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Weekly Report - 5 May 2011 (WR-11-18)
PANAMA: Martinelli receives a key endorsement
“A strong friendship that isn't just at the government level, but [at
a] person-to-person level". This was how US President Barack Obama described
Panama-US relations during an unprecedented meeting with President Ricardo
Martinelli. The encounter signified a victory for Martinelli on many levels. It
yielded further signs that US congressional approval of the bilateral Free Trade
Agreement (FTA) - previously declared by Martinelli to be his foreign policy
priority - is only a matter of time. Obama's ringing endorsement also comes at a
particularly tricky point in diplomatic relations, which have soured as a result
of US concern regarding Martinelli's perceived anti-democratic tendencies and
his government's corruption, expressed in US embassy cables released by
WikiLeaks and the latest US State Department report on Human Rights.
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