Omar Torrijos

The story of Omar Torrijos began in 1952 with the creation of the Panama National Guard, similar in style to the U.S. National Guard. Its structure and organization received much support from the United States, in reaction to the Communist threat that loomed in many parts of the world. Its first commander was José Antonio Remón Cantera, who later rose to become president, only to be assassinated, the act always remaining a mystery. Remón was the only president of Panama to meet such a fate. Torrijos meantime was slowly rising though the ranks of the Guard under the protection of Commander Bolivar Vallarino. But once Vallarino retired, leadership became muddled in the National Guard, and political aspirations, which had already been there, came to the surface. Mostly of modest or middle class extraction, the officers and troops of the Guard, in common with much of Panama, were tired of decades of domination by the aristocratic, wealthy families of Panama who had held power since independence in 1903. They believed they had better ideas for governing the country - by now of some 1.5 million inhabitants and they decided they might just give it a try. The story must take us back to Arnulfo Arias, who had just been elected to his third term in office on October 1, 1968. The guardsmen staged a military coup against him on October 11, sending Arias into exile into the Panama Canal Zone and declaring Torrijos as head of state. Thus began a military dictatorship that would last for 21 years. Torrijos was one of the colonels leading the coup, but his clever handling of both politics and people soon made him the "strongman" of Panama in 1969 until his mysterious death in a helicopter crash in 1981 in the mountains of Coclé Province. In hindsight, very good and very bad things happened during Torrijos' dictatorship. He set out to modernize the country, both its infrastructure and institutions. He built hundreds of new schools and employed thousands of new teachers, improving education throughout the country.

The Banking Center was his creation. He opened up participation in government to the lower and middle classes, a phenomenon unknown until his day. To Torrijos one must attribute the birth of the middle class, today a thriving, important segment of Panama's society. The ugly parts of every dictatorship were also present, from heavy press censorship, to unresolved disappearances of dissidents, to the milestone disappearance and presumed killing of Catholic priest Hector Gallego, who helped peasants operate a farm co-op in Veraguas Province. That murder is still unresolved, and it seriously tainted the Torrijos regime.

Despite all this, Torrijos had the clout to bring Panamanian masses to support him in the plebiscite called to approve or disapprove the treaty he had negotiated in Washington to once and for all repeal the odious Hay-Buneau Varilla Treaty of 1903. He won and the treaty was approved in Panama and in Washington. The treaties, called the Torrijos-Carter Treaties after their signatories, were signed in the headquarters of the Organization of American States in the presence of countless hemispheric leaders.