Emerald Wilderness; Panama's Darien Gap

The Pan American Highway runs from northern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, the tip of South America. If you drive the highway's entire length, and many have tried, you must ship your car by ferry into Colombia when you reach southern Panama. The region is known as Darien, and is called "The Darien Gap," for the gap it represents in the highway. The Gap is a pristine, emerald wildnerness, home to two principal indigenous groups, the Wounaan and the Emerera, but it is also a cauldron of terror, and crime. The protagonists in Colombia's longstanding internal conflict, the nominally left-wing FARC (acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the nominally right-wing paramilitaries, use the Gap as a refuge, from each other, and from the narco-trafficantes, the armed drug dealing gangs , with whom they share a curious, evolving relationship. (Both FARC and the paramilitaries finance their weapons purchases from the protection money they extort from the drug gangs, so they are at once allied with and an antagonist of the gangs.) Against this backdrop, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe wants a road paved through the Darien. Setting aside the environmental destruction such a move would engender, Panama fears the severe problem of border violation, so pronounced without a road, would be compounded and exacerbated by a road. Panama was a Colombian state until its succession was orchestrated by the United States to allow for US control of the Panama Canal. That footnote is crucial to this story. The current President of Panama, Martin Torijjos, opposes a road, at least for now. He calls the Darien a national treasure. Those words carry weight because he is the son of the man who defined that expression for Panamanians, Omar Torijjos, the late strongman who negotiated the Panama Canal Treaty with US President Jimmy Carter, granting Panama control over a waterway that Panamanians feel is the a metaphor for their nationalism and true indepenedence. This piece features one-on-one intervews with President Torijjos, his Minister of Internal Security and indigenous leaders in the Darien. Normally these disparate segments of Panama's society have little contact. On this issue there is widespread agreement. The US says sit is "studying the Colombian request." Some officials tell the reporter on background they fear drugs, weapons and illegal immigrants will flow faster, in both directions, should a road be built.