The Silver People Law

By Roberto A. Reid Green

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This Paper is meant to formalize Historic Issues in our demands for the rescue, protection, restoration and safeguarding of cultural properties, and the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Panamanian Community known as the Westindian, Silver People of the Black Panama Canal Zone and Urban Barrios. Author: Roberto A. Reid Green, B.A., M.A. Personal Identifier: Number: 8-82-623 E-mail: radier57@yahoo.com Web site: http://thesilverpeopleheritage.wordpress.com Date: December 17, 2009 Panama City, Republic of Panam 2009 All rights Reserved - Roberto A. Reid Green The following is a Declaration in Facts on the restoration of Human Rights, since 1948, Economic Social and Cultural Rights and Civil and Political Rights since 1966. These are Historic Demands for the safeguarding and protection of cultural properties, and the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Westindian Panamanian Community or the descendants of the Silver People of Panama and the Canal Zone.

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An IntroductionThe community has experienced long-term historic patterns of racial segregation and has been submitted to practices of exclusionary policies in governance which has left a legacy fraught with abuses. The resulting psychological traumas have left an entire ethnic group of people suffering from a weakened cultural perspective. Under such an oppressive atmosphere in which State as parties involved in formulating such international declaration and being party to international agreements which expected action on safeguarding such cultural heritages considered simply were remiss in carrying out such duties in respect to the Silver Community of Panama. Theirs were as Parties involved in the United Nation Education Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since its foundations after WWII, who had been cognizant even after the 1948 Declaration on Human Rights, and the 1966 Covenants of that international body, maintained such blind and muted governmental policies and attitudes towards Panamanian historic Silver People that their educational system virtually promoted racism and historically has caused grave and harmful effects to the black population of citizens, who historically has been identified as the Westindians, and who lived in the middle class and poorer Urban Barrios and worked under the authorities and administrations that controlled the historic Panama Canal Zone. Such act of commissions and omissions committed while handling vital public administration maters of those times indicated above had caused the aggrieved communities to become a culturally weakened populace, still classified as Silver Employees, Local Rates and Black Westindian people, to remain a social and cultural class of people to act as stateless people, migrating or living without identifiable cultural value that has caused them grave social and cultural harm that had lasted for more than a century. So deep has been the long-term damages inflicted, that inherent erroneous beliefs have surfaced, taken as facts or truths regarding their ancestry and in addition such negativity has been ascribed to the aggrieved and victimized community as an inherent part of their make-up. So that in matters where absolute truths have affected self-acceptance in human relations, it has had additional tarnishing effects on the victims, and sanctioned and accepted by such powerful victimizers to further ascribe negative policies to them. So then it has been that history has reveled that so demeaning has been such treatments over time, that those described as loyal and honest employees, still has not received compensatory treatments nor has fully accepted their forefathers accomplishments as being part of their inherited character and human make-up. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that ours is a population, which has suffered irreparable damages, and that our history is still without vital records and archives most held hostage by the described States Parties to such UNESCO mandated directorates and considerations. It has been that such that interested scholars, students and researchers of our ethnic race are hard pressed to find any funding or schools colleges

4 and universities that will sponsor them in these specialized and valued fields of study. However a study of these International Conventions held all over western world would reveal how historic had been the aggrieved maladies inherited by our Silver People first in the field of employee employer relationships, general health and welfare etc, due to mistreatment and outright historical refusal to make health care available, for instance in this special and most needed fields of community mental health. That further such maladies had been caused by administrative mismanagement and dayto-day mistreatment of our people still treated as suspected enemies, amongst the ranks of descendants of the Silver employee of the Panama Canal Zone. In fact that such health matters as deprivation of psychological assistance had turned generations of Westindians descendants male and female to become chronic self-medicated persons, leading to alcoholism and drug abuse. Then that such chronic depression in such a mass populace so poorly treated, would results in child abuse and neglect, were that it did affect interactions in community and human relations matters, resulting in direct historic targeting the segregated population constantly abused by authoritative powers, such as employers, police authority and in general the basic violations of human and civil rights. It is our contention that such overall treatments have had deleterious effects in the black Panamanian Westindian population that can be traced directly to historic use of administrative powers to first dominate the employees employer relations on the Panama Canal Zone. That furthers such commission and omissions led to commitment of serious administrative misconducts not only in the handling of the Silver Westindian employees but it had repercussions in the subject population as a whole regardless of where they were on the isthmus. That further public administrative powers transcended employer employee relations and that it further soured family relations and even human relations in economically and socially. Then further that the use and abuse of public administration practices were historic and that it lasted long periods of time so that it had permanence in the direct continued violation of human rights, aided by a court and social system, that had lasted longer than any other modern political and jurisprudence practice under such a system of democracy. The results have been that even today our is an ethnic population that was defined as the Silver People that without the basic knowledge of their civil and human rights, under any of the State Party of the UNESCO agreed Conventions or even international human rights instruments, that are still valuable to the demanding or claiming of its inherent historical, intangible or cultural heritage so long delayed. In this paper we have summarized and identified some of the glaring laxities and abuses of powers in governmental handling of the public administration matters against our inherent rights. They are rights which historians have documented instances in which the handling and transference of governmental responsibilities, agreements between governmental State Parties had completely omitted the Silver Community of Panama. So that without any protection from the United States Government who had been instrumental in first contracting such large population of citizens, did not prepare the community to even defend themselves in the country of their birth or in the countries they had migrated to. That without such protections even as low echelon employees on the Canal Zone, such history of association with such powerful entities as governments even with birth rights, left all members of the Silver Community without any mechanism for claiming any of its birthright, historic inherited rights of possession of

5 any of their cultural properties thus remaining pauperized. For us Silver People then our history, which had been born out of chattel Slavery, would continue being a history that denied us even the citizenship rights of nativity. Today born out that humanity which had been treated so long as property would become those to remain silent and even be glad to forget. Silent we become partners in such overt transfer of our cultural properties, and further to have acted like fish taking the proverbial bait and just as migrate, thus became like wild African wildebeests migrating within the areas of the predators as friendly pray, or becoming enemies who had over staid their usefulness to even be worthy to receive U.S. Aid in the Alliance for Progress programs. Then as such it had been that such population stripped of every sense of their human rights would remain without advocates, or even Friends of the Court to plead their cause. Then between the States, which were known for their tragic historic handling of public administration matters concerning our community of Silver People, it had become times in the native country to then slowly strip them of even their rights to ownership of the grave land blanket that shields their soul from the vultures sent from hell. Under such a scenario history would decree us as Panamanian Westindian a community to be ignored once again, as it had been historically done, that even as nationals of those States actors in the drama of constructing and then administering the waterway, the stage would be bereft of the black man as extras. So then again the Silver extras would be just actors treated as extras with no union rights or recompense. where they would be left without consideration for the government as parties to take eminent domain of their cultural property even their graves. Then they would become those who would reap the disdain of the rest of the new working class, that with the omissions of them even as Westindians in the history of the new labor movements, be treated as ones who had no part in matters concerning such Labor War Negotiations. Even leaving us being as our forefathers were, who had been British subjects laboring for the wealthy French government, today we as descendants of their former British subject employees, noting that we have no rights to sue them for compensation would not be aware of the Conventions they all had agreed to even as European Nations involved with our long history in the region. Further, as intellectuals we awaited for some approach from those member States that hosted the UNESCO Convention of 2003 and 2005 regarding Intangible Cultural Heritage and Diversity of Cultural Expressions all held in Paris France, but no one came to inform us or to aide anyone of the Silver People communities of a region where all countries involved had been declaring to be free and democratic. The newspapers of the day revealed that not one country came to express concern for our besieged ethnic population of Silver People ever. Then again the business as usual atmosphere had swallowed up the spirit of the Silver People of the former Panama Canal Zone and to forget the information and awareness campaigns they al swore to implement. It had been because where it concerned our historic rights to form a community the Silver People would be left again without information regarding those opportunities to do so, or even take advantage of citizen participation rights to handle such matters of requesting compensation, reparations, restitution or even bailment as appropriate consideration to be shared between both member signatory States. As researcher and

