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Activists pressing for cleanup of overseas U.S. military bases won a small victory in May with the approval by the Senate of an amendment requiring the Pentagon to disclose documents on contamination of closed bases outside the United States. The amendment passed the Senate as the outgoing Panamanian government decided to press more aggressively for cleanup of explosives ranges in the Panama Canal area.

Senator Paul Wellstone, a Democrat of Minnesota, authored the amendment to the Defense Authorization bill, which requires the Secretary of Defense to "publicly disclose existing, available information relevant to a foreign nation's determination of the nature and extent of environmental contamination" at former U.S. military bases and sites. The Pentagon must provide Congress (by September 2000) with a list of documents made public, which will exclude information which "could adversely affect U.S. National Security." Because there is no matching legislation in the House of Representatives, the amendment must still be retained in the House-Senate conference committee on the bill, which convenes sometime between June and September.

Wellstone said his initial proposal would have applied to bases in Panama. "However, I understand that sensitive negotiations are underway on this very issue between the U.S. and Panama," he said on the floor of the Senate, "and I did not want this amendment to interfere with the successful conclusion of those negotiations." The amendment will still apply to sites transferred to Panama before 1999, however, including chemical weapons test sites from the 1940s.

"We should be very forthcoming in releasing information on environmental conditions at our facilities in Panama as we close them. I would like to see the Pentagon avoid the long delays in providing information which we have seen in the Philippine case by following the spirit of this amendment." Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) added his voice to Wellstone's by writing to Pentagon chief William Cohen.

On April 28, U.S. representatives presented draft guidelines for administering the 37,000 acres that constitute three firing ranges transferring to Panama. The draft includes manuals for patrolling the lands to keep people from entering, for responding to munitions found after the United States leaves, and for coordinating development plans for the areas. The document contains the curious claim that U.S. experience on the ranges shows that "the potential dangers for the public of unexploded ordnance can be considerably minimized, and even eliminated."

Panamanian officials were sharply disappointed with the proposal, which they formally rejected. "Panama expected that the document would constitute a plan for post-1999 cleanup, and with that understanding it was received," wrote Daniel Delgado of Panama's Foreign Ministry in a May 14 letter to U.S. Colonel David Hunt. Nevertheless, President Ernesto Pérez Balladares accepted the transfer of Piña Range on June 30, saying that the lands "belong to all Panamanians" and that more cleanup is needed.

Tons of Nerve Agent Shipped to Panama

Meanwhile, new information on the U.S. chemical weapons program in Panama came to light in June. Shipping records show that the United States sent three tons of lethal VX nerve agent in 1964 for testing in Panama -- more than three times what was needed for tests conducted by the Tropic Test Center between 1964 and 1968.

Although the document shows one return shipment from Panama to the United States of bottles of nerve agent in 1968, there is no record of return shipments of the VX land mines. The records also show a shipment to Panama on January 29, 1969, of "Chemical Agent Identification Sets," or CAIS kits that were designed to train soldiers in the detection of chemical agents. According to munitions disposal expert Rick Stauber, "the kits contained 'live' chemical agent and were disposed of at the training site location after use." The chemical agents in the kits delivered to Panama were identified as mustard, Lewisite and unspecified nerve agent. Another shipment in March 1967 of chemical "samples" included nerve agents VX and GF and distilled mustard.

"Since the movement information does not contain the amount of CAIS kits delivered to Panama, one does not know how many may be buried at the training areas used by U.S. troops," Stauber continued. The information also raises serious questions about how other chemical agents shipped to Panama were disposed of.

In addition, the Fellowship of Reconciliation obtained a test plan for tests of some 600 gas masks in Panama in 1958-1959, which employed live CK gas as part of the tests. The document describes how gas mask canisters would be stored in Panama's tropical humid environment for periods ranging from 2 to 52 weeks, subjected to tests of lethal CK gas -- also known as cyanogen chloride -- then destroyed.

The new information complements information uncovered by the FOR last year, and shows that the U.S. military's tests and training in Panama using live chemical agents were nearly continuous from 1952 to 1969. In addition, the United States, UK and Canada conducted extensive chemical weapons tests on Panama's San Jose Island from 1944 through 1947.

U.S. claims that further cleanup of the ranges in Panama is "impracticable" were contradicted on May 26 by a contractor who has been conducting the cleanup. Michael Short of EOD Technology, Inc. is coordinating explosives removal from ranges in Panama through August. "Contrary to the Sixty Minutes report, it is possible to safely clear UXO [unexploded ordnance] in the jungle," he said, referring to military assertions that jungle ordnance removal is too difficult or dangerous for workers. "In fact, the jungle is easier due to the lack of kuna grass [high sharp grass common to Panama]."

Short described the multiple problems facing the cleanup in Panama, including hundreds of varieties of hazardous plants, many poisonous snakes, wild fires during the dry season, and roads that become "virtually useless during the rainy season," which began in April.

In the wake of the May 2 elections, the outgoing government has decided to take a more active approach to making the United States accountable for cleanup of the explosive ranges, including funds for technical assessments, legal advice and lobbying in Washington. The decision came too late, however, to incorporate any meaningful action in the U.S. military budget for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1. Panama will find itself in a situation similar to the Philippines, where seven years after the closure of two major U.S. bases, toxic wastes are generating health problems for Filipino residents near the former Clark Air Base.

The incoming government's declared position indicates a continued fight. "We will insist on the complete fulfillment of the obligation of the United States to clean up adequately and to our satisfaction... according to standards applied on U.S. territory," says President-elect Mireya Moscoso's platform. The program goes on to say that the United States must remove "all explosive, chemical, biological or other kinds of contamination that imply a risk to the health or life of living organisms, especially to those people who may use these areas in the future." Moscoso and her aides toured the artillery ranges on June 28, after which she said U.S. officials said they would continue clean-up during her term.

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