1964 - Detail

January 9, 1964 - The Panama Canal incident occurs when Panamanian mobs engage United States troops, leading to the death of twenty-one Panama citizens and four U.S. troops.



Article by Jason Donovan

For centuries, the act of moving goods, cargo, and people from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice versa required ships to sail around the tip of South America, known as Cape Horn. This journey took roughly twenty-seven days, give or take, and was an extremely perilous voyage that has claimed many lives over the years. The idea that there must be a quicker, safer way to travel between oceans had long been debated. A canal through Panama was settled on in the early twentieth century. The United States was involved with the project, after the French project failed. The area around the canal is called the canal zone. The U.S.'s involvement in controlling the canal created tension between the native Panamanians and the Americans living in the zone, known as Zonians. The tensions between Panamanians, Zonians, and successive U.S. administrations would simmer for years. This tension finally boiled over, resulting in the deadly uprising of 9 January 1964, known in Panama as "Martyr's Day."

The canal's history arguably begins in 1903 with the signing of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty by President Theodore Roosevelt. Following the signing of this treaty, tensions arose due to the lingering effects of its terms. The treaty gave Americans the bulk of the benefits. The effect of this arrangement established a two-tiered system, with the Zonians, backed entirely by the American government, being the first class. At the same time, the native Panamanians were the underclass, thus getting the scraps of the canals' benefits. The situation was put into clear terms when Ashley Byrne, in her article entitled "50 years ago this week, riots determined the fate of the Panama Canal," when she quoted Jose Ponse, who gave a firsthand account of what it was like for the Panamanians living around the canal zone when he stated, ...

"There was an apartheid that existed in the colonial atmosphere of the zone. You had the segregation of a group of workers mainly from the Antilles — Afro descendants that were completely segregated."

National pride was also at play in this instance. Panamanians are a proud people, as they should be. Panama's national interest was not taken seriously over the years. They were basically just speaking into the wind. When a nation's pride and say in their own country is taken from them, a small situation turns into a ticking time bomb. Tensions over the flying of the Panamanian flag were not new, according to a CIA briefing dated 10 January 1964, which states that violence had broken out in 1959 due to an issue with the flag. With pressure, once again, growing over the flying of the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone, the Canal Zone Governor, Major General Robert J. Fleming Jr., had, in an attempt to defuse the situation, selected seventeen locations where both the American and Panamanian flags would fly side by side. As part of this decision, no flags would be allowed outside the chosen locations. As has happened multiple times in world history, a small group from the colonial occupiers does something foolish and not well thought out.

Provocation

The group in this particular case was a group of American high school students from a high school in Balboa, located within the zone, who, in direct defiance of the governor's order, raised the American flag in front of their school. This act was a provocation that would not go unanswered. One hundred and fifty students from a local Panamanian high school marched in protest while carrying their national emblem. The students left after being told to disperse and go home. In a direct quote from a 17 January 1964 article in Time, ...

"U.S. officials, "there was no more trouble than you'd expect at a Yale-Princeton football game."

The students' march was just a moment of calm waters before the hurricane. An event during the students' march would set off the powder keg. During a scuffle between the two groups of students, the Panamanian flag was torn. The Panamanians would not take any more. Even a tire has a pressure limit. Years of discrimination and anger boiled over into violent and deadly actions. The main disturbances were in Panama City and Colon. In Panama City, by 6:30 pm, hundreds of people had gathered after word of the flag-tearing spreading as fast as the winds of a category five hurricane, as the crowd grew along the length of the canal zone border, attempting to enter the zone in order to plant their flag. As the crowd grew even larger, the officials within the canal zone made multiple attempts to contact the Guardia Nacional of Panama, but received no response.

With no backup forthcoming, the police force of the Balboa district made up of no more than eighty men had to cover the nearly two-kilometer-long border. At first, the police used tear gas in an attempt to control the crowd. With the stocks of tear gas running low, guns were deployed. With the situation continuing to escalate and crowds growing, acting Governor Of The Zone Lieutenant Governor Colonel David Parker contacted the commander of United States forces, General Andrew P. O'Meara, Commander in Chief of the Army's Southern Command, for reinforcements, advising him he was about to be overrun. O'Meara approved sending troops to contain what had now turned into a full scale uprising.

