PANAMA: TRUTH COMMISSION DELIVERS ITS FINAL REPORT ON VICTIMS OF THE 1968-1988 MILITARY REGIME.

Panama's truth commission (Comision de la Verdad) issued its final report to organizations representing the victims of torture, assassination, and disappearance during the military regime headed first by Gen. Omar Torrijos (1960-1981) and then by Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega (1981-1988). The

The commission came into being after the discovery of what are thought to be the remains of Jose Hector Gallego, a Colombian priest abducted by the military in 1971. The remains were found on a military base in 1999 (see NotiCen, 1999-01-21).

President Mireya Moscoso, whose late husband Arnulfo Arias was ousted as president in a 1968 military coup led by Torrijos, set up the truth commission in December 2000 to investigate the Gallego gravesite and others found around the country.

The commission continued its work from early 2001 until April 2002 despite setbacks caused by a lack of funds and opposition from the Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD)-- the party founded by Torrijos. His son Martin is secretary general of the PRD (see NotiCen, 2001-01-18). In January 2001, PRD president Balbina Herrera threatened to ask the courts to invalidate the presidential order creating the commission (see NotiCen, 2001-01-18).

In January of this year, commission president Alberto Almanza complained that US anthropologist Sandy Anderson, who headed a forensic team, and the team's bloodhound Eagle had been threatened because of their work locating graves.

The commission formally delivered its report April 17 during a special mass in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Panama City. Receiving the 700-page document were two of the groups representing relatives of the victims, the Comite de Familiares de Desaparecidos de Panama (COFADEPA) and the Comite de Familiares de Desaparecidos de Panama-Hector Gallego (COFADEPA-HG). President Moscoso, Cabinet ministers and commission president Almanza attended.

The report documents 110 of the 148 cases the truth commission examined. Seventy of the victims were murdered and 40 were disappeared. Most of the violations took place between 1968 and 1972 against supporters of former President Arias. Some 40 other cases are yet to be investigated.

The major part of the commission's work was to locate clandestine graves, determine the identity of the victims, and fix the circumstances of their deaths. The commission discovered 24 sites and excavated 36 graves, many of which were located in military buildings in the provinces of Panama and Bocas del Toro, and at the prison facility on Coiba Island off the Pacific coast.