6 investigator of such historic events, were it concerned the ethnic group in question we have found that the process halted, when it came to topics involving public administration matters involving the besieged ethnic group, so that the community, which carried the label of Silver People historically suddenly, had their name changed to Afro-Antillean. The results usually involved such Machiavellian arrangements that left out the ethnic race again at a gross disadvantage to the native Etnia Negra. Even after such an event as the so-called declaration of War or Invasion, in which the historical Silver Community of the Black Canal Zone was found left out of every public administration and diplomatic arrangements. Remaining thus in limbo as to their natural heritage on the Panama Canal Zone which is of outstanding universal value. Treated the community as they had been historically treated as being of no advantage to any of the State Parties to all the human rights international conventions they had agreed to conform to. The while discussions continued by the two States involved such special interest involving land and the famous waterway completely overshadowed the human rights and cultural integrity of the Silver population at home or abroad. Natural Heritage-Weakening of our Culture Time passed turning into a new century that found both States guilty of using their public administrative processes to continue damaging and weakening a defenseless and still racially segregated black Westindian Panamanian populace, leading to the commitment of further omissions of the mandated considered Natural Heritage. Article 3 of the UNESCO of the Convention Concerning the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 16 of November of 1972 reads, It is for each State party to this Convention to identify and delineate the different properties situated in its territory mentioned in Art 1 and 2 etc. It is therefore on such matters concerning rights as historic citizens of the Black Canal Zone and the human rights involved consequently both States have been guilty of gross and overt dereliction leading to the weakening of our culture and natural heritage. Subsequent historical investigations into the matter of Black Canal Zone born Westindians and other community citizenship issues such as educational opportunities has born out and confirmed our allegations of cultural genocide. Then taking a telescopic look at what had occurred during the times in which much diplomatic processes had taken place, we can only conclude that blatant human rights violations to our Westindian Panamanian ethnicity were blatantly allowed. So that no spaces were allowed in which to comply with international agreements regarding cultural, natural heritage or anything regarding our human rights as prescribed by Article 4 were attempted to so forge along culminating arrangements or reach points of agreements for the basic protection of Silver People Panamanian Citizenship or cultural rights to follow the Reversions process since the winter of 1974. As glaring as those omissions in fact became the prime method of exclusion and would ensue for the Silver community another process of control and exclusion from every part of the historic Black Canal Zone. Left out we were from exercising the required leadership in public administration maters involving cultural and historic areas of residence and citizenship. Thus we today are viewing the illicit transferring of ownership of our historic cultural properties on that former Black Canal Zone leaving us as citizens without opportunities to our rightful protection of the ownership of our

7 natural and historic cultural properties. The State parties involved even forgot such Principles of International Cultural Cooperation for discussing issues involving even the interchange of cultural property among nations for cultural educational purposes to increase knowledge and mutual respect and appreciation amongst other things. Protection Against Theft of Cultural Property Considering that it is incumbent on States to protect cultural property existing in its territory against theft. So reads in part one of the declarations of the UNESCO General Conference held in Paris, France 12-14 Oct 1970 which was held to protect such humanity and cultural legacy such as ours. However such historical exclusionary pattern of governance apparently had been so strong that a weakened patrimonial rights would not be taken into account or included in any arrangements for the Westindian Panamanian community, here at home in Panama or abroad in the United States. Remaining then would be the graves of our ancestors as one of the only Westindian Panamanian links to a past on the Black Canal Zone. We as a people would become as such, an historic and cultural people that although they had roots that ran deep in the land of Panama, on the other hand had today but their ancestors gave to claim as indisputable proof of natural heritage today needing vital assistance. A people who has produced historic wealth for all the States as Party to this criminal act against human rights and further has been directly responsible in the making of better economies for the citizens of both States, if not for most countries States signatory to these named international conventions to be still today remaining at this writings a people completely omitted from the history books of most countries of the world. Those who once were the chief economic entity and the engine that propelled the whole western world, the main laborers that made all shipping routes and their industry a resounding success. A people who in reality made possible that the system we know as Capitalism, to hinge in historic times as the prime labor force, would become completely forgotten and their children and ancestry to be without any protection of the world body of nations? To become that entity that for the novo rich not to remember, is one of the grosses cultural and human rights crimes of the 20th Century. Labor Considered as Property Could such a human activity as Labor be considered property? Article 1 of the Convention calling for Means of Prohibiting, Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property of 1970 reads, For the purpose of this Convention cultural property means property which on religious or secular grounds, specifically designated by each State as being important for literature, arts, rare collections and specimensproperty relating to history and social history, to the life of national leaders, thinkers, events of national importance. If then all of the above are truly property then we here at the Silver People Heritage Foundation are demanding that such property that has been sold to others from the Black Canal Zone be recuperated, restored in its original form and made available to organization of descendants of the Silver People of the historic Black Canal Zone. Then should that negative history be the same for those descendants who had for such a long time felt that it all was so important to follow their ancestors? So that that part of

8 our history in which it would become for us youth with opportunities declared off limits, and should we remain a people left without due compensation or even a modicum of a fair retirement in our old age? The Silver people Chronicle has continued to find even today that our ethnicity remains having whole families left to fend for themselves in our history as a community, at the mercy of a Panamanian health and social welfare system at home and abroad, a virtual burden to the strapped Panamanian governmental system. Much more so dispersed they know not one another so that like ravenous canines they are ready to snarl and rip each other apart. However, we are calling for proper compensation for a history still going through the process of a systematic cultural genocide carried out in stages. Black Canal Zone Excluded from Reversion Process For all the historic period of garnering the riches that the labor of our forefathers had produced we have reaped virtual disdain and exclusion. Even today such evident economical and social advancements that our people have facilitated historically has produced for the system politicians whose careers in the democratic system as preferred governments employees that would continue, almost without adverse incidences, until much later into the history 20th Century. But for the historic Westindian laboring community as it came times for the so called "Reverted areas of the Panama Canal Zone" the evidence would prove that they would own no spaces and would even be evicted from the ones they had lived in since the black Canal Zone became a part of Panamanian history. It has become, it seems, that such a false belief has come to be believed as truth when those nefarious beliefs caused by racial exclusions and unworthy omissions seemed to have quieted debate thus ridding them of the problem of what to do with the Silver People of the former Black Canal Zone. However the historic cry to heaven has left what can be counted historic intangible cultural inheritances to be the Historic Silver Cemeteries. The Westindians in the Barrio Circuits of Panama Then too would remain a Diaspora of Westindian people, which had been longstanding Panamanian citizens and residents of the historic poorer economically marginalized parts of the countrys urban classes, known as the Barrios. The Barrio Circuits that is what The Panama Tribune Newspaper described in the history of a country such as Panama, who had witnessed our people amongst them, suffering with them historically and even reported to be under the fire of the War of an Invasion, which we submit herein as direct witnesses. Then again history of the Silver People would again bear witness to the fact that not all of the Panamanian Westindian people had followed such trend to relocate to any so called greener pastures or to be again on the perpetual move. The mass exodus to follow for Westindians Panamanians during the decade of 1960s had followed another of the psychological and economic blows of the decade 1940-1950. Westindian youth of the period 1914-1920 had been caught by what they described as the notorious Jim Crow System, which had declared a ban on opportunities as a reward for an historic job well done. It had been since then that such matters in the public administrative system of the Panama Canal Zone had been Southernized.

