soldiers, including Boris Martínez and Jose H. Ramos, in a coup against the president-elect, Arnulfo Arias Madrid. José María Pinilla Fábrega proclaimed himself president, but later there were internal changes in the coup leadership that led Torrijos to the military leadership (Martínez was exiled in 1969) and he proclaimed himself a brigadier general, assuming political leadership in March 1969.
Torrijos consolidated his power by taking command of the governmental authority, dissolving existing political parties.
In 1970, after 30 years of occupation, the Río Hato Military Base, located in the province of Coclé, was received from the hands of the North Americans, and the 6th Rifle Company installed the Military Instruction Center there. and Armored Expeditionary, the Macho de Monte Special Brigade, the Los Rudos Heavy Equipment Company and, in 1974, the General Tomás Herrera Military Institute, a unit of the National Guard, which would be dedicated to the training of military high school graduates at the secondary level (future quarry of officers of the National Guard).
Under these conditions, the Torrijos regime called for elections to create a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new Constitution, which in its article 277 said that Torrijos is recognized as the maximum leader of the Panamanian revolution and gave him almost absolute powers in 1972.
Article 277. It is recognized as the Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution to Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Accordingly, and in order to ensure the fulfilment of the objectives of the revolutionary process, it is granted, at the end of six years, the exercise of the following powers: to coordinate all the work of the Public Administration; to appoint and freely separate the Ministers of State and the Members of the Commission of Legislation; to appoint the Comptroller General and the Subcontractor General of the Republic, the Directors General of the autonomous and semi-autonomous entities General Omar Torrijos Herrera will also have the power to attend with voice and vote the meetings of the Cabinet Council and the National Council of Legislation, and to participate with the right to voice in the debates of the National Assembly of Representatives of Corrections and the Provincial Councils for Coordination and the Communal Boards.Political Constitution of the Republic of Panama of 1972
Torrijos introduced a populist policy, opening schools and creating jobs and redistributing agricultural land. The reforms were accompanied by a major public works program. During his administration, Panama became an international banking center. He also confronted North American multinationals, demanding higher wages for workers, and redistributed 180,000 hectares of uncultivated land. In February 1974, in response to the influence of these multinationals, tried to create the Union of Banana Exporting Countries with the other Central American states following the OPEC model for oil, but did not get their support. His policy favors the emergence of a middle class and the representation of indigenous communities.
In international politics, Torrijos supports Chilean President Salvador Allende and welcomes refugees after Augusto Pinochet's coup. He helped the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua and other rebel forces in El Salvador and Guatemala, and renewed relations diplomatic with Cuba. An admirer of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal, he embarked on a fight against the United States to gain Panamanian sovereignty over the Panama Canal. In 1973, given the lack of progress in the negotiations with Washington, he tried to get the UN to intervene: «That we have never been, that we are not, nor will we ever be, neither an associated state, nor a colony or protectorate, nor do we want to add a star plus to the United States flag." Washington was outvoted and vetoed the resolution. Finally, in 1977, it signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaty (replacing the earlier Hay-Bunau Varilla treaty), according to which the military bases were legalized and the neutrality of the Panama Canal was established in perpetuity, as well as a date for the end of the US military presence and the return of the Panama Canal. Thus, on December 31, 1999, the United States returned the Panama Canal to the Panamanians.
For the treaties to be approved by the United States Senate, Panama sees the need to adopt a democratic opening, which was reflected in the legalization of political parties, in a relative journalistic liberalization and in the return of various political exiles. However, the treaties were opposed by a large part of the population, as they were nothing more than another version of the so-called "three-in-one treaties" or Robles-Johnson, rejected by Panama in 1965 precisely because, among other things, they legalized the presence of the United States in Panamanian territory.[citation needed] The riots that followed They left as a balance the murder of the student leader Jorge Camacho (member of the FER-29) within the premises of the University of Panama and the immolation in Sweden of Leopoldo Aragón in addition to several people imprisoned after receiving public attacks by the National Guard. Finally, the treaties were approved by the majority of the Panamanian people [citation required] and ratified by both countries.
Death
Torrijos died in a plane crash when the DeHavilland Twin Otter (DHC-6) aircraft of the Panamanian Air Force crashed on Friday, July 31, 1981. The aircraft disappeared from radar screens due to extreme weather conditions, but due to the limited coverage of the Panamanian radar, the loss of the aircraft was not reported for about 24 hours afterwards. The impact site was located several days later, and Torrijos' body was recovered by a special forces command in the first days of August. He was buried in the Amador cemetery, in a state funeral; The mortal remains of him were later transferred to a mausoleum, at the entrance to the old Canal Zone. [citation needed ]
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Torrijos's death led to charges of assassination.[citation needed] John Perkins recounted in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman that the Torrijos's death was not accidental. According to Perkins, Torrijos was assassinated by the US Intelligence Agency (CIA) who opposed the negotiations between Torrijos and a group of Japanese businessmen led by Shigeo Nagano who proposed the construction of a level canal through Panama. However, documents related to the accident disappeared during the US invasion of Panama in 1989. At Manuel Antonio Noriega's pre-trial hearings in Miami in May 1991, Noriega's attorney, Frank Rubino, said: "General Noriega has in his possession documents that demonstrate the attacks suffered by him and Torrijos, all orchestrated by agencies of the United States Government ".