We reject and condemn the murder, repression, and prosecution of human rights defenders in Panama fighting against the mining contract.

From the CLACSO Working Group Political ecologies from the South/Abya-Yala We express our solidarity with the Panamanian people and their struggle against open-pit mining in Panama, 22 days into the massive protests in the country. 

First, we strongly condemn the murders of Abdiel Díaz, Tomás Milton—both educators—and Iván Rodríguez Mendoza, who were killed while exercising their legitimate right to protest. Furthermore, we repudiate the persecution and illegal detention of activists and researchers, notably Professor Samuel Pinto, along with teachers' union leader Diogenes Sánchez and lawyer Rogelio Peralta, all members of the teachers' union ASOPROF. Although they have since been released, they are facing legal proceedings and are among the more than 1,000 people detained during the demonstrations. 

Furthermore, we reject the repression, persecution, and hate campaign unleashed by the government of Laurentino Cortizo, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, which targets those who resist by exercising their legitimate right to protest throughout the country and in rejection of Law 406, which is extractive and colonialist in nature.

Passed by the Legislative Assembly on October 20, 2023, Law 406 replaces Contract Law 9, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Justice, and continues and expands the privileges of Minera Panamá—a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals—for open-pit mining for the next 20 years. This makes the project the largest copper mine in Central America. 

The massive social mobilization opposing the contract finds its strongest arguments in how this open-pit mining project would damage more than 12,000 hectares amidst fragile ecosystems in the Panamanian tropical Caribbean, part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Furthermore, it would establish a colonial mining enclave benefiting this Canadian transnational corporation, granting it—among other privileges—rights over airspace and maritime territory, the power to expropriate land, and limited state oversight.

The escalation of the social crisis, and the mobilizing power of social and popular movements, more than just in opposition to Law 406, has translated into a clamor for a Panama free of open-pit mining and echoes the aspirations of a united Latin America against the extractive and colonialist practices of transnational corporations. 

We demand that the Panamanian State cease the repression, listen to the clamor of the country's vital forces, and we express our support, commitment, and solidarity with the struggles of the Panamanian people.

November 11th 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Political ecologies from the South/Abya-Yala

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.