January Days: Looking back and looking forward

Fri., 9. Martyr’s Day in Panama commemorates those killed during a 1964 uprising over the US-Panama agreement regarding control of the Canal Zone, as laid out in the treaty of 1903. According to the EBSCO research database, the seeds of the conflict began in 1963, when Pres. John F. Kennedy agreed to allow Panama’s flag to fly alongside the US flag in the Canal Zone, which, to Americans living there (“Zonians”), signaled a relinquishing of American sovereignty over the zone.