In the same year, during price negotiations with the French over the NPCC, another lively -and not altogether orthodox- character emerged as a major player in the story of the Panama Canal. [L3 802 / Philippe Bunau-Varilla's] interest in the canal began when he was employed as an engineer on the de Lesseps project. In 1903 he was taken into the confidence of the US government (under the watchful eye of Secretary of State, John Hay) and was commissioned to negotiate a treaty with Colombia -which still governed Panama- for a 99-year lease of the six-mile-wide Canal Zone. Hay, alongside the brilliant (albeit self-possessed) Bunau-Varilla, managed to convince the Colombian ambassador to sign the treaty in return for $10 million, plus an annual fee of $250,000. Despite the signatures, the Bogota government in Colombia rejected it and demanded a higher fee. It was a rejection that would cost them dearly in the coming months.
In what went completely against the principles of Theodore Roosevelt and the American constitution, the United States government precipitated a revolution in Panama in 1903. It was the brainchild of Bunau-Varilla's and, indeed, seemed the only solution to removing Colombian interference in their plans for building a canal. It also provided Panamanian nationalists with their longed-for independent state. Consultation between Bunau-Varilla, leading Washington politicians and idealistic Panamanian revolutionaries eventually led to one of the most important, albeit peaceful, revolutions in the small state's history. The only deaths reported in the two-day skirmish was that of a Chinese man (apparently caught in the crossfire), a dog and a donkey.
