Author: earthfirst

An indige­nous Ngobe pro­test­er was killed by a gun­shot wound to the chest dur­ing con­fronta­tions with the police this morn­ing, 5th Feb­ru­ary, in San Félix, Pana­ma. It has been con­firmed that three more peo­ple have been hurt with local res­i­dents insist­ing many more are injured. In flat con­tra­dic­tion, the Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jose Muli­no has stat­ed that his offi­cers are not car­ry­ing guns. In retal­i­a­tion to the death, Ngobe pro­tes­tors have set light to a police sta­tion in San Félix.

Since 30th Jan­u­ary, demon­stra­tors have been posi­tioned at var­i­ous points along the inter­na­tion­al Inter­amer­i­can high­way using branch­es, pieces of wood, met­al and rocks to block the road. They are protest­ing against the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion to remove a law that would pro­vide envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion to their lands. The police con­tin­ue to deny that there has been any vio­lence, although on Thurs­day 2nd Jan­u­ary there were reports of up to 7 peo­ple injured in attacks involv­ing tear gas.

Ear­ly 2011 saw sim­i­lar actions by thou­sands of Ngobe who protest­ed the gov­ern­men­t’s amend­ment of the nation­al min­ing law 415, which would have allowed for the com­mis­sion of mines and oth­er projects in the region. In March 2011, after talks between gov­ern­ment offi­cials and Ngobe lead­ers, it was agreed that arti­cle 5, which will pro­tect the entire Comar­ca from explo­ration and exploita­tion, would be writ­ten into the min­ing law 415.

Although the gov­ern­ment has begun the explo­ration of oth­er mines in Pana­ma, the semi-autonomous Comar­ca holds an extreme­ly con­sid­er­able amount of min­er­al wealth. Not only is it home to Cer­ro Col­orado – the sec­ond largest cop­per deposit in the world – but it hold sev­er­al small but sig­nif­i­cant sites already under explo­ration by for­eign min­ing com­pa­nies.

Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc. have report­ed­ly been work­ing in the area since 2009 with the assis­tance of the con­sul­tan­cy firm, Kokopel­li, owned by Cana­di­an Don Clarke. Kokopel­li’s role is, accord­ing to its own web­site, “to work direct­ly with indus­try to build sus­tain­able, respect­ful and respon­si­ble rela­tion­ships with Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.”

Don Clarke was also Vice Pres­i­dent of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment for Ecua­cor­ri­ente, a sub­sidiary of Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc, a com­pa­ny which was alleged­ly at the cen­tre of human rights abus­es and social con­flicts in Ecuador.

In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, Hec­tor Lopez, leader of the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Rights and Social Devel­op­ment of the Ngäbe-Bugle Peo­ple, stat­ed at the Nation­al Assem­bly that he opposed arti­cle 5 as it would affect devel­op­ment in the region, and in his opin­ion, vio­late law 10, a found­ing law of the Comar­ca. Lopez is strong­ly in favor of min­ing in the region and believes the Ngobe should receive 50% of min­ing prof­its.

How­ev­er, Celio Guer­ra, pres­i­dent of the tra­di­tion­al Ngabe Bugle Coun­cil also stat­ed in Jan­u­ary that “the peo­ple who protest­ed last year in San Felix spoke loud and clear. We don’t want min­ing in the Comar­ca.”