Center Marks Canal Hand-over Day by Releasing Summary of Roundtable: U.S. Action is Ill-Advised, Potentially Dangerous

(Washington, D.C.): In the wake of Columbian Marxist guerrillas’ lethal attack near the
border
with Panama and on the day the Clinton-Gore Administration formalizes the act of handing-over
to Panama the U.S.-built canal there, together with the hugely valuable surrounding real-estate
and associated infrastructure and equipment, the Center for Security Policy released a summary
of its recent High-Level Roundtable Discussion that illuminated why such a step is likely to harm
the security and other interests of both Panama and the United States.

This Roundtable, entitled “After the Hand-over: the Future of the Panama Canal and
U.S.
Hemispheric Interests,” was held on Pearl Harbor Day. It benefitted from the
participation of
more than 100 experienced national security practitioners, retired senior military officers, former
Members of Congress, congressional aides and members of the press. The 12 page summary
provides highlights of remarks by the following special guests, Lead Discussants and others:

• Former House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon,
  who recounted how the
  United States came to be a party to the 1977 treaties relinquishing control over the Panama
  Canal — and how the intervening years have proven the critics of those treaties to be right.

• A letter prepared for the Roundtable by former Senator Paul Laxalt, the
  leader of Senate
  opposition to the Panama Canal Treaties, expressing the view that — had he and his colleagues
  known then what is now known about the hemispheric context and Communist Chinese
  penetration of the Canal Zone (among other places in the region) — his side would almost
  certainly have had the votes to reject that accord.

• Admiral Leon ‘Bud’ Edney (USN Ret.), former Supreme Allied
  Commander, Atlantic,
  decried the “benign neglect” with which successive U.S. administrations have treated the
  Western hemisphere and expressed grave concern at the present Administration’s failure to
  apply the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine with respect to China’s ominous and growing
  involvement in our backyard.

• In a letter released at the Roundtable, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
  Admiral
  Thomas Moorer warned that the 1977 treaties are creating a “vacuum” that could be
  filled by
  a hostile foreign power and conditions that may make the Canal inoperable for critical periods
  of time.

• A segment focusing on “The Strategic Environment — Ominous
  Developments in the
  Hemisphere” featured comments by Lead Discussants Dr. J. Michael
  Waller, Vice
  President, American Foreign Policy Council; Dr. Norman Bailey, former
  Senior Director,
  International Economic Affairs, National Security Council; Tomas Cabal,
  journalist and
  professor, University of Panama; and Dr. Constantine Menges, former Senior
  Director for
  Latin America, National Security Council. The summary includes comments by them and
  others about such topical issues as: the instability in Columbia; the growing authoritarianism,
  leftist radicalism and anti-Americanism of Venezuelan President Chavez; the increasingly
  warm entente between China and Cuba; escalating economic difficulties and rampant
  corruption in Mexico and Ecuador; and drug-, arms- and alien-smuggling by the PRC, the
  Russian mafia, the made-over KGB and other parties in the region.

• A second segment addressed “The Abiding Strategic, Military and Economic
  Importance
  of the Panama Canal to the United States.” It featured remarks by Lead Discussants
  Vice
  Admiral James Perkins (USN Ret.), former Deputy Commander-in-Chief , U.S.
  Southern
  Command, and former Commander, Military Sealift Command; and Lieutenant General
  Gordon Sumner (Ret.), former Chairman, Inter-American Defense Board. It also
  benefitted
  from a forceful intervention by Major General John Thompson (USA), the
  current
  Chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board.

The summary reflects the strong consensus evident among the participants that U.S.
economic and military interests would be seriously and adversely affected should the
Nation be denied the use of the Canal for a protracted period of time — or even a
relatively short period at a strategically inopportune juncture.

• Finally, the Roundtable addressed the question “Is China an Emerging Threat to
  the Canal
  — and to Hemispheric Security More Generally?” Discussion in this segment was led
  by
  Al Santoli, the editor of the American Foreign Policy Council’s China
  Reform Monitor and
  congressional investigator; Roger Robinson, former Senior Director of
  International
  Economic Affairs, National Security Council; and Dr. Richard Fisher, Office
  of Rep. Chris
  Cox. Among the important interventions offered in this section was a contribution by
  Edward Timberlake, co-author with William Triplett of the
  best-selling books Year of the
  Rat and the newly released Red Dragon Rising.

The summary reflects sobering comments concerning: China’s cooperation with Cuba
in areas of intelligence; the PRC’s willingness to use “engineer battalions” to
introduce military personnel into the Western Hemisphere under the guise of
infrastructure construction; Beijing’s use of military-to-military ties with Ecuador to
acquire “aggressor” training for the People’s Liberation Army to defeat the tactics and
weapon systems the United States has employed and has shared with its allies; the
PLA and other Chinese entities’ increasing exploitation of American debt and equities
markets to raise large sums of money for activities — whether in Venezuela, Sudan,
Iraq or elsewhere — that are highly inimical to U.S. interests; and Chinese attempts to
penetrate, corrupt or otherwise undermine democratic processes in the hemisphere.

Copies of the summary of the High-Level Roundtable on “After the Hand-over” are attached.