The Riot

The Panamanians had started to stop cars, flipping them over and setting them on fire. The crowds started attacking the train station and a laundry, attempting to destroy both. A small force of police conducted a holding operation as the nearby residential area was evacuated. Using tear gas, the small group began to move the crowd back. The commanding officer ordered his men to fire over or in front of the crowd. Some rounds went into the crowd, killing a twenty- year-old student at the National Institute named Ascanio Arosamena, becoming one of the first deaths.

At the same time, in other areas along the border, more cars were burned and rocks were launched into more residential areas. A crowd tore down a fence and began advancing on a district judge's house, using Molotov cocktails to light it on fire. The areas mentioned above and the violence described were not the most violent.

The central area of the border was the area of the most violent activity; the areas of the Legislative Palace and the Pan American Building in Panama, and the Hotel Tivoli in the Canal Zone. At this part of the border, the violence started in the early evening while there was still a fair amount of traffic in the streets. Rocks were thrown at passing cars, and traffic lights were torn down. With the word of violence spreading, the normal evening traffic seemed to evaporate.

As the evening continued, the crowd of thousands congregated around the Pan American Building. As in the other parts of the border, cars were burned, and traffic lights continued to be torn down. The difference in this area was that windows were smashed, and doors were broken before looting commenced, continuing through the night. The situation escalated when the Pan American Building was set on fire, burning through the night. The fire was the cause of a great tragedy, as six people were trapped in the burning building.

By around 8:30 to 9:00, the army had reinforced the police and took control of the zone. Later in the evening, the troops around the Hotel Tivoli began to come under sniper fire, mainly from the Pan American Building and the Legislative Palace. With their rules of engagement not to use firearms, shots were not returned at first. As the fire intensified, these orders were changed to allow the use of shotguns with birdshot directed towards the Panamanian side.

As a result of the incoming bullets and after O'Meara attempted to contact his Panamanian counterparts with no success, he ordered a sergeant to take a group of men to the hotel with more powerful weapons to eliminate the snipers firing on his forces. These men started their task on the early morning of the tenth. The firefight lasted for roughly two to three hours. When it was all said and done, the Panamanians had fired roughly 465 rounds at the hotel, and 400-500 rounds came from the canal zone side. Ten U.S. servicemen were injured, along with, based on local hospital records, 95 Panamanians, eighteen of them being fatal. The true number could not be determined by an investigation committee set up by the U.S. government.

There were also possible situations in which Panamanians had fired on each other, as well as shop owners firing in an attempt to curtail the ongoing looting. These actions all started on the ninth and tenth of January. While there were more attempts by some groups to enter the zone, the situation as a whole was much calmer over the next few days, with the Guardia Nacional finally assembling on the thirteenth. Panama City was not the only city to experience violence. An uprising also occurred on the Atlantic side of the canal in the city of Colon.

Riots in Colon

Colon is a smaller city, but when the fury of a wronged population explodes, the city's size does not matter. With radio reports of the uprising in Panama City being broadcast over the radio waves, it was not long before unrest started in the city. At the beginning of the night, a crowd of 1,000-1,500 people had gathered in the Cristobal area, which is a terminal port adjoining the city. The crowd made its way to the Panama Canal Administration Building within the Cristobal. This demonstration was mostly peaceful, with the Mayor of Colon present in the crowd. The crowd insisted on raising their flag on the building's flagpole. Their flag was raised, and the crowd sang the Panamanian national anthem, which was then taken down by the Panamanians themselves. It is essential to recognize the work of the Canal Zone authorities, which included the chief of police, who showed restraint and with persuasion was able to defuse the situation. As such, the crowd returned to the city. This demonstration was only tarnished by a few groups smashing car windows.

Less than an hour later, another demonstration was held, containing several thousand people. The demonstration made its way into the canal zone between the Masonic Temple and the old Commissary. The police chief of the Cristobal had come back out to meet this larger demonstration and appeared to be defusing the situation again. A second group of protestors started to raise the violence level as they began throwing projectiles at the Y.M.C.A. and Masonic Temple, resulting in broken windows. With the situation getting rapidly out of control, the police requested that the army provide backup. Violence and death were going to follow.

Around 10:30 pm, the army was in control of the Cristobal in the area of the temple, Y.M.C.A., and the old Commissary. When the army was deployed, it was in battle uniform and helmets, with guns held forward with fixed bayonets. The soldiers advanced toward the assembled crowd that had come from the Colon side. Captain Howard tried in vain to convince the people to disperse and go home. Instead, the group broke away from the main body and continued to advance into the Cristobal. This smaller group was met by army soldiers who attempted to, via a show of force, get the group and the crowd in general to move back and to have them disperse. The show of force may have had the opposite effect, as the Panamanians started to scuffle with the soldiers as they attempted to grab the guns and bayonets. The crowd became more and more excited. A combination of these actions and the crowd winding up a spasm of violence resulted in the area of the Temple and Y.M.C.A. experiencing extensive damage to the two buildings, plus looting.