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The United States of America Southern pattern of employment and education placed such crucial matters as the culture of reading and writing so important to the building of a culture completely out of reach to black Canal Zone youth. For those youth coming of work ages amongst the Panamanian citizenry to them and their ancestors, who had been still alive and involved laboring still under employment in the construction of the main urban centers as experienced craftsmen that would show case a modernized Republic of Panama the call had been for expulsion. To further distance hope for education and employment the buzzwords came forth to migrate to achieve permanence in the United States, which would ease historic penury. An exodus would ensue that would last until the decades after the 1960s seen as easing the pressures on the Panamanian government. That presence in Panama of Westindian Panamanian would seam to suffer but in reality such presence is still felt and remains so in the old Barrio neighborhoods and thus presently can be found in the new communities suburban areas of the district of Panama. Without communal guidance the Westindian community would be on the move even if as a community it remained, since the decade of the 1940s found first in the outskirts of the main urban centers and then into the bush country of the Province of Panama and into the outskirts of the provinces of Colon. It had been just as some of their ancestors had done which eased the economic pains of exclusions on the American Canal Zone. Again there they were making communities, still at the same time, reticent to see permanence, remembering such constitutional laws as that of 1941, which prohibited them from owning any properties. Was it reticence or endemic economic pressures? But for masses of people who had been virtually legally illiterates in human relations maters, since the 1914 inauguration of the Panama Canal, such things as having a history or knowing what their own Culture should have entailed would become secondary to just having survival skills. Our Westindian Panamanian citizenry would migrate in mass by air, into the mouth of the fire belching dragon that had been persecuting the African American races with them always remembering the battering and abuse they received at the hands of the old Panama Canal Zone governmental. There in the U.S.A. under the cloak of an imaginary job security, suffering under historic economic recessions and mini-depressions, not considering life style as one of the main processes of changes brought on by migration. To this writer it had seamed as though the Westindian populace were joining the segregated Harlems of Northeast after taking the historic Under Ground Railroad. To live in Black America and amongst that other historically segregated and civilly abused group of Black American citizens that for them the United States would be all but the lost of their unique Panamanian cultural communal powers. The Attempt to Reconnect They again found themselves abroad laboring as a foreign community, mostly starting out as Blacks from the South in the minimum and slightly above minimum wage scales, for long periods as such that when it come time for retirement they would be left devoid of further affordable medical care in their senior years. Then would time be for attempting that yearly pilgrimages back home to the Motherland of Panama. Time it would be to move to the Latino-American South or try to secure their Panamanian birth

10 rights through their old Panamanian citizenship. Getting acquainted with and revisiting old Westindian haunts showing changes of modernization designed to kill historic cultural ties. Through out the old Center City of Colon, then the old Silver City, the Panamas old Calidonia, then Chorrillo, as far flung as Rio Abajo and Juan Diaz, would bring home the reality of having a culture and a country. Then that reality would be The Silver People Heritage Foundation, which had set up a tent in the dessert to meet pilgrims, hoping that it would become like that place called Mecca, where more tents would be set up by those seeking some kind of revelation or that new life back home. Finding to seek places of respite in such an inhospitable place where respite and recuperation would lead to genetic recognition and agglutination away from the frustration, of meeting the traditional walls of psychological, racial exclusion and economic and historic Canal Zone or Panamanian racial battering. Still they came not just to travel on the frequent flights in and out of Black America to the old appropriated Black or Silver Canal Zone. Venturing home forced by the shadow of deaths the remnants of families left behind and too old to fend for them. Recording the Voices and History of our Forefathers Deaths and funerary rites have been a customary and traditional part of the Westindian culture since the beginnings of the history of the Silver Culture. By then they would have been shocked to find that even they did not known enough of their own history or if they had a culture at all. They then would have to become aware that respected historians from universities in the United States had had access to Canal Zone records and have recorded important data such as death rates amongst their ancestors and compared them amongst the cast of actors in the historic drama. The real story had to be told of that of being Black Laborers on the Panama Canal from ones who had been part of the script. However, Westindian Panamanian academicians who are true and trained historians have not persisted in taking on the task of recording the voices of their forefathers. To this researcher who remembers being a fanatic of his maternal grandfather, an original Silverman, and who followed his guiding star when the issue of Black Studies emerged on the scene in college, became acquainted with repositories of such historic records, devoting long hours of study in Public Libraries. With scarcely any available written works about Panama, much less of the American Canal Zone, the beginning of such studies about our Panamanian Westindian ethnic race was difficult and almost impossible. In fact, it was back home in Panama that some of the first extensive reports on the whole Canal Zone became available, so that such works became a part of my private library collection. That is how the Panama Fever would find a cure because such reports of the funeral trains that unceremoniously dumped bodies of young black Jamaicans, who had been amongst the army of black men really digging by hand, even after making path for heavy machinery and would become part of the landfill which they had been helping to dump. These landfills contain the remains of the bones of our ancestors, such hilly mounds of refuse or discarded dirt from the bottom of the Great Pit, would without the usual religious ceremonials serve to comfort them in death. However, the end of hand digging

11 would turn into the flowing of sea water, then inauguration of that Canal would come as the period of being ignored and persecuted would become the thank you but no official thank you would be forthcoming. Much later on the numbers in the death tolls would be unbelievably low. But still funerals would mount up and death would reach the homes of those same Diggers who had survived, and who had become sole breadwinners for years after of families on that Black Canal Zone and in the Barrios nearby. Then history did not report the visitor to many homes from the much-hated Reductions in force, which meant forced unemployment and a new life in the Barrio neighborhoods. Death and the Nigh Nights By then for black families it meant another tragic mourning period even as death visited newborn babies or growing Westindian Children at home. The Nigh Nights became as frequent as birthday parties as death visited the Black Canal Zone wherever they landed in Panama. It is the view of this writer that historic negative social, political and public administrative fall out had not been something invented by the Westindian people of Panama, but well documented historic and social facts of employer employee relations would reach the vulnerable Black Silver Canal Zone Community. As such it had been such events that had been used in reverse to deprive the Westindian Panamanian community of its historic natural heritage rights. Such a valuable and fragile vulnerable part of the human rights component that brought on such weakening of social and cultural values and mores caused great harm of magnitudes yet to be measured. Thus deprived of rights or opportunities to later seek adequate protection under international human rights laws agreed by conventions to be included as legislation, to be promulgated amongst member States of the United Nations, would rob our community who remained further misinformed. More directly those periods of historic events of times mentioned above, demonstrates that our allegations of deprivation of rights as a community to partake in matters of citizenship ensuring cultural development of our own participatory citizen rights and privileges, denied of everything that could have insured fairness and total inclusion in our own communal life. Though we are alleging that unfair advantage has been taken of our people, the Silver Community has been deprived of such uniform life style and the right to develop a cultural base and to have our inherent ethnicity recognized. Therefore, try as we might to become an informed ethnic community, we could never see the whole picture, which could have led to uniting to better protect our inherent human rights to our historical Intangible cultural heritage. That which is an intrinsic part of all cultured people, with which to reinforce our arguments, that our ancestors participated in, proven that it had been whose hands and skills has remained much longer building security. Descendants are Psychologically Coerced We who are descendants and Panamanian citizens have been psychologically coerced into abandoning our birthrights by migrating. It had been for us an inherited right as pioneer colonials, in a country that needed our health and our strength and even our lives, at all time in history of both State party to any agreements. But that then we as a

