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A Short History of Panama

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Panama used to be among the colonies of Spain in America until its secession to join the Gran Columbia. It was a Spaniard—Rodrigo de Bastidas—who first spotted Panama in 1501 and who dropped anchor off the Caribbean Coast in Portobelo with the help of Christopher Columbus. In 1510 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa established the first successful colony and became governor of the region three years before he discovered the Pacific Ocean. Because of the strongholds established by pirates on the Caribbean Coast, the Spanish empire began to decline in 1821, forcing Panama to become part of independent Columbia from which it later seceded to establish itself as a separate republic with the help of the United States through a bloodless revolution in 1903. On November 3 of the same year, rebels headed by Manuel Amador Guerrero declared Panama as an independent republic and two weeks later, signed the Hay-Bunan Varilla Treaty granting US the right to build and administer Panama Canal, a ship canal joining Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1968, General Omar Torrijos took over the reins of government and became a virtual strongman until his death in an airplane accident in 1981. Into the end of that decade Panama-US relations turned sour as a result of the death of a US soldier at a road block of the Panamanian Defense Forces headed by Gen. Manuel Noriega. The US eventually launched Operation Just Cause and invaded Panama in December 1989, a few days before the administration of the Canal was to be turned over to Panamanian control. The invasion, which left many PDF members killed, forced General Noriega to seek asylum in the Vatican diplomatic mission but surrendered to the US military after a few days and was subsequently arrested by US federal authorities.

On December 31, 1999, under the Torrijos-Carter Treaty, the US returned all Canal-related lands to Panama, which gained thereafter full administration of the Canal, as well as control of the Canal-related buildings and infrastructures.