Panama President Visits Border Site of Clash with Colombia FARC
PANAMA CITY (laht.com) -- President Martin Torrijos visited the border region where Panamanian border guards clashed last week with irregulars from neighboring Colombia, assuring residents that the government would send extra police to the area.
He bestowed Panama's Medal of Valor on 23 members of the National Border Service for their action in repelling the incursion by a "group of armed bandits," the president's office said in a communique.
The border guards captured one of the Colombians who was wounded in the confrontation, and he is now being treated at a hospital in Panama City.
Colombia's defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, told reporters in Bogota that the irregulars involved in last Friday's battle with the Panamanians were members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Andean nation's largest rebel group.
But he offered no evidence to support that assertion, and the area where the confrontation took place, the jungle province of Darien, is a playground for Colombian smugglers, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries as well as the FARC.
Torrijos met Sunday with residents of the border communities of Manene, Rio Indio, Llano Bonito, Pueblo Nuevo, Galilea and Buenos Aires, promising to increase the number of security forces in the area.
He urged the residents not to abandon their homes and to assist police by reporting the presence of strangers.
The president also delivered food aid and announced plans to expand health, housing and welfare programs in Darien.
