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Arnulfo Arias Madrid
By the time I was born during the mid-1930’s the political climate in the small Republic of Panama was heating up to fever pitch and the racist and xenophobic tide in popular attitudes found their greatest exponent in one particular spokesman. Arnulfo Arias Madrid was born in Penonomé, the capital of Coclé province in western Panama on August 15, 1901. Upon being awarded a government scholarship he went to high school in Binghamton, New York, and then attended the University of Chicago and Harvard University which awarded him a medical degree.
Later, he specialized in Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Endocrinology. After interning at Boston City Hospital, he returned to Panama in 1925. He never did practice his profession in medicine, however, but found his niche and an outlet for his passion in the realm of politics.
In 1931, by now a young politician, he led the U.S. based Communal Action (Acción Comunal) group which he had founded, in a coup that deposed President Florencio Harmodio Arosemena. Too young to become president himself, he served as agriculture and public works minister under his brother, Harmodio Arias (1886–1962), who was president from 1932–36 and held diplomatic posts in Europe.
He was elected president in 1940 by a large majority and, influenced by German fascism, pursued controversial racist policies, disenfranchising the non-Spanish speaking population, declaring support for the Axis powers during World War II, and imprisoning dissidents. He was ousted in October 1941 in a U.S. supported coup and was exiled until 1945. At one point he became known, in fact, as “Mr. Coup.” Arias was reelected president in 1949, but was deposed again in May 1951, after suspending the constitution and establishing his own secret police; he lost his political rights until 1960.
After an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1964, he was elected in 1968, but was, once again, ousted by the National Guard after only 11 days in power. He failed in a final presidential bid, made in 1984 but his wife, Mireya Moscoso, was elected president of Panama in 1999.
The 1941 Constitution
Upon becoming the Constitutional President of the Republic of Panama, Arnulfo Arias insisted on the necessity of replacing the 1904 constitution, which, if we recall, gave the United States sweeping powers in The Panama Canal Zone as well as in Panama. By means of a legislative act dictated by the National Assembly on November 22, 1940 a new constitution was promulgated. During an ensuing plebiscite conducted on December 15, 1940 an affirmative vote prevailed countermanding the Constitution of 1904, and the new constitution became official on January 2, 1941.
In my next post I will delineate the specific articles from the 1941 Constitution that directly affected the Westindians or “citizens of the Antilles” as they were categorized. The disposition of Westindian citizens, if isthmian history serves us, had been legally transferred to Panama by agreement between the North American government and the Colombian government during the construction of the Panama Railroad in 1850 which was then transferred to the Republic of France during the French Canal Era in 1880.
In 1903 the newly created Republic of Panama and the North American government came together and in a series of mutual accords (treaties) made provisions for the allowance of the hiring of imported labor- Westindian imported labor- due to the scarcity of suitable manual labor for the construction of the North American Canal that was finished in 1914. We must recall that the Westindians were found to be the best suited during the construction of the Panama Railroad for the climate as well as the backbreaking work.
As we will see, once the work was concluded on the Canal some were repatriated and many, particularly those Westindians who already had families in Panama chose to reside permanently in the country. It would be on these Westindian families that the severest forms of discrimination would fall, discrimination that had been fueled in the Canal Zone through the Silver/Gold Roll system and was now legalized constitutionally in Panama with the creation of Title II of the Constitution of 1941.
For a more in-depth look at the Constitutions in question please refer to the Biblioteca Nacional Catalog of Constitutions (pdf).
This story continues.
