Anyone failing to report whatever knowledge they many acquire about a terrorist act will be punishable if a new anti-terrorism bill about to be submitted to congress becomes law. The bill also defines as punishable offences associating to commit a terrorist act and aiding people or groups who commit them.
The justice ministry did not specify what penalties would apply in each of these cases. Minister Alejandro Pérez said that failing to report knowledge of a terrorist act will not be treated in the same manner as active participation in terrorism, 'but is no less important because it will allow us to discover potential terrorists.'
Panama has not been a terrorist target, but has in the past had to deal with terrorists passing through - the most recent case being that of a terrorist sought by Cuba.
Strengthening border security
A bilateral commission has been set up by Panama and Colombia to act against drug-traffickers, guerrillas and paramilitary groups in the jungle area of Darién, on the Colombian border. To be known as Combifron, the commission will focus mainly on the exchange of intelligence and the adoption of common procedures, but its scope will not include joint patrolling.
The US government is supplying Panama's national police (PN) with heavy-duty all-terrain vehicles to beef up security along the border. Panama has no army; it disbanded its defence forces after the US invasion of 1989.
The Darién border area has been used as a conduit for drug-trafficking and gunrunning, and has suffered incursions by Colombia's Farc guerrillas and paramilitary groups.
HONDURAS|Bid to wrest weapons from public
In early July the Honduran congress approved a law intended to mop up the large number of heavier weapons in the hands of the public. It sets a 90-day deadline for the surrender of banned weapons, sweetened by the offer of 1,000 lempiras (US$57) for each one handed in.
The list of banned weapons includes automatic rifles such as AK-47s and M-16s; Uzi machine pistols; FAL, Galil, G-3, Beretta and M-21 rifles; and homemade rifles.
The authorities reckon that there may be more than 500,000 banned weapons in circulation, a large portion of them AK-47s left over from the 1980s, when the country was the forward base for the US-backed Contras conducting raids into Nicaragua. The AK-47 is often used in holdups.
In late June President Ricardo Maduro submitted to congress a bill which will punish membership of criminal gangs known as maras with up to 12 years' imprisonment.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC|Transit of Iraqi terrorists denied
President Hipólito Mejía was at pains to refute a claim made in the US press in early July that Iraqi terrorists had transited through the Dominican Republic in a bid to enter the US. The report, published by the New York Daily News cited a leaked bulletin of the Homeland Security Department which purportedly said that 10 terrorists had made their way through the Dominican Republic to Haiti.
The Dominican authorities are particularly sensitive since, a month earlier, the country was cited among the 15 worst violators of US standards in the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report 2003. This ranking makes it liable to sanctions. [Also in the same category are Belize, Cuba, Haiti and Suriname.]
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