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(13 Dec 1999) Spanish/Eng/Nat

As the official handover ceremony of the Panama Canal approaches, developers are preparing to invest in land vacated by the U-S departure.

Foreign and local investors are already bidding for former military bases and personnel housing.

APTN takes a look at the impact of the American withdrawal on Panama.

The United State's last military base was handed over to Panama on November 30, 1999 ending almost one hundred years of military presence on the isthmus.

As children cheered and waved Panamanian flags, a U-S Army colonel gave Panama's president a symbolic key to the military base in the former U-S controlled Canal Zone.

Fort Clayton was the nerve centre of the American military operations in the region.

Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso was on hand to see the Panamanian flag raised in the U-S flag's stead.

The base was handed over in accordance with the 1978 Panama Canal treaties requiring the United States to surrender control of the canal and to remove all U-S troops by December 31, 1999.

U-S troops began pulling out of Panama prior to the December 31 deadline, many wrenching themselves away from what has become a second home.

For the troops and their families leaving Fort Sherman, leaving family and friends behind in Panama proved harder than they expected.

Sergeant Erick Pierson and his wife Vilma do not have children yet.

But Vilma broke down and cried at the idea that her children would be born in the States.

She said she worried that they will never know the country where their family began: Panama.

But now, with the final handover of the canal taking place on the last day of the millennium, Panamanians are looking towards the future.

Preparations for the official handover ceremony on Tuesday mark Panama's preparation for the future.

It won't be easy to fill the gap the U-S will leave.

Approximately 450 (m) million U-S dollars is spent each year on the overall operation of the canal, of which nearly 100 (m) million is committed to maintaining and improving the waterway.

Panama will now have to come up with that amount of money themselves.

And the American pullout has left empty camps, empty airports, and empty houses.

Now, almost everything is for sale.

Howard Air Force Base, once the backbone of the American military presence, is now the venue for a bidding war between five international developers.

The Howard Base is just one of seven thousand buildings and facilities that are on the block.

Doctor Nicolas Ardito-Barletta heads a public authority created to develop the new territories.

He is confident that the losses experienced by the U-S departure will be recovered by 2002.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
" So far there are 1.5 (b) billion dollars of contracts with businesses from North America, Asia, Europe and Panama unfolding in all these areas."
SUPER CAPTION: Doctor Nicolas Ardito-Barletta, Administrator of the Interoceanic Region Authority

Attractions for international developers include no import duties for 20 years on materials and equipment used in the construction of tourism facilities, tax-free interest for hotel investments and elimination of income tax.

For many, the appeal has proven to be a strong one.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
SUPER CAPTION: Richard Norris, U-S Investor from SendOrder.Com

Despite the push to sell what the U-S is leaving behind, not all their legacies are good ones.

There is continuing bitterness over the unexploded ammunition the Americans are leaving behind buried in a 7,400 acre jungle firing range near Fort Sherman.










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