Panamanian people score a great victory, struggle continues

This is a victory of the Indigenous comrades of all the comarcas [equivalent of provinces, but for majority Indigenous regions], and especially of the Ngäbe-Buglé people, who held firm the closures in Tierras Altas, Horconcitos, San Félix, Tolé, Viguí, in Changuinola and various sites in Bocas del Toro.

It is a triumph of the teachers’ unions that held the bastions of the David River, Santiago, Aguadulce and Penonomé. It is a conquest achieved thanks to the bastions of Pacora, Colón, Arraiján, Chorrera, Iglesia del Carmen and so many other places, supported by educators, construction workers, young people and residents.

The organized university students and the neighbors of Viejo Veranillo who, together with the university workers, kept the bastion of the Transístmica [the road connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific] closed for a month, deserve a good part of the credit for this triumph. Of course, honors also go to the tens of thousands of young people and families who went with discipline to the Cinta Costera [Coastal Beltway] and to the Court to demand the repeal of Law 406.

This victory owes a particular debt to the steadfastness of the residents and fisherpeople of Donoso, neighbors of the mine, who imposed the maritime closure of the mining port. We owe the judicial defeat of the FQM to the fortitude of the teachers and their unions, who kept up the fight despite threats from MEDUCA [Education Ministry]. This victory owes much to the leaders and members of SUNTRACS [union federation], whose steadfastness helped sustain the struggle, despite the defamatory campaigns of the media, unions and government officials.