12 people had been repaid with abuse and abandonment and held up to ridicule as we sought to formulate what culture we had. It had been in this region of the Continent of the Americas in which we as a people had been invited and remained for over a century. Just because of the race and color of our skin we have been mistreated up to the fourth generation. Defining Ourselves as Westindians It is time now for us to stand and be counted in decennial censuses as Silver People, Westindians not Afro-Antilleans. As afro-antillanos we are not unique, but as Silver People of the Black Canal Zone we surely are. The region known as the Antilles always have been overflowing with people from all the regions and nations of the Western world having natives of the African races of people, it has always been historically so. However history has not recorded such masses of the people of all the islands making their home under the boot of the oppressive racist system of governments. Today we are expecting an avalanche of new immigrants from the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republican all Afro-Antilleans. Then for us who have ancestry in this land and who had been mistakenly accepting being labeled Afro-Antillanos, would not be able to use such mechanisms to demonstrate to the State of Panama, a State rife with the syndrome of amnesia ready to forget all the gross violations of our human rights. Also, we will not be able to substantiate that we are a community, a special ethnic group, which has a long history of being deprived of our inherent rights of ownership of natural heritage and intangible cultural heritage and having input into the social fabric of our nation. We are hoping that once and for all times, we would as an established community with a history and a culture etched in hardened judicial processes, further that we have earned such pride in our historic participatory and cooperativeism, as an ethnic community of Panama established on the Black Canal Zone. That we as genuine citizens have set out to see a stage, not set for reactionary maneuverings but for proactive salvos to gain such rightful defense as recovery of our spaces and cultural integrity of our inherent cultural heritage. (*12) It would be an historic event if we could turn back the clock and experience what Sydney Young, Pedro Rhodes and George Westerman did and felt. These brave Westindians single-handedly took on the whole prejudicial Panamanian governmental machinery in times on both political fronts, Panama and the Canal Zone of the United State of America. They were present and coherent during these times of historic proportions as part of the Silver People to have raised our voices against such barbarisms which left us without any basic defenses. Still Time for International Appeal- Being Proactive There is, however, still time to appeal to international entities such as the U.N. in New York and the world community for redress; to feel as though we have gotten a new start, a reprieve to live today as Silver People in a new era in our history. For me it would be as when we had been first denomination as Silver Peoples and were able to survive and overcome all adversities. However, once again in our history we have come to a point in time in which our people are looking on, like people who have felt that they have no recourse but to accept; and yet we insist on being proactive. We will continue to be proactive even if today we still have people in our community that still dont

13 understand the importance of being supportive. Then points in judgment that we are making here are the result of years of reading and experiences in employment of matters in public administration. At any rate, we are hoping, praying and taking into account such facts that we today as a people have more educated people of Westindian descent than at any other time in our history. Although one senses at times that there is still that cry of we dont have any recourse but to abandon such notions as historic patrimonial rights, in review ours is a culture born and matured in the Panama Canal Zone Silver Towns, and such feelings run deeply intellectual, as I am, in that we have arrived at an important moment in which we are still hurting from the battering rams of racial injustice. Times they are for me to remember that my Oral History lessons began at the feet of my paternal grandmother, where our history began for me, and I have realized that in fact I too had been left holding just a bag of onions, very much like my widowed grandmother. That to even imagine how far is too far, even without the Silver label as a denomination, we would have had no salient evidence to put forth to aid a case for our existence on historic grounds for me in a land like Panama where we have been conceived and born. For me then those laborers played and lived to travel and even to meet people from the same countries whose forefathers were right in the same pit with our forefathers. Yes, but they werent Americanos from the north, but Spaniards, Italians and French blacks and English speaking blacks who were Americans, speaking in our English native language. Yanking like the whites they too would experience Jim Crows prejudicial treatment, and never the less, even as there had been times in our history that marked us all as one community of Silver People they would come to abandon us leaving without the Silver Label of designation. In the mean time we Westindians Panamanians would be left identified as a bonafide ethnically cohesive Panamanian community. This writer has been a witness and participating member to those times gone by, and sees our times in comparison to those historic times, as a time when most of our Silver community has composed of mostly descendants. Individuals nearing adulthood but never the less still an important part of our community, but lost regarding to who to identify with. We must be successful in our endeavors as we will be leaving a whole community of Panamanian people who will carry a burden that they never knew or choose to know anything about. All the erroneous misconceptions regarding our history would be stolen and used to thwart self-knowledge and unique citizenship. Neither can we revert back to those times past in which we, as a people, hadnt the number of Jurist Doctors or Doctors in Philosophy amongst us as we have today in our Panamanian Westindian community. And yet, we seem to find ourselves, as in the past, still haunted by how our cultural heritage has been weakened into acceptance of such citizenship proscribed for us. We are Unlike any Other Ethnic Group How sad it is to be by another "black ethnic group" both in the country of our birth in Panama or in the United States to have the audacity of renaming us to suit their causes. It is not that we are against their agenda; however it is our view at the Silver People Heritage Foundation that we need not be subjected to such a diet of being culturally

14 starved. Our history is unlike their history, thanks be to God, for we are not advocating such legacy to any group of human beings on the face of the earth. Due to our peculiar historic facts, however, our existence as a people dates back to not over two centuries. The historic facts of our origins in Panama bear out that we were not a people who arrived here as parts of a starving horde, not even at such times after the Abolition of Slavery before the mid 19th century. Nor did we arrive so at the turn of the 20th century onwards; nor were we a starving horde arriving as special political immigrants during the mid 20th century. In fact we as Silver descendants belong to communities with cultural and historical Panamanian roots just as culturally imbedded in the Panamanian culture as any other urban or agrarian group of people. Although at home in Panama our Mother Land, we have been historically misinformed as a Westindian community, we have readily accepted inclusion into the Panamanian and United States life style even though our forefathers had assured winning our keep for us. The Will to Regain Our Full Panamanian Citizenship Although at this juncture in history we have something to gain as a people that we had so long awaited, it is fair to say that those long decades of political and extended exclusionary tactics, involving prejudicial attitudes have taken the will to fight out of our race, the time has come for claiming our inherent heritage rights. These are times in our history that we have patiently prayed for to see disappearing and we again see a resurfacing of the will to gain our full Panamanian citizenship. In fact even if we are still remaining that poorly represented Silver People, we are no longer laboring under two governmental administrative systems, in Panama or an American Canal Zone, but are free Panamanian citizens, looking to join the international community. Though we still live at a disadvantage under the Panamanian governmental administrative system, we have more faith that we will see redress and empowerment for our claims, even when new regimes revert to the same historic laws in a Constitution that leaves most of our citizenry feeling left adrift. Today we are still realizing how much we are reeling from such historic political and administrative blows to our humanity and citizenship. It continues to have many dire effects on us and our children coming from laws passed from the times of our ancestors. In fact, even during the very beginning of Panamas republican period that the first Constitution of the year 1903 would have racial overtones explicitly aimed against us of Westindian decent. As a community we were inhumanly damaged even before the country of Panama was institutionally established as a republic, and we, as a race, were singled out for prejudicial laws against us. The country of Panama has historically denied us authentic inclusion being a country where participation in its educational system even today is still under debate. It is here that the masses of poor people, who have been historically denied participatory citizens rights, have seen some relief only in recent times. We as black citizens have suffered more than any other Panamanian community where inclusive and participative citizen rights are concerned. There still remain voids to fill that we as the injured party are again witnessing in overt prejudicial treatment to our inherent cultural property. In our view we are still living historic times, especially those times carried over from the

15 decades between 1960 and 2009. Those were the times of the crucial evolution of our country as the Silver community. In fact, for us whose citizenship appear again visibly battered, these are times to see our untiring efforts to bear fruit that would right those endemic wrongs to our humanity. Still a Demoralized People As crucial or historic as these moments in our Panamanian History are, we have found ourselves still in heartfelt wailing, crying silently as we view disrespect to our cultural heritage and ancestry amongst the common citizens. So demoralized is our Panamanian citizenship that at our ancient Corozal Cemetery site we constantly wail today out loud for redress seeing blatant racism show its ugly face. We, as the community of Silver citizens, continue to lament as Panamanian citizens, or as citizens of any country in the world who become informed as to how victimized our cemetery site is and how, in times of declared War (as in 1989) how they are profaned. We are horrified to discover that such a Sacred ground came to be used as a common burial site for victims of an unjust assault waged against our country twenty years ago. Even today when that yearly event is memorialized people retell their bitter tales reliving and tasting the might of the invaders. Unreal as this experience of going through a War, has been, losing loved ones and knowing who were the attackers of our unarmed people at home, completely blocked out from receiving any news from home, it has been a reminder to all of us Silver Westindian people that even we merit some respect from our former employers. In fact, for this writer it brought back the horrors of a defeated population in the newsreels that I remembered watching at the movies in Panama at the end of World War II. As timely as it had been to see such devastation in the local media, we can safely say that ours is not a civil society here in Panama acting more like a defeated enemy, but a free people recovering. Citizen Participation- Fighting Passivity On the other hand, we as Silver citizens find ourselves in a country still toying politically with the issue of citizen participation. The Silver People Heritage Foundation has, with the foregoing declarations, shown concern on moral issues regarding the value of our citizenship, though we have continued to urge and have encouraged citizen participation as it is commonly discussed in our Panamanian local media. To even consider that such a powerful war machine would have been launched against our country and people is still a matter that hurts deeply. Then such members of our black community who had lived or were residents on the old Black Canal Zone towns are so few today that they only have memories of what such old town as Silver Red Tank had been like. Thus we here aim to serve as a beacon to aid in the understanding of our citizen rights to defer with official accounts of what really occurred. To have survived among the afflicted populace remains a Westindian Panamanian Citizenry in a quandary, as we all suffered at home and abroad the reporting of those historic events. Those who were in the U.S. suffered seeing complete media blackouts and no information for long stretches of times regarding our loved ones.

