• Redcuban1959 [any]
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    12 days ago

    Martyrs' Day (Spanish: Día de los Mártires) is a Panamanian day of national mourning which commemorates the January 9, 1964 anti-American riots over sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone. The riot started after a Panamanian flag was torn and students were killed during a conflict with Canal Zone Police officers and Canal Zone residents. It is also known as the Flag Incident or Flag Protests.

    In January 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed to fly Panama's flag alongside the U.S. flag at all non-military sites in the Canal Zone where the U.S. flag was flown. However, Kennedy was assassinated before his orders were carried out.

    U.S. Army units became involved in suppressing the violence after Canal Zone police were overwhelmed, and after three days of fighting, about 22 Panamanians and four U.S. soldiers were killed. The incident is considered to be a significant factor in the U.S. decision to transfer control of the Canal Zone to Panama through the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.

    Canal Zone authorities asked the Panama National Guard (Panama's Armed Forces) to suppress the disturbances, but they did not intervene. Meanwhile, demonstrators began to tear down the "Fence of Shame" located in the Canal Zone, a safety feature alongside a busy highway. The opinion of most Panamanians, and most Latin Americans generally, about the fence in question was expressed a few days later by Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States: "In Panama there exists today another Berlin Wall."

    International reaction was largely unfavorable against the United States. The British and French governments, who had been criticized by U.S. administrations for their foreign policy and handling of their various colonies, accused the U.S. of hypocrisy and argued that their Zonian citizens were as obnoxious as any other group of colonial settlers.

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