Participants of exercise PANAMAX 24, held in various parts of the United States, August 5-14, left with ideas, lessons learned, and stronger brotherhoods, Panamanian National Air and Naval Service (SENAN) Deputy Commissioner Félix Kirven, SENAN’s national director of Human Resources and liaison officer for the multinational force in the exercise in the United States, told Diálogo. PANAMAX, Deputy Commissioner Kirven added, is proof that perseverance and cooperation bring results that define a region.
Diálogo: What does multinational exercise PANAMAX represent for Panama and for the protection of the canal?
Panamanian National Air and Naval Service Deputy Commissioner Félix Kirven, SENAN’s national director of Human Resources: We must begin by stressing the importance of the Panama Canal for the world; the economy and world trade that transit through the Panama Canal. The benefits of maritime trade, whether from Asia, Europe, North America, or Latin America, have a direct impact on our country’s actions. The world commerce that transits through an asset such as the Panama Canal leads us to practice interoperability. This exercise has been going on for years. The first version was in 2003, and it has evolved throughout this time.
It started with only maritime components from three countries: the United States, Chile, and Panama. Today, 21 years later, we’ve evolved to the domains we have: land, air, maritime, and technology domains that cannot be stopped, such as cybersecurity and space challenges.
Today, various armed components from Latin American countries, and also from the United States, as well as observers from Europe, such as Spain, are here. They are here to provide a sample of knowledge, a sample of doctrine, a sample of the fraternity, of standard operating procedures, which add up to what we call interoperability. It isn’t so easy to gather hundreds of people, each one with a different way of thinking. To achieve that in a short period of time they must go in a single direction, with a single objective. I think that is one of the most important achievements. We managed to demonstrate that we are competent, that we have procedures and that, despite the language barriers, we are capable of this effective coordination.
Diálogo: What does it mean for the citizens of Panama that all these multinational forces are taking care of the Canal?
Deputy Commissioner Kirven: One of the most important challenges is communication with the population. Sometimes the ordinary Panamanian does not value what he has, but people have changed that mentality and we put it to the test when in 2016 we inaugurated our expanded canal. The same route of the traditional canal but with two more sets of locks, to accommodate the transit of ships that were impossible to pass and that were a necessity for global trade. We tested the security aspects, the diplomacy aspects, because curiously enough, the first ship to pass through was the Costco Shipping, from a Chinese shipping company. However, the security challenges that Panama’s security agencies were able to meet and integrate with, showed and give confidence to citizens today, to the ordinary Panamanian. For us as uniformed members of the security forces, we also feel the satisfaction of being able to coordinate operations directly, to put into practice what we’ve learned and measure ourselves, so to speak. That our capabilities are on a par with those of other armed forces in the region. We profess or practice what we have trained so hard to do: to guarantee safe and continuous transit in the Panama Canal.
Diálogo: What conclusions can we draw from an experience like PANAMAX 24?
Deputy Commissioner Kirven: One always acquires enriching experiences, new knowledge. Knowledge is something that will never be a burden and will never stop. Beyond the evolution in the exercise domains there is a global threat that the whole world is suffering from today, which is climate change. This prompted the design of the expanded canal locks to use water recycling tubs. The knowledge acquired in this version of PANAMAX is enriching, but it will not limit us. The world continues to evolve and today we see conventional symmetrical threats and tomorrow we may have other types of threats that impact the region. Proof of this was that for the recent El Niño phenomenon, we had to reduce traffic in the canal due to the water issue. That leads us as Panamanians to look for mitigation measures. But tomorrow, we as servants of our nations can also evolve to contribute to maintaining that security in the Panama Canal.
