Talk:Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla

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Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

[edit] Copy-Editing, etc.

This page was flagged for copy-editing. It was mostly just incredibly awkward wording, and I changed a lot of that around. I got rid of the flag, but there might still be some need for editing.

Also, if anyone wants to look over it and make sure the new wording doesn't diminish the accuracy of any statements, that'd be good, but it should be fine.

-D. O'B. 3/18/07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DrawingOnBathroomWalls (talk • contribs) 04:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC).


I would like to bring up a very important issue to the information given on this page. Philippe Bunau-Varilla is considered a persona nongrata by the country of Panama because he manipulated many people in order to be able to negotiate the Panama Canal Treaty with John Hay. He made a lot of money from the US$40 millions paid by the U.S. in order to transfer the assets from the French company, which had been building the Canal.

A Panamanian delegation was on its way to Washington DC when Bunau-Varilla managed to get appointed as Ambassador of the country in Washington, even though he was not a Panamanian citizen. He was told not to sign any agreements until the negotiating delegation arrive at the U.S. capital, but he did what he wanted thus making a lot of money and also giving away the Panama Canal area to the Americans.

This man was not the honorable person your article described and there are many sources to prove it (i.e. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9018067/Philippe-Jean-Bunau-Varilla. Even though he had a great deal to do with the American intervention to build the canal in Panama and not in Nicaragua, he did it out of greed and he used any means available to make his own money regardless of the consecuences of giving a lease to perpetuity and giving away land that was not his.

I encourage anyone reading this article to look for more information. Unfortunately, many sources giving information about this man do not have their facts straight.