Panama

PANAMA WHEREAS • for 21 years the Editora Panamá-América S.A. was the target of persecution by the military dictatorship that ruled the country from October 1968 to December 1989 • despite the advent of a non-dictatorial government, the publishing company remains the victim of an arbitrary attitude, based on the reprehensible laws of the dictatorship, which are maintaining a situation that the Supreme Court of ]ustice itself characterized as "legal dispossession" • law N° 27 of 1990 exonerated all businesses whose property was seized unconstitutionally or illegally from any type of labor obligations arising from the period in which they were unable to control their rightful assets • the National Bank of Panama proposes to pass on to Editora Panamá-América S.A. a debt contracted by the usurping enterprise and because of which a lien is held on the publishing company's property in an arbitrary manner • the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Panama itself and its legal adviser have understood that they should free the publishing company of this debt, it is maintained only on the decision of the bank's manager, Luis H. Moreno • this illegitimate inheritance which they are trying to impose upon Editora Panamá-América S.A. as a result of the abuses of the military dictatorship has yet to be overcome THE 47th GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES • to reiterate its denunciation and condemnation in the face of the "legal dispossession" of which Editora Panamá-América S.A. has been a victim • to call upon Panamanian President Guillermo Endara to urgently put an end - as he has offered to IAPA representatives - to the arbitrary situation which is depriving the Panamá America publishing company of full and rightful use of its property, burdened by a labor dispute and by debts incurred by those who usurped its assets for 21 years and whose illegitimacy has been recognized.