University of Panama employees on strike

By Eric Jackson, 18 December 2002

Just now a thousand or more University of Panama employees are marching past the Internet cafe where I am, en route to the Legislative Assembly to demand pay that's owed them.

The Minister of Economy Finance, Norberto Delgado, says with this smirk on his face that the university got a $750,000 check to pay the bill. The university rector says it's a lie. The employees have been on strike for a few weeks now, and grades haven't been processed at the end of the school year.

I think Delgado's a liar. If he's not, you would think that he would have produced the cancelled check by now. It's not a matter of my trusting University Rector Julio Vallarino, but the guy really shouldn't be expected to prove a negative.

Basically the University of Panama is a PRD political patronage fiefdom and the Arnulfista regime is messing with it.

The most thoughtful of the campus radicals are calling for a purge of all the PRD hacks from the university payroll and stern resistance against any attempt by the brainless president and her gang of thieves to impose themselves on the university in the PRD's place.