16 These horrors and many such abuses have been added to the backs of our Black Panamanian Silver identity; some things still gives us bad feelings and have remained with the still horror stricken Panamanian people. Added to our horrors has been the total disrespect shown to us as we are viewed as foreigners, North American, trying to do archival researches regarding our ancestral participation as citizen workers on the former American Canal Zone. As Black Panamanian Westindian Silver people, we are still caught between disrespect to our heritage on both sides and dividing lines in our countries involved either in Panamanian or in the US. To these very experiences we direct our complaint regarding the value of our citizenship although we continue to experience such old mistrust as a people in both the countries involved. No matter what citizenship we are carrying, the historic abuses include but are not limited to contribute to our having feelings of not being protected under any of the governments involved in dealing with our humanity. As in the past, we have come to this period in our history when we are hoping that we have come to a benchmark in historic times where we would find an end to the passing on in our culture, of that old attitude of passivity, an attitude regarding politics that in the past we ourselves abhorred in our besieged ancestors. Then as such a perceived prevailing feeling of a still remaining over all reactionary attitude, our community should become proactive when overt racist actions affects us directly. Hoping then that such an attitude for us will give way to a proactive notion, we are petitioning for our rightful place and total citizenship. Citizen as Sovereign Such rights are evident today and will give us that notion that as citizens we possess such sovereignty of petition, expecting prompt answers from our government functionaries within a reasonable time. Then we will remain an acknowledged community, in all matters concerning our rights and obligations, thus that as professionals and members of our Silver community we would be able to complete our researches and investigations that would arms us with such facts to put in place for our defense. So doing, then we are not reacting with such frustration bordering on actions of illiterate peoples, who are still ill with fears like common mentally illness people but rather healthy citizens acting with basic feelings of aiding our community. Therefore, we remain as informed citizens acting without passivity, still remembering those days of old, when erroneous perceptions would thwart what inherent privileges we had, and were able to move others of our fellow citizens to make vehement defenses for what we thought were our inherent and natural rights. Today, we at The Silver People Heritage Foundation are remembering and honoring our Silver sons and daughters of the Republic of Panama, thinkers such as Mr. George W. Westerman and Mr. Sydney Young, hoping that we have handled and dealt correctly with the Panamanian population and governmental perceptions of misunderstood practices against our people. Whether perceived actions regarding privileges granted on the former Canal Zone, or innate objection to our ethnicity it all mattered in the way we are treated. Then it is so that it would cause us to have open spaces for dialogue and concrete redress, we never the less remain hopeful of being able to see redress. Today for us it is not an issue for which we must even try again to explain, about the how and why of our people, we are sure at this juncture in history, that the granting of

17 the Panamanian Silver Dollar as a minimum wage, had become an eternal label for the classification, that meant us ill will. However we are using it as a good omen and not going ashamed of our Silver People forefathers, or remain ashamed of being equated with Westindians Panamanians of the American Canal Zone. It is our hope that today our actions will become inherent with our Panamanianism, to be looked upon as a people who have overcome as have black people from all over the globe. Though in Panama for us just being labeled as Chombos or the proverbial Nigger we are sure of our inherent rights to own and protect our historic patrimonies. It has become for this writer a Panamanian citizens mission to see the honoring of all our ancestors become a customary event amongst us Silver Panamanians and all people the world over. We here at the Silver People Heritage Foundation hope that such events will, in fact, become a yearly and common venue and something that most of our fellow Panamanian citizens and descendants in all the states of the United States of America would adopt. We further wish to see that in all of the shipping ports of the countries of the world, the people would become informed and also join us in celebrating such recognition and respect for the deeds of our forefathers the Westindian Laborers of the Panama Canal Zone. Furthermore, as Silver People we wish to promote an attitude of honor in the dissemination of this knowledge about our forefathers who were largest body of men and women, the first people who came in massive amounts as foreign employees or North American federal government employees abroad. The Black Canal Zone Redefined This in so way implies that we are taking sides against our Panamanian people and our heritage, but that we as Silver People of Panama also hope that on both sides of the continent of the Americas, God fearing people, as with people everywhere in the world, will continue to use the Panama Canal and also come to Panama and get to know our people, visit the cemeteries taking the cemeteries tour and learn more about our sites and the deeds of our forefathers. Then stay for visits with our Silver People of Panama as we rebuild our old native Black Canal Zone into a tourist attraction and even a place to enjoy bread and breakfast. In that we too also have suffered overt Wars and have lost loves ones and are too not willing to let world political technicalities make us guilty parties of such cultural genocide and horrendous crimes against our people. However the same measure of justice is what we are expecting, regarding the ownership and management of our ancestral cemeteries and to again live and work on the old Black Canal Zone. By definition, these are the sites that remain on the banks of the Panama Canal like hard to remove beacons to the Black Westindian Silver people beckoning us to return to battle for reclaiming our natural and historic heritage. So that whether or not we as descendants of the Silver People are perceived by our fellow Panamanian as having no rightful place on those sites our people are living proofs of that cultural larceny. Again, even if in principle our citizenship has been thwarted by the goings and coming from the United States, our culture remains as an intact natural heritage. Even when we are found mimicking other black cultures in the United States or in Panama, we cannot deny that we are or always have been descendants of the heroic Silver People.

18

We hope to spearhead the recovery of our patrimonial inherited properties then use them as instructional and learning centers for the benefit of memorializing our forefathers. We here at the Silver People Foundation foresee small conference centers in which our visiting group of friends such as Lodges, families, school and universities can come and reunite with us on the banks of the were the former Canal Workers labored. As descendants we seek to be alive and willing to welcome all tourists and people from all parts of the world to make them also part of the experiences of our Silver People hoping that such a learning experience can only be positive in light of the support and cooperation given to honor our great thinkers who long ago passed on or have more recently deceased but, nevertheless, support these efforts. Clearing up Errors of Belief There, nonetheless, remain other issues needing strong information and awakening measures here and abroad needing clearing up such as the erroneous notion that we as Silver People of Panama have always been wealthy. There is also the tacit misconception of our people as being an intrusion, and that our presence in this country has been historically suspected. We have also been subject to Panamanian societys rigidity and the suggestion that our input was and is not respected or, for that matter, ever wanted or asked for. We are here toady, as Silver People, to expose those and other fallacies and errors of belief and to reveal that this is only some of the psychological baggage that has damaged and weakened our natural heritage. We must remember that we have had much to bear in the tragic historic human relations dilemma that we have lived now knowing that it has eroded our sense of culture and worth. We aver that we must have these opportunities in compensation and retribution, space enough and time enough, since we have bee the victims, to prove the harm that has definitely been done over a century of time in our history. That, in fact, we never drifted aimlessly as a people all these decades that made up almost two centuries of time. We wish to be afforded the time and space to work at rediscovering our art, literature and culture and do research and even clear up errors done in writings even by Panamanian intellectuals and professionals. However, ours is a harm done by attitudes and perceptions that render some of us unwilling to see ourselves in the image of our ancestors; rather like strange objects floating on the currents of the seas, just as driftwood, we also are carried with erroneous perceptions to land anywhere. Panama today is a vibrant economically and modernizing country and is not a place where people like pieces of insignificant wood, are viewed as objects of art that can just land then be picked up feeling justified in disrespecting us as human beings of a black Panamanian ancestry or as Silver people. Our Culture is of Outstanding Cultural Value With these concerns in mind we are going forward, seeking vital changes that not only will secure ownership of our Intangible Cultural heritage, but will provide proof that ours is a culture with outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific points

