Canadian executive in Panama hides racist past
(nationalpost.com) In Panama, he was known as James Alexander, a Canadian financial executive working on contract for Emerald Passport Inc., a Panamanian company that teaches people how to get rich.
He was a popular consultant.
"You can talk to anybody in contact with him -- black, white, Jewish or whatever. And they will all tell you he's the nicest guy around. I mean he treats people with respect," said Christian Desharnais, a company official.
But a scandal has erupted in Panama after a local blogger revealed that "Mr. Alexander" is actually James Alexander McQuirter, the former Grand Wizard of the Canadian Ku Klux Klan.
Since the article appeared on the Web site Bananama Republic two weeks ago, the president of Emerald Passport has resigned and on Wednesday the company issued a statement saying it was unaware of Mr. McQuirter's "reprehensible" past.
"When Emerald Passport became aware of James Alexander's past actions and associations, his consultant services were no longer retained," the statement said. "We wish to reassure our membership that Emerald Passport is in the process of introducing comprehensive verification procedures to vet the background of the people we do business with, with a view to avoiding future incidents of this nature."
The Canadian Association of Panama, an expats group headed by Phil Edmonston, the author of the popular Lemon Aid series of car books, has also introduced new screening procedures for it members. "We passed a resolution saying that we are going to vet more aggressively," Mr. Edmonston said.
Reached by e-mail on Thursday, Mr. McQuirter said he was "saddened that my past of a quarter of a century ago has continued to hurt innocent people. For this, I am very unhappy."
He said he was no longer involved in white supremacist activities. "I was a different person 25 years ago. I have learned something important over the many years since 1980 -- that it was not possible for me to change my past, but it was possible for me to change."
Panama is the southernmost country in Central America, best known for the shipping canal that links the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. Its three million people are mostly mestizos, a Spanish term for those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry.
Concerns about the former Klan leader's appearance in Panama stem partly from his involvement, along with fellow Canadian Klansman Wolfgang Droege, in a 1981 attempted coup d'état on the island of Dominica, in the Eastern Caribbean. "If you have control of a country, you can make a lot of money," he said at the time.
Mr. McQuirter was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the coup plot. He was later convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. He has kept a low profile since his release from prison in 1989.
Former undercover agent Grant Bristow, who infiltrated the extreme right wing for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said Mr. Droege credited Mr. McQuirter for the success of the Canadian KKK.
"Droege spoke often of McQuirter's ability as a great young orator and face of the racist right," Mr. Bristow said. But he said that Mr. Droege told him in 1991 that "he met with McQuirter and he was not politically active and had no desire to get involved in racist politics. Droege thought that he had been neutralized as a result of his prison time."
Writing under the name James Tavian Alexander, Mr. McQuirter published a book called Realm of Wealth: The 9 Cycles of Prosperity, described on his Web site as a "modern how-to revelation to the cycles of the universe that govern us all."
His biography says he "has spent 20 years applying success achievement methods to tens of thousands of men and women in many countries, in many different cultures." It does not mention his KKK or criminal past.
Last month, Okke Ornstein, a Dutch reporter based in Panama, ran into "Mr. Alexander" at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort, a five-star luxury hotel where the Pierce Brosnan spy movie The Tailor of Panama was filmed.
Suspicious about the Canadian, who was at the hotel for an Emerald Passport event, Mr. Ornstein searched his name on the Internet and wrote an article outing him as a former Canadian Klan boss.
"Was he plotting the overthrow of Panama's government in Gamboa's tropical ambiance? Soldiers of fortune taking control of the Canal, heading there in fast boats down the Chagres River? Or was the peaceful jungle village the scene of burning crosses and hooded white supremacists? Not that I know of, but such plots are seldom advertised," the reporter wrote. The Panama Star and The Panama News picked up the story.
When he read the news, Emerald president Jaime Figueroa quit the company. "I am a very decent man," Mr. Figueroa said in an interview on Thursday. "I'm a Catholic and I have a Christian background, and in Panama we have no racism. We have a lot of people from different backgrounds and religions and we don't stand for that."
Mr. Figueroa said the company "sells software that teaches you how to earn wealth." He said Canadians own the company and he was not closely involved in the operations.
He said he met Mr. McQuirter at an Emerald event in Gamboa. "I knew him as James Alexander, they never used his real name during the meeting," he said. "I was told that he was hired because he was a direct sales expert."
One of the roughly 1,500 Canadians who live in Panama, Mr. Desharnais said he had known Mr. McQuirter since 2005 and that his behavior had always been beyond reproach. He said Mr. McQuirter was never an employee of the Panamanian company; he was a distributor who was asked to do marketing consulting on a contract basis.
He did not blame Mr. McQuirter for not mentioning his past.
"If the guy would have come to us and said, ‘Please give me a marketing consulting gig, and by the way I have this past behind me,' any company would have been hesitant.
"So he didn't."
