Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 28, 1981
PAGE 11
We wanted to extend our special "thank you" for sharing yourself with
our young people again this year at SEP, orr, Minnesota. Mr. Arm
strong, I thought you were kidding us when you say you are getting
younger each year; but apparently not.
When my 14-year-old son
returned from the second session, he was asked how Mr. Armstrong
appeared to him. His reply was, "Much younger than I expected. He came
down those steps like a 13 year old." Of course, we were overjoyed to
hear this because we know it takes God's Spirit to accomplish that; and
it takes much Godly character in you for that Spirit to flow so freely.
We love you for being such a tremendous example to God's people.
C.E. (Ellisville, MS)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
FUTURE TROUBLESPOT--PANAMA The death of Panama's General Omar Torrijos in a
plane crash on July 31 has clouded the political future of this crossroads
nation of the Americas--now the possessor of the vital Panama Canal, once
America's pride and joy. Washington, understandably, is very concerned.
Torrijos had stepped down in 1978 from his role as head of government in
Panama, a function he had held since a military coup d'etat ten years
earlier: But his replacement, current president Aristides Royo, has been a
mere figurehead. Torrijos, as commander of the National Guard, Panama's
combined army and national police force, which is the nation's real power
base, remained the tiny country's real boss.
As is common to most dictators, Torrijos groomed no successor. Writes R. M.
Koster in the NEW YORK TIMES: "His great figure kept others out of the sun;
no one in Panama has his authority or stature ••.It is not simply that a vast
power vacuum has opened. Panama's center of gravity has suddenly vanished,
and the country is liable to go reeling off in almost any direction."
Over the next few months there will be a struggle for power, not always
publicly discernable, within the Guardia Nacional. Current front-runners
may not win out in the end. Instead the victor may be some major or captain,
unknown beyond the barracks. But eventually the bubble will rise to the sur
face.
Torrijos himself was at first a minor figure in the 1968 coup, but he had a
shrewd political sense and a knack of playing forces off against each other.
The "maximum leader" also had a keen sense of international political tim
ing. To solidify his own revolution, he seized the issue of sovereignty over
the U.S. Canal Zone at a moment when American power and prestige was at an
ebb. The U.S., in 1968, was deeply enmeshed in Vietnam and confronted with
anti-war demonstrations on American campuses. Earlier negotiations over the
canal, begun by President Lyndon B. Johnson, had bogged down.
Torrijos
turned up the heat.
The big question is: What effect will the future leader have on operations
of the Panama Canal, vital as ever to U.S. and international waterborne
commerce? Will he take an anti-U.S. stance in order to consolidate his power
base? He can always tap Panamanian frustrations, lying uneasily below the
surface.
There is still lingering resentment in Panama of the canal treaties. The
U.S. does not relinquish operational rights to the waterway until 2000.