19 of view. We further claim that such rights of citizen participants will gives us the opportunity of input into such issues concerning inherent ownership, to then gain such opportunities to reinvent and reshape our own culture. At the same time we are advocating the notion as such that we have come of age to become actor, and not just reactors, regarding the keeping and maintaining of our cultural inheritance. We must, however, continually remind others and ourselves that culture is as spiritual as it is material. That one cannot work with culture as one work with material things, for culture is more a spiritual entity than we care sometimes to admit. Our culture, in fact, involves natural heritage and cultural patrimonies of outstanding universal value and it is now in the hands of the State of Panama. Though they are inheritances of vital importance and value we have never had the rightful power as a community to dictate such remaking and rediscovery but that we have been overtly denied such a rightful ability as descendants. Today these same properties are and have been giving undue powers to the State functionaries in charge of handling such public administrative matters concerning our natural and intangible cultural heritage. We are advocating that as a people we do have in fact ownership as members of the community and descendants over the graves of our forefathers. The above points and more are issues included in our fears and concerns that today remain misleading perceptions about our cultural and spiritual needs and aspirations. We find in our country today that such matters as conservation of our cultural matters are handled by State functionaries that have not proven to be good stewards of cultural properties, so that left totally in charge of such fragile cultural properties of outstanding universal value will continue to subject us to future damages and loss of them all. (14) At this juncture in history there are some other more salient points to consider in conservation for which it is left for us descendants of the Silver Men and Women to be done. We are still alive and alleging that the ones buried in cemetery sites at issue are still today part of us. Thus we are alleging ownership over all cemetery sites and other properties on the former Black Canal Zone on the banks of the Panama Canal. Such has been the dreaded notions that we as a community have been carrying for decades regarding our future generations of descendants. Left with such distorted views and feelings regarding our ancestors and ancestry for a future younger generation, and an older generation that is dreading being buried unsure that there bones would be desecrated at any minute. So that without the proper guidance such fears in our people would turn to something as abhorrent of being cremated that is contrary to all our spiritual guidance and training as Christian people. Will there be any thought that such notions would not be passed on as negative principles attached to our rights in Panamanian citizenship and culture? We are greatly concerned that our Silver People community has been harboring a disdain for cooperation and community participation in citizens advocacy, so much so that there is almost an absence of such reassurance from descendants or those who have been some of the main actors in our history, on these and other issues relevant to our future as persons or as a community. It has been so dangerously so that activities in many organizations remains devoid of the passion of conviction needed to secure our cultural heritage. The old passive sense of meeting these salient and valuable issues, so vital to the importance of culture, remains to haunt us. Therefore, for this writer, were again awaiting to react like migratory animals in flight, instead of stalwartly remaining

20 to deal with the issues that touch us. For us, participatory citizenship boils down to weekly social gatherings in which very few can partake as individuals with decision making powers. Presently, We are not What We Seem Although we are viewed by people outside our circles as living in marvelous communities, and that, despite having been denied genuine basic rights to our historic inherent cultural heritage for so long, we are doing all right. We have unwittingly sent out the wrong message. To our friends, neighbors and descendants alike we concede that such a lack of planning experience in our communities has diminished our effectiveness and thus our communal eagerness to serve. At the top of the list of the mending of fences and in getting the required response from our hidden adversaries is that of our need of immediate input to achieve reforms. These and other issues are the reasons why the Silver People Foundation has taken on such a mission regarding our roles in ownership and natural heritage. At any rate it is after recovery and restoration of our ancestral burial heritage cemeteries that we are going to need people willing to not just visit but join one of our committees to keep the sites secured. Since these sites are not the usual artifacts, nor are they, in fact, building structures, to be repaired in short periods of time, they are still viable historic sites in need of constant care. It is the same with the four historic Black Canal Zone Communities towards which we are also working for historic recognition and for ownership as natural heritage of the Silver Peoples to be included in the history of The Panama Canal. These are all actions needed in taking definite steps at gaining our legal ancestral rights to these basic cultural properties. That we hope to set this transformation in motion with judicial mechanisms is correct, for the management and ownership of our cultural heritage should be in our hands. It is indeed something that has been too long denied in that we have now discovered how the powers that be have been committing covert cultural larceny that borders on cultural genocide. The Internet has opened these avenues for gaining opportunities for us to frequently have the space and time to offer rightful remembrance and honors to our beloved Silver ancestors. Their exemplary achievements and attitudes are what we will be attaching to their memorials. Our honorable ancestors have always been the people that, throughout the history of the Canal, have been of outstanding universal value just as the construction and operation itself has been perceived all this time. At issue is not the mere vain glorying of the Silver People, but the regaining of the overdue appreciation and respect for all the people of our ethnicity and of our communities on the Black Canal Zone. With these beginning steps we are at the same time laboring and praying that our descendants and the remnant of the Silver People of Panama would come alive infected with our expectations. We are, in fact, planning a massive program of information and awareness that would be on a continual basis while we campaign to gain world attention and at the same time strive for sustainability of all our historic programs and not be circumscribed to the cemetery sites alone. With these writings we are making everyone concerned aware that we are only exercising our right to conserve what is left, so that in gaining control of

21 our cultural heritage we are sending out a message to all our Silver People to get in touch and join us in the reverence we have for our people living or deceased. We are aware that we alone will have responsibility for the success or failure and the results will show in the way we use leadership in managing our cultural legacy. A New and Better Concept of Management In our management schemes we will aim to be inclusive and will accept criticism, as we go about daring to reinvent ways in which to serve and appreciate our community and nation. In fact, we will maintain our stance of procuring to maintain our dignity and respect for all people, hoping to serve not only the Silver Community but all citizens of the world alike, as always with sustainability in our plan of action. Today we take up the lighted torch of dedication, honor and respect for our ancestors the Silver Men and Women of the former Canal Zone. A legacy left to us as we perform our mission with faithfulness, honesty and always pledging to serve our God above all else. Praying always to see the day that we recuperate and memorialize all of our ancestors, making mention of their deeds in the sacred mission of seeing the Panama Canal completed. Today their bones are our bones so that those memorials to be performed at all four sacred cemetery sites will fill the spiritual void we have been enduring for so long. The banks of the Panama Canal will witness the bringing down of heavens Glory at last and to us as Silver People on earth innumerable blessings. We will then rest assured in the knowledge that we have not been simply daring, but acting as the Children of God as we continue our campaign of importuning those who hold our historical archival records. In the meantime we will be praying and shouting, pleading to reach the ears of those who would see that we are in need of economic and moral assistance, not only from all the known governments of the world but to private citizens and groups for such aid in these efforts for the recovery of our cultural legacy. Then the periods of following up on our promises will come with some daring ideas at reinventing ways to uplift our historic Silver family names and to gain access to such historic place that would earn for us the dignity that is due to our ancestors as part of our Spiritual and moral duty. Hoping to always assist descendants and families to remain proud as they join in honoring our actions, hoping to add to the deep emotions brought on by being part of such dignified ownership of our ancestral home and final resting places of our fragile Intangible Cultural heritage. Hoping that our actions will prove worthy of such reverence long awaited to memorialize these events as historical cultural venues that will touch the heaths and minds of even the most hardened racist. A suffering planet, however, cannot anymore support the warring minds of intransigent men, and so our work will also include the tending of peace offerings in mourning for the many abuses perpetrated on our humanity, a humanity still struggling to see relief from the piracy of all earths resources regardless of whose cultural legacy were trample upon. We the descendants of the Silver People are looking forward to seeing the results of our direct campaign in education and awareness because our plans for targeted sustainability in the management of these projects would have justified our appreciation for the historic and cultural contributions of our Silver People of the Panama Canal

