Panama and Guyana
WBEZ News correspondent and former Worldview producer Edie Rubinowitz received an assignment that took her away from WBEZ’s Navy Pier studios. She traveled through Panama and Guyana.
The focus of her studies was the reversion of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians, which took place at the end of 1999. She covered the impact of “gag” laws against the press, the conversion of military sites to luxury hotels and tourists attractions, and an island where the U.S. conducted chemical weapons tests in the 1940s, including experiments on U.S. troops. Owners of the island have been unable to convince the U.S. to search for any unexploded chemical bombs and other ordinance that were likely left behind. “This fellowship really gave me the opportunity to do stories that I would never be able to do otherwise,” Edie said.
En route to Panama, Edie visited the small, racially divided South American nation of Guyana, where former Chicagoan Janet (Rosenberg) Jagan is president. On her first day of traveling, she found herself riding in the Guyanese president’s entourage to a remote town where Jagan was dedicating a school. “Only, because it’s a small country, there really wasn’t any entourage,” Edie added. “It was basically just us, talking about how she (Jagan) is trying to control the riots that have stemmed from tensions between the Afro- and Indo-Guyanese populations.”
Edie has returned to WBEZ as a general assignment reporter with a focus in law and legal issues. She will also be reporting on the international community in Chicago and the surrounding area.
Panama in Transition
Part 1, The Island of San Jose, a Test Site for Chemical Weapons with Ric Stauber, Unexploded Ordnance expert, and Chemical and Biological Weapons expert Amy Smithson from the Henry Al Stimpson Center
On December 31, 1999, the United States will turn over the Panama Canal and U.S. Military bases to full Panamanian control. The reversion is part of a 1977 treaty signed by then President Jimmy Carter and Panama's Omar Torrijos.
But as the transition approaches, some say the U.S. has not completely cleaned up after itself.
WBEZ's Edie Rubinowitz is one of the few reporters to visit the Panamanian island of San Jose, which the U.S., along with the U.K. and Canada, used as a chemical weapons test site during World War 2.
For additional information on chemical weapons in Panama, visit the website of the Fellowship of Reconcilliation and Task Force on Latin America and the Carribean.
Read the U.S. State Department's background notes on Panama at Background Notes Archive - Western Hemisphere Source.
Part 2, The "Leyes Mordaza" -- Panama's "Gag" Laws In the 1980s, when Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ruled the Latin American nation, police there routinely raided newspaper offices and closed them down. Panama has long had troubled relations between its government and the press. . . . And today, with Noriega in a Miami prison and President Perez Balladares in power, reporters say the government continues to try to suppress stories -- especially if they're about political corruption.
Nearly ninety Panamanian journalists are currently being prosecuted for what the courts there call "defamation" and could serve prison time. WBEZ's Edie Rubinowitz recently traveled to Panama and has this second report in our series on life in Panama as the canal is returned to this Latin American nation.
Part 3, Swords Into Eco-Tourist Resorts - During the first in our series on Panama as it reclaims the canal from the U.S., you heard about San Jose, an island that may have leftover chemical weapons, but where developers hope tourists will flock. San Jose is just one of the places Panamanians want to turn into tourist spots. As Edie Rubinowitz reports in part three of a series on Panama in Transition, there are lots of former military and canal related facilities that Panama is converting into peaceful, eco-tourist attractions, designed to bring back the Americans and their vacation dollars.
A Jewish woman from the south side of Chicago, Janet Jagan was elected in 1997, following the death of her husband, former president Cheddi Jagan. She is overseeing some tough times in her country -- ongoing labor strikes that have nearly paralyzed the capital city. But more dangerous perhaps is the strife between the two major ethnic groups -- Guyanese of African descent and Guyanese of Indian descent. Race riots have continued periodically since her election, threatening the country's stability. WBEZ's Edie Rubinowitz profiles Janet Jagan and her troubled nation.
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