Another Major Fire in Curundu

By DON WINNER for Panama-Guide.com There was another major fire in the Curundu neighborhood of Panama City yesterday morning. This time several buildings known as the "triangulo" were either completely or partially destroyed. Only two months ago another fire in the same neighborhood destroyed more than 130 homes, left 700 homeless, and claimed the lives of three children. Yesterday's fire destroyed more than 100 homes, left 380 homeless, and two were injured in the fire. Residents in the area awoke to the screams of their neighbors that the building was on fire at 6:20 am, just at dawn. It looks like the fire was accidental - apparently someone had a candle lit and it fell over and started the fire. One area resident said that the person who had the candle lit was probably doing drugs and started the fire accidentally. The "triangulo" area was already scheduled to be demolished by the Housing Ministry and the people who lived there were going to be relocated. Others are speculating that someone just decided to speed up the process a little. (more) (Photo Credit: LA PRENSA/Víctor Arosemena)


The fire occurred in an area of Curundu known as "El Triangulo." The buildings that burned were made from wood and have been there for at least fifty years if not longer. There were slums in every sense of the word.

The Worst Hole in Panama City: These wooden shacks in the "Hollywood" section of Curundu are the absolute worst parts of Panama City. They started off as squatters shacks at least three generations ago and have been there ever since. The shacks are made of wood, the roofs of zinc, and there are no roads. The only way to get in there is on foot along narrow cement walkways that wind between the shacks. This is the toughest of the tough neighborhoods of Panama City, and it makes Chorillo look like Playa Blanca in comparison. It's a kind of "no man's land" for the police. They can go in there, but not without being preceded by word of mouth. Everyone knows who's supposed to be there and who's not. The entire area can only be described as people living in abject poverty in the worst possible conditions, surrounded on all sides by drugs, violence, and crime.

Rare Opportunity to Check It Out: I've been down into this area of Curundu before with friends that grew up there, but that was a long time ago. It was a very tough neighborhood back in the time just before Just Cause, but it was a slightly different kind of tough. There was still a lot of poverty, crime, and drugs, but there was a certain level of respect. Like, I was being shown around by a local who had street rights and as long as I was with him, I was fine. We came around a corner and there was a building that was out of place because obviously the person who lived there had some spending money. It was a cement building, freshly painted, and there were two guards outside with Uzis. The waved their hello's to my friend Qimi, exchanged pleasantries, and we were on our way. The difference is, back then there were drugs, but there wasn't as much local consumption.

Now, It's All About the Crack: While the building were still burning, crack addicts were pulling the electrical wires from the buildings for the copper. One crack head burned his hands on a piece of roofing material that came down in the fire. He knows you can haul that over to the recycling center and sell it for $2.00, and he wanted his rock for the day. Police had to pull their service weapons to get residents who were looting and stealing from one another to fall back behind a security perimeter. Like, it's not bad enough that all of your (meager) belongings are about to go up in flames. Having punk kids and crackheads grabbing anything of value while the firemen fight the flames is just adding insult to injury. At first people thought it was residents trying to save their belongings but then they realized that it was looters and thieves. Absolutely shameful conduct on any level.

An Interview With A Survivor: While I was covering the fire I met Alfredo Irving Severiano, who goes by the street names "Pulumba" or "El Chombon." He's seen the inside of practically every prison or holding cell in the country to include Coiba, the Modelo Prison, and La Joya. He's been shot fifteen times and stabbed 39 times, and he says he's been flying straight for the past seven years. He now is trying to be a role model for the young kids that are coming up behind him, and he considers himself to be a walking miracle. By all rights he should be dead. All of this contemporaries are, and now at 39 years old he was lobbying to anyone that would listen to say that the jobs of rebuilding Curundu should go to the unemployed people who live in the area. Panameñista lawmaker José I. Blandón was there talking to residents. Panama's Housing Minister Balbina Herrera is right in the middle of finding solutions for these people. But the most interesting interview of the morning came from a police lieutenant who regularly works the area.

"Our Hands Are Tied" I asked the basic questions, like why can't they just find the dealers and take them off the streets. Apparently anyone with 25 crack cocaine rocks is not considered to be a dealer, and that quantity would be considered personal use which is practically an administrative offense. The dealers have learned how much they can carry and still not be popped for trafficking, and they travel in packs so they can split up any larger amounts between them if need be. Here's the part I really could not believe. You know those shots you see on the evening news of two guys getting arrested with a wad of bills, a few bags of dope, a revolver and six bullets? Apparently, they almost always get the gun back. They are handed a fine for not having a permit to carry the weapon, they get the gun back and are told they have to get a permit. According to this LT, he's seen gang-bangers with M-14's get them back after claiming in court that they were "collectors."

Frustrated on the Front Lines: Who would want the job of cleaning up the violence that spills out of these drug infested and poverty stricken neighborhoods? And, they see the same guys coming back over and over and over and over again. The crooks know that if they get popped for robbery (again) that they will do a few more months in jail (again) and then they will be back out on the streets (again) and the cops see them walking around (again.) The problems come with the guys who are known to be violent killers. Most of the people who are addicted to crack know that they don't want to do anything violent because that greatly extends their time in lockup. There are some, however, who really don't give a damn about anything or anyone. Those guys are scary in any town. Also the rules change as soon as you turn 18 years old. The adults that control the drug traffic on the street learned a long time ago to use kids for their "wet work." And, the corregidor of Santa Ana told me he knows kids that are thirteen and fourteen years old that already have five or six murders under their belts. Faced with all of that, the cops are weary.

It All Comes Down To Resources: Three little girls died in the first fire. Between the two, more than 1,000 people were made homeless. Here's something else that I learned on this particular wander - you know those ugly concrete buildings that dot the slums of Panama? As I walked through the ashes of the "triangulo" taking pictures of the firemen and the destruction left behind, dozens of people looked down on us from the "multis" that surround the area. There were three guys there from the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES) and I asked them if Panama's Housing Ministry was responsible for them. Nope. They are privately owned. Someone owns those slums and is charging those people monthly rent to live there. I asked "who is the owner" and no one could tell me. I'm going to find out. But that's a side issue. The big strategic change in the past 20 years has been the increasing use of highly addictive drugs at the street level. That single factor is responsible for a great deal of the pain and suffering dealt out in this country every day. The government can only do so much. They are neither responsible for the reality on the street, nor the holders of the magic bullets. They have resources, and in fact the available resources are increasing all the time. But fixing these issues will require a comprehensive and multi-disciplined approach.

One Frame Sticks In My Mind: Of all the things I saw on this walk-around, the one that stuck with me was a small child who was running around chasing a chicken with a stick. His house was gone, his older brothers and younger sisters were there with his mother, no father was around. He had no shoes and just a pair of dirty underwear for clothes, and was laughing and having a great time playing with the chicken. I wondered what nickname they would pin on him, how many more man-made disasters would effect his life, how many individual crimes he would witness during his childhood, how many bleeding victims he would sneak a peak at, how many burned out buildings he would be thrown from, and what kind of a life was in store for him. But at that particular moment in time he could not have been happier, laughing and playing, oblivious to the pain and suffering all around him. And no one cared that his only outlet for fun was to torture a helpless animal. In Panama, never underestimate the Petri dish of hell that these kids grow out of. To do that would be a grave mistake.

Copyright 2007 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. As usual, feel free to use whatever you want as long as you credit the original source. Salud.