22 Zone. As our ancestors and the ancestors of all the Panamanian people just as Guerrero, Herrera, Porras and even Simon Bolivar are ancestors of us the Silver People of Panama. Vehemence in Our Attitude We are aware of and justified in our attitude of vehemence in regards to our natural heritage claims in this petition. Our only aim is to see just compensation and restitution for such long-term violations to our human and civil rights. However, we are not willing to accept or to use methods that other ethnic groups suggest. Ours is not just a political battle but the battle for recognition that, as human beings, we did and always had a right to such natural cultural heritage and so a right to petition for restoration and compensation for the century of violation of our cultural heritage rights, which is invaluable and is thus not for sale at any price. Ours actions lead to no other conclusions than the ones we have stated in this document. We are hoping that it is understood that we will not accept any other action or implications leading to sale of those properties to any one person or associations. We have declared here in this paper that we in fact have rights to fulfill and ours are sacred citizenship right, geared to elicit aide from all countries, and international courts. However, we will willingly accept aide based on the historic international actions of our forefathers the Silver Men and Women of the Panama Canal Zone, who were the seedlings that have made up the honorable Silver People community of Panama. The fact that ours is a heritage inherited from our forefathers the Real Diggers of the Panama Canal, is clear to us whether they arrived by contract or without a penny to their names. In fact, our communities in general are now found in many of the regions and provinces of the United States and of Panama, whether they are aware or not of their long term cultural sufferings. We hope that they too would see the causes behind the reasons we have outlined above. The reality, indeed, has not only been the economic grip caused for us almost exclusively by the racist and exclusionary administrative public policies. Today in the country of Panama the handling of public administrative matters regarding our inherent birthright has seemed to remain unchanged for more than a century for we are still feeling the sting in the present of those past historic times that today are treated as policies and still glossed over as mere oversight in judgment. Such omissions, however, have become our marching banner and have become a means of having a closer look of all of the people of the planet earth. The fact that we are still battling for such inherent rights involves the very root of such basic principles as citizen participation. It has been denied to us for so long that the acceptance of our petition would make this cherished achievement a historic gem for all citizens. We hope that our experience and professionalism concerning such areas as community input will become viewed as models and that our organizations input would be of much value as a resource to be applied in the urban planning process. Today as in yesteryears we are joining the masses of people in the international community who have been historically kept excluded from any knowledge about their cause or of ours, and that their plight would become our plight, thus hoping to share our historic experiences with them.

23 In the event that where discussions of these issues is concerned, perceptions and knowledge of our community is viewed as recognized areas characterized and fitting the definitions given for the Cultural and Natural Heritage described in UNESCO Convention of 1972 , concerning sites that arguably could be termed cultural heritage of outstanding universal value as far as that Silver People are concerned and are termed viable to our ethnic community as to history, architecture and homogeneity, we are hoping that our allegations are taken into account here after to be parts of our citizens rights and obligations, to have placed citizens participation where it really counts for righting decades of injustice. We also hope to see a turn around in our country of birth and that other such historically battered communities would take notice and not as is prone to happen in many intellectual circles, here in Panama has well as in the United States where it has also been that historically that such issues have been avoided or consciously omitted, in the arts and the humanities as well. But then for us here as there in the US as a people it had been historic, that as such the national educational curriculum has also kept our history and humanity out of the curriculum. In such areas as Black history and culture we are hoping to be able to participate if not for inclusion but to have space and time to educate and to make aware of our type of Panamanian history. However we are expectants as members of the Silver People community of Panama that colleges and universities will again discover our professionalism. At the University Level In fact, our having gained a university education and experience has not been granted solely on such misinformation as governmental Affirmative Action Programs. Then that the Panamanian Ministry of Education would also try to make amends for historic racist and backward stance promoted by docent leaderships that our foreign education is more a threat than the seeking to unite for the good and welfare of the country. We further hope that docent unions and syndicates would once and for all discover us as allies concerned not solely with the quality of education but also with docents issue as class size, retirement age, far flung areas, construction and upkeep of schools, teachers rest area and times for rest and recuperation. Issues such as additional benefits like paid travel for Panamanian Teacher that on summer vacations are paid vacations if the docent is traveling to another country in another continent which is not on the usual tourist route and is for not solely for enjoyment and education. Our experiences so far has been one of almost total rejection as identifiable Silver People who have ventured to attend conferences and seminars with docents, especially at the university level. That it has been as such a complicated affair even to get to dialogue with any of those professionals in such areas as the humanities, constitutional law, or even to get to see any of them at the national university campus. This has been our experience even in our daily walks through the main campus of the Mother Ship of all universities, the University of Panama, which is that historic Alma Mater, home and museum and ceremonial grounds from which the names are mentioned of the listed Whos Who in the Republic. We are also constantly conducting quick visual polls while dressed in our Etnia Negra garb hoping to receive reactions. Weve discovered that there is such an aversion to

24 cultural diversity that it has made us take notice that in this respect also the Panamanian historic ethnic cleansing towards the Silver Panamanian community is alive and well entrenched. That there is hardly any visible presence on campus and that the representatives of our ethnic race feel a sense of being anointed with some special essence that make them unavailable for simple consultation. Therefore, to this seasoned observer, it seems that the visible impact of black Panamanians and especially of the ethnic Silver Westindian group is so negligible amongst the young people present that it is really lamentable. Surely it is not that there have not been enough descendants of the Silver Race of people left or present in the country that are in need of a university education at the Panama campus. These promise to be important future concerns to be taken into account when we have occasion to meet with dignitaries of the University of the West Indies and other universities in the world. In whatever examples of polls taken at that campus the results will be the same for us as valid to declare and to lament such absence amongst the general population of university minded people in our District of Panama. So much so it has become for us a matter of viewing the University of Panama as an historical culprit in the racism we have been subjected to. Then to have resulted in that today that important body of higher learning to have such a low profiled student body, administrative staff, and faculty needing such cultural diversity amongst them is for us residents of the District of Panama really lamentable. Then for us of the Silver People Heritage Foundation who are sorely in need of that input from those highly prepared professionals of the caliber to be found amongst the ranks of our Westindian Panamanians Silver Community is a lamentable loss. We of the Silver People Heritage organization are eager and able to add valuable input into the whole educational experience of our country of birth. For from our perspective as a writer and participant observer who frequently receive valuable input and themes of discussion such as comments on forums regarding memories and reminiscences from descendants of the Silver Diaspora, we feel that in the District of Panama the need for such diversity training is urgent. Our Silver People are still reeling from the atrocious treatment they have experienced throughout their primary and secondary childhood education, not to mention such treatment for descendants of the Panamanian Westindian Silver race at the Panama University campus. For most of the Diaspora outside of Panama, mainly in the United States, reminiscences of home and school times are still rife with tales of how terrible it was to have felt as a youngster so disrespected as a person of color just because of ones heritage. Still we recognize such inner yearning for cultural inclusion, as did some of our Spanish Speaking youthful friends in our historic travels. However our battle for inclusion is not only dependent on the emotive will of others to show acceptance, but the State will be living up to agreed responsibilities of having to grant regular spaces and time for participatory and open dialogue. The movement towards racial equality is a step in the right direction and will assist the move towards the full inclusion of our race in the educational system as a whole. We hope that this specific bill would produce a law that leads to other laws and regulations to serve as methods of initiating information and awareness programs towards real diversity. Perhaps then such programs will surface that would lead to open inclusion of