Within fifteen minutes, the crowd had been pushed back across the border as the officer in command posted men who sealed off the canal zone. The crowd was once again, shortly before midnight, involved in a violent shooting and wounding of a U.S. soldier. A U.S. soldier would, shortly after midnight, be killed by a shot originating from across the border. The wounding and death of these troops were due in part to the lack of any type of armor. The troops moved back to the areas around the Temple, Y.M.C.A., and old Commissary to prevent further casualties. The violence continued.

The next day, the tenth, two more troops would die and nine more would suffer wounds from the shots; these casualties now came from inside the canal zone. Violence continued throughout the course of the night. By midmorning, Molotov cocktails were used against the Y.M.C.A. building, which would burn to the ground. By noon of the next day, the old Commissary would suffer the same fate.

The situation would continue with the troops being authorized to use shotguns to subdue fire from the Panamanian side of the border. The order to use the shotguns came as a result of three soldiers being killed and twelve being left wounded. Even though these deaths are tragic, a six-month-old infant succumbed to injuries caused by the use of tear gas earlier in the evening. The death would continue when a jeep from Guardia Nacional came under sniper fire while the jeep was tangled in barbed wire in the darkened street as they were driving in the direction of the harbor. The gunfire caused the death of a sergeant and wounded another occupant in the jeep. A phone call from the Guardia was taken by the Colonel in charge of U.S. forces, in which he agreed that his men would not fire on the forthcoming ambulance. The ambulance would come under fire, but the source of this fire is not fully known. The entire situation could have been worse overall.

As a result of the violence, the army set up a checkpoint over a bridge into the canal zone. All traffic was forbidden, but foot traffic was allowed, and persons with weapons were turned back. Those with a reasonable reason to be in the zone were allowed to pass. There were more checkpoints on the road connecting Panama City and Colon, the Colon Corridor or the Bolivar Highway; these were checkpoints that were manned by Panamanians.

Aftermath of the Riots

The Guardian Nacional would take over checkpoints between 11 and 13 January. By 13 January, the situation was under control as the Guardia Nacional moved the Panamanians back and patrolled the border.

With the Cold War in full swing and the combatants of said war looking for any advantages they could, the violence of those days in January of 1964 was a flashpoint of that war. A CIA briefing advised that it was believed that Communist elements from Cuba and the Soviet Union were working to aid in the incitement of violence. Panama was just another flashpoint on a long and bloody path that made up the hot portion of the Cold War.

In Panama, 9 January is observed every year for those that died over those few days of violent release of built-up rage that pushed a marginalized populous in their own land and triggered by one more of millions of insults leveled against them with the expectation that, like all the times before, the Panamanians would just take it. This was a foolish assumption in an incident that was triggered by the acts of Zonian teens with the same colonial imperialist foolishness that United States administrations had held over the region. The deadly situation was no laughing matter, but it was largely due to the nonsense that ultimately stemmed from a culture of hubris within the Canal Zone, which extended all the way up to the President of the United States.

It was this culture that would lead to the deaths during this incident. The history of this event can be a teaching moment, as it shows how not to treat a nation that may not be as strong as another. Dignity must always be part of any arrangement, and or, during the activities of the above arrangement. A lack of respect was at the center of the actions of Martyr's Day. The dead and injured of that day are a lasting example of what results from such situations. May their pain, suffering, and death serve as a poignant warning, a warning the world would be wise to heed. May those who gave their lives rest in peace.

Photo above: Panamanians students raising their flags near the Gorgas hospital, 1964, Panama Canal Commission. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons. Photo below: Montage (left) Maj. Gen. Robert J. Fleming, Jr., Canal Zone Governor, 1967, U.S. Army; (right) Commander Andrew Pick O'Meara, U.S. Army. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons. Info source:

History Photo Bomb

Crowds of the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. surround the Washington Monument. August 28, 1963. Courtesy National Archives.

San Cristobal, Cuba. Aerial photo of the Medium Range Ballistic Missile Launch Site, Number Two. Photo: Department of Defense, November 1, 1962. Courtesy National Archives.

Official Souvenirs
America's Best History

President Richard Nixon. Courtesy National Archives.

ABH Travel Tip

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