My apologies if I have offended anyone, let alone threatened anyone--don't
see how I can do that, as I have nothing to do with the administration of
this list.  I just wanted to continue this discussion, from Stephen P.
Austin's comment, about the management of unexploded ordnance on U.S.
military bases.  I have no information about Panama, beyond the standard
note that the U.S. has often been discourteous, even arrogant, in its
dealings with other nations, especially places where we've been so deeply
involved for so long a period of time, as in Panama.  I wanted to state my
experience in working on military installations, with the abundance of
archaeological resources they contain, and the efforts the military makes
to lessen this acknowledged danger.  I'd like to continue this discussion,
not close it.

David Babson.



At 07:33 AM 11/5/99 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 11/03/99 7:06:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
><< The U.S. military makes three major efforts to minimize danger to people
> using their bases, not only contractors (archaeological and otherwise),
> of course, but for the soldiers or sailors training there, which is the
> main purpose of the installations.
>  >>
>
>On 10/30/99 I received this warning (threat) and I respectfully submit this
>to the forum with knowledge I may be kicked off of it. I did not create the
>melodramatics the list owner did, apparently. Semper Paratus.
>
>Subj:   Re: Histarch - Final Warning
>Date:   10/30/99
>To: <A HREF="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]</A>
>
>I want to ask you a question. What do you think historical archaeology is? Is
>it discussing Ivor Noel-Hume's "Historical Archaeology" and "Artifacts of
>Colonial America?" and other publications? I don't agree that discussions
>should be limited to the historical predisposition that this field has
>become, Excel charts of artifact numbers and other ridiculous though
>necessary stuff. The sites I work on have significance to human history not
>just some discussion of typology.
>
>What is the significance of this e-mail? One might strike up a discussion
>that does more that start and end political fights. My suggestion is that if
>this discussion group has to be moderated to the point that I have to be
>"censored" to what should be little pats of recognition of other colleagues
>then you should rename this list a discussion of table manners and colleague
>recognition instead of the hard facts that history presents.
>
>Rather than bore you with a lot of other stuff maybe if you saw my resume and
>the work I've done with Joel W. Grossman, Ph.D. (all right a noted pacifist,
>from the early draft I found out much later) on Government jobs. And it's a
>pity the Superfund laws are still tied up five or six years later in the
>Congress. This was the work we were doing and the whole thing just stopped.
>If I have an ax to grind it is with the archaeologists who won't admit,
>there's a lot of stuff to clean up out there.
>
>Sincerely,
>George J. Myers, Jr.
>
>http://members.aol.com/gmyers9185
>
>PS I have lived in poverty in America and Canada, my position is that I don't
>have to be put there by the Government of Historical Archaeology. Take me off
>the list I'll just post this in another archaeology discussion. We must
>decide if we are a profit or a nonprofit.
>
>I respectfully submit this report:
>
>ENVIRONMENT: PANAMANIANS DEMAND U.S. CLEANS UP ...
>October 29, 1999 8:07p.m.  Full Screen (print)
>
>PANAMA CITY, (Oct. 28) IPS - Civic groups in Panama want the government here
>and the international community to exert pressure on Washington to clean up
>U.S. military bases in the Canal zone which reverts to Panama at the end of
>this year.
>Guillero Puga, secretary general of the Confederation of Workers of the
>Republic (CTRP), said non-governmental organizations are pushing for speedy
>action following an earlier meeting on the subject in Washington between
>Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso and Pres. Bill Clinton.
>
>Puga wants the contentious issue of decontamination of the bases to be part
>of official state policy with firm deadlines set for the United States to
>clean up the bases before it withdraws its troops from Panama Dec. 31 in
>accord with the "Torrijos-Carter" Canal Treaty.
>
>The labor leader recalled that, at the meeting with Clinton, Moscoso had
>raised the need to recover areas contaminated with chemicals, munitions and
>military waste products because they posed a danger to the security and
>development of Panama.
>
>Clinton indicated that he was happy to work with Panamanian authorities to
>find a solution to this problem, although he stressed Washington had
>fulfilled all its legal obligations on the issue.
>
>But Carlos Lopez Guevara, a former negotiator on the canal treaties, told IPS
>that "Panama should insist through every available diplomatic channel that
>the United States fulfill its responsibility in the decontamination of the
>areas used for years for military exercises."
>
>Last July, former president Ernesto Perez Balladares criticised the United
>States for its slowness in removing explosives from the shores of the canal.
>
>Lopez Guevara added that the root of the problem was the lack of information
>on the exact number and location of the decades-old live, undetonated
>munitions and chemicals that have been left in hard-to-reach areas.
>
>The process of a thorough clean-up would require an audit and environmental
>impact study to allow effective recovery of the land and water that are part
>of Panama's national heritage.
>
>According to a report by the North American association for reconciliation,
>Lindsay-Polland, from 1930 to 1968 the United States ran a chemical weapons
>program from its Panamanian bases.
>
>Between 1930 and 1946, the program focused on the objective of defending the
>inter-oceanic waterway, but during the next 20 years, its emphasis changed to
>clandestine strategic testing of the effectiveness of various weapons in a
>tropical climate.
>
>Among the most contaminated areas are the uninhabited Isla de San Jose in the
>Pacific, and nearby maritime zones, which were used for extensive testing of
>chemical weapons, as well as the firing range Nuevo Emperador on the shores
>of the canal, where mines with the neurotoxin VX and other weapons of mass
>destruction were detonated.
>
>According to Lopez Guevara, Panama should invoke the principles of
>international law that dictate that "an obligation exists, which in this case
>is the equivalent of 'he who pollutes is required to clean it up.'"
>
>The legal expert noted that the Panamanian goverment's position is supported
>by the Canal Treaty of 1977 and Convention on Chemical Weapons of 1997, of
>which the United States is a signatory and which requires any country that
>contaminates another to destroy its arms in the affected nation.
>
>Celia Sanjur, the director of the Christian Center of Social Training, told
>IPS that "Panama should explore all the available means and not leave the
>initiative of cleaning up the firing ranges to the United States."
>
>This organization has waged a campaign to clean up the firing ranges, but
>never managed to secure the authorization of the United States Army to
>observe the removal of explosives, despite repeated requests to the
>binational commission assigned to oversee the procedure.
>
>Researcher Ricardo Leal, who has participated in the commission's work,
>believed relations between the United States and Panama had become strained
>over the question of restricted access to the areas where removal or
>deactivation of explosive material was being carried out.
>
>Leal said clean-up operations had been limited to level areas with a thin
>soil layer, since the United States claimed that it did not have the
>necessary equipment to guarantee total decontamination of mountainous and
>jungle areas or rugged terrain.
>
>Lopez Guevara argued that the United States did have the advanced technology
>to successfully perform this kind of work even though high officials in that
>country assert the opposite, since "the United States is not acting in good
>faith."
>
>Miguel Montiel, director of the Institute of Canal Studies of the University
>of Panama, told IPS that it was significant that Washington had accepted
>responsibility for the contamination but it was more important that it picked
>up the multi-million-dollar tab for recovering minefields and zones with
>buried explosives.
>
>"It is necessary to stop talking about it and start doing something," Montiel
>said, stressing the absolute legal right of Panama to have its sovereign
>territory returned in good condition and without foreign troops at the start
>of the new century, as stipulated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
>
>Studies carried out by the Canal Institute revealed that U.S. soldiers had
>for years tested Agent Orange in the province of Darien on the border with
>Colombia. Agent Orange, a toxic chemical that causes serious physical damage,
>was used extensively in the jungles of Vietnam to break the resistance of the
>Vietnamese.
>
>From 1964 to 1975, the United States dumped millions of liters of Agent
>Orange on Vietnam in a vain attempt to win its war against that country.
>Today, Vietnam is still trying to recover devastated areas where the
>population reportedly suffers continuing health and environmental problems.
>
>For Lopez Guevara, Panama's long struggle to recover control of the canal
>faced the immediate obstacle of overcoming the contamination of part of its
>territory by "a bad neighbor," that wants to go home without cleaning up what
>it polluted.
>
>The former negotiator in the Canal Treaties underlined the need for the world
>to support Panama in its demands to restore the environment and not to allow
>a "crime against humanity."
>
>
>Copyright 1999
>
>If this has offended you I don't care.
>