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Martyrs’ Day is a Panamanian holiday which commemorates the January 9, 1964 riots over sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone. The riot started after a Panamanian flag was torn during conflict between Panamanian students and Canal Zone Police officers, over the right of the Panamanian flag to be flown alongside the U.S. flag.

U.S. Army units became involved in suppressing the violence after Canal Zone police were overwhelmed, and after three days of fighting, about 21 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.

While a Panamanian response to the flag raisings by the Zonians was expected, the crisis took most Americans by surprise. Several years later, Lyndon Johnson wrote in his memoirs that: “When I heard about the students’ action, I was certain we were in for trouble.”

The news of the actions of the Balboa High School reached the students at the Instituto Nacional, Panama’s top public high school. Led by 17-year-old Guillermo Guevara Paz, 150 to 200 students from the institute marched to Balboa High School, carrying their school’s Panamanian flag and a sign proclaiming their country’s sovereignty over the Canal Zone. They had first informed their school principal and the Canal Zone authorities of their plans before setting out on their march. Their intention was to raise the Panamanian flag on the Balboa High School flagpole where the Americans had raised theirs. [2]

At Balboa High, the Panamanian students were met by Canal Zone police and a crowd of Zonian students and adults. After hurried negotiations between the Panamanian students and the police, a small group was allowed to approach the flagpole, while police kept the main group back.

A half-dozen Panamanian students, carrying their flag, approached the flagpole. The Zonians would have none of it. They surrounded the flagpole, sang the Star Spangled Banner, and rejected the deal between the police and the Panamanian students. Scuffling broke out. The Panamanians were driven back by the Zonian civilians and police. In the course of the scuffle, Panama’s flag was torn.

The flag in question had historical significance. In 1947, students from the Instituto Nacional had carried it in demonstrations opposing the Filos-Hines Treaty and demanding the withdrawal of US military bases. Independent investigators of the events of January 9, 1964 later noted that the flag was made of flimsy silk, thus easily torn. [3]

There are conflicting claims about how the flag was torn. Canal Zone Police Captain Gaddis Wall, who was in charge of the police at the scene, denies any American culpability. He claims that the Panamanian students stumbled and accidentally tore their own flag. David M. White, an apprentice telephone technician with the Panama Canal Company, stated that “the police gripped the students, who were four or five abreast, under the shoulders in the arm pits and edged them forward. One of the students fell or tripped and I believe when he went down the old flag was torn.”

One of the Panamanian flag bearers, Eligio Carranza, said that “they started shoving us and trying to wrest the flag from us, all the while insulting us. A policeman wielded his club which ripped our flag. The captain tried to take us where the others Panamanian students were. On the way through the mob, many hands pulled and tore our flag.”

Violence Breaks Out

As word of the flag desecration incident spread, angry crowds formed along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. At several points demonstrators stormed into the zone, planting Panamanian flags. Canal Zone police tear gassed them. Rocks were thrown, causing minor injuries to several of the police officers. The police responded by opening fire.

Canal Zone authorities asked the Guardia Nacional (Panama’s Armed Forces) to suppress the disturbances. The Guardia stayed away from the fighting. Meanwhile, demonstrators began to tear down the “Fence of Shame” which separated the Canal Zone from the Republic of Panama. Panamanians were tear gassed, and then several were shot, for pulling or climbing on the chain link fence. One of the most famous photographs of what Panamanians know as Martyrs’ Day shows two demonstrators, one bearing a Panamanian flag, climbing over the Fence of Shame at Ancon. 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.”

The Panamanian crowds grew as nightfall came, and by 8 p.m. the Canal Zone Police Department was overwhelmed. Some 80 to 85 police faced a hostile crowd of at least 5,000, and estimated by some sources to be 30,000 or more, all along the border between Panama City and the Canal Zone. When the lieutenant governor came to survey the scene, a Panamanian mob stoned his car.

At the request of Lieutenant Governor Parker, General Andrew P. O’Meara, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, assumed authority over the Canal Zone. The US Army’s 193rd Infantry Brigade was deployed at about 8:35 p.m.

American-owned businesses in Panama City were set afire. The recently dedicated Pan American Airlines building (which, despite housing an American corporation, was Panamanian-owned) was completely gutted. The next morning, the bodies of six Panamanians were found in the wreckage.

Some reporters alleged one giant communist plot, with Christian Democrats, Socialists, student government leaders and a host of others controlled by the hand of Fidel Castro. However, it seems that Panama’s communists were caught by surprise by the outbreak of violence and commanded the allegiance of only a small minority of those who fought the Americans on the Day of the Martyrs. A good indication of the relative communist strength came two weeks after the confrontations, when the Catholic Church sponsored a memorial rally for the fallen, which was attended by some 40,000 people. A rival communist commemoration on the same day drew only 300 participants.

Whether or not for fear of an imminent communist takeover, the US embassy was ordered to burn all sensitive documents. A number of American residents of Panama City, particularly military personnel and their families who were unable to get housing on base, were forced to flee their homes. There were many instances in which Panamanians gave refuge to Americans who were endangered in Panama City and elsewhere.

The confrontation was not contained in the Panama City area. Word of the fighting quickly spread all over Panama by radio, television and private telephone calls. The incomplete censorship had the side effect of contributing to wild rumors on all sides. One popular but inaccurate Zonian rumor, fueled in part by references to the “American Canal Zone” in US news media, that the Panama Canal Zone had been renamed “United States Canal Zone” and would henceforth be an outright possession of the United States.

News and rumor instantly traveled the 50 miles from Panama’s south coast to its north coast. The country’s second city, Colón, which abuts the city of Cristóbal, then part of the Canal Zone, erupted within a few hours after the start of hostilities on the Pacific side. Intense fighting continued for the next two days. Unlike in Panama City, Panamanian authorities in Colón had made early attempts to separate the combatants. Some incidents also happened in other cities all over Panama.

more information can be found on Wikipedia

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