25 all citizens in such many other matters that relate to these already approved cultural issues in the international arena. That it will be not only for the pages of our judicial Official Gazette, but that open debates and dialogue will not closed again, to again be reopened as so much useless legislation as was passed on matter related in other times. The time has come for us Silver People to really be looking closer at such issues as the mental and spiritual damages suffered so far in our community and in the general population towards us as a Panamanian people. Some pundits still profess that, You cant legislate morality. However, the results are evident in a world society that signs and agrees to international legislations and then proceeds as if nothing really had occurred all these long decades to a whole community of persons and families. In fact our is a vivid example of when legislations is not aimed at such deep moral and spiritual issues that meet with the fiber of every cell of the human makeup. Then if venues are not open for the provision for of follow-up dialogue, to provide the agreed to complete assistance for the making of such basic human needs and rights a salient issue. We are hoping that we as a people will not again end up entangled in more ignored legislations that will further become discouraging factors to the populace. That further such official gazettes pages does not later on be just ignored by government functionaries in the public administrative and legal circles. We, at the Silver People Heritage organization, recognize in ourselves as a tool to hereinafter be used as the watch institution, looking to inform the world of future violations and exclusionary behavior of other communities in the country of Panama. We further hope that our historic claim will become precedent for the making of spaces for all other people who are feeling the same historic disregard and violation of their humanity and would assist them in suing for redress. As a vital part of the historic Panamanian Africanized races of people and part of ethnic Black Races in the country Republic of Panama, we are not abandoning other ethnic groups in their battle for recognition of claims of Historic and cultural proportions. We are in our petition claiming that the townships citadels and the cemetery sites we have named and which are on the banks of the famous waterway known as the Panama Canal do have for us deep spiritual, cultural and an historic part in our patriotic Panamanian history. To take our place in the arena of Panamanian culture and history as Silver People would further launch our culture and history into the realm of intellectual life to be more than folklore but seen as a culture born out of where we as descendants of the Silver Westindian race of people, see as fitting to be a race of historic eminences in times of importance to our country. That at first light of the turn of the 20th Century we had been pioneers of more than 50 years that has become recorded history, at home and abroad. That further proof would reveal that our ancestors were buried in and on the banks of the Panama Canal, at the places where they had labored and fallen. Then ours are inheritances even memories, then as we are claiming the bones of those deceased, that today lie in cemetery sites and places made for us segregated and now serving as evidence to our cause.

26 Further that such evidence is an historic patrimony left to us by our Silver People ancestors. Indisputable it had become for us, that our ancestors were those who had engaged historically in labor that made life acceptable for not only the Gold Roll favored above them, but that it had further proven to be labor for us as a part of a participatory citizenship in the eradication of pestilence in Panama. We remain constantly alleging that historically our Silver People were the laboring arm, and that with their labor aimed at insuring the solving of many community problems, they were eager to assist knowing that as such it would have brought a better life style to all people, not only for blacks on the canal zone but to the whole isthmus of Panama. Thus, by promoting this proposed Law for the conservation of our cultural and natural heritage we hope to get legislation that will insure our intangible inheritance rights and ownership thereof. Aware that our management skills over the named cemetery and citadels sites that today are in the hands of any foreign moneyed class, are in as much danger of disappearing as the grave digger shovels disappearing and any traces of our forefathers remains. We as Panamanian citizens are hoping to change that tide of cultural genocide and make history for the rightful place of an historic community such as ours. We are in Spiritual Distress Our spiritual distress over these matters in which those cemeteries are the only remaining evidence and visual spiritual links to whats left of our cultural heritage today on what had been the Black Canal Zone is profoundly justified. Today both of those cultural inheritance sites are suffering the threat of disappearance from lack of proper care and as ancient repositories, not only gravesites, should become our sole responsibility for recovery and restoration. Furthermore, we must confess that we carry as much of the blame as a community, however the faults for not raising an adamant voice of concern is a mandate from our God whose responsibility is to see to our urgent needs. However, we are not seeking any municipality or entity that are now administering the sites but the States Parties involved should in keeping with their agreed international mandates place such legal and economic aide in our hands and let us see to the restoration and protection of our heritage. Such is our fear of the danger to these heritages of outstanding universal value to the world left in the hands of such Public Administration pattern of governances. There is, on the one hand, the views only mass disinterment as a solution, while on the other hand this is seen as a means of displaying racial superiority. At any rate, to us the overflowing death rates by whatever cause in a bulging urban population, is not good public administration or good stewardship of our heritage of outstanding universal cultural value by any means. The future will speaks for itself in regards to all other Panamanian citizens whose family beliefs go counter to cremation. The lack of urban planning for such basic services as cemeteries, if kept up this way, would allow those families no choice in the matter of where or how to dispose of remains of there loved ones.

27 Just because the districts in which their loved ones lay, which happens to be a principal part of a growing urban sprawl of rapid industrialization, is not a good reason for mass cremations regardless of spiritual beliefs. It is an abominable violation of human rights of the living and of the deceased. The rate of economic growth then is also substantiates our claims for historic memorial to be set aside for such valuable real estate as that of our Silver Ancestors. We are still reminded that they are still sitting on the banks of a popular Panama Canal Tourist Route. Thus the tide has reached us in which we will experience continued further placing of strains on all sites we have identified now under constant threats of disappearing. Our research into the history of the sites has born out our inherent rights to such cultural ownership and that those historical cultural properties are to be made provision for effective system of a collective protection. It is so that we have been aware that we as a community in possession of such natural and cultural inherent human rights have as such rights recognized under international laws and agreements accepted by our country Panama and the United States of America. To make matters worse there are none of those international agreements turned into laws reflected in our Panamanian Constitution made for the protection of our alleged natural, intangible cultural heritage ownership as communal inheritances. We have arrived at this juncture with a set program- a Plan of Actions- for which a plan for rescue and sustainable management will keep all sites cared for in perpetuity. These sites are presently shamelessly abandoned cemetery sites, and the citadels of the Black Canal Zone will be released to us and protected as we restore them and get them ready for visitors. As it is today there are no visitor centers to greet guest or the bereaved at any of the Sites in which our forefather are entered. The claim to historic patrimony is clear for us as a community for it is therein that our ancestors have historically been buried. Then ours are claims that include our ancestors as integral parts of our natural and intangible cultural heritage. Even in death they are living testimonials to that fact, that they are part of a previously rejected Panamanian history and national identity and citizens patrimony. We are then presenting the following draft for a Law proposing, with clear statements, that our Westindian Community of Silver People is acting presently and making our presence felt because we cannot await a National Constituent Referendum, to come from a political class of our population that previously has shown no interest in who we are, hoping for favorable votes of inclusion in such national debate on these issues. It is now then that we are hoping that such a measure in law would have us see in our lifetime such reparations that will heal historically deep racial prejudicial wounds still left latent. Our proposed Bill represents our historical demand for redress of deep harms inflicted to the social framework of our citizenship. The project proposed would strengthen our request for spaces and time for consultation and dialogues of the issues of ownership of cultural heritage. As such, our petition is demanding that decisive contributions by the State be made for rescuing our historical and intangible cultural heritage, and that our rights to community and humanity, deserves concrete answer. At the same time we hope to set the stage for total inclusion on these themes regarding cultural patrimonies, so that the legal map of our country will have precedents to guide future administrators, if not the total citizenry in these matters. We are also hoping that a system of democracy and

28 laws will formulate such foundation in democracy, that will assist our children from a century of racial suffering because of their ethnic race, thus vindicate and assist us in the having inherent rights to preserving our cultural property. With these actions taken we are bringing to discussion some basic issues in points to our humanity and human rights, which is to own and manage thus directing our cultural inherited property, and in so doing we are hoping that we would make spaces for dialog on issues relating to our place in Panamanian history. Once more we are here attempting to draw attention to international laws that has made effective such rights to be places under our countries constitution of administrative laws. Thus we hope to aid our own citizenship rights. Then again we are hoping that with this hands-on approach we would not have to declare our selves as citizens who are continually isolated, or that our country is an isolated entities regarding participatory governance where the whole of humanity is concerned. Then again, it is not only for our Silver Westindian community that we are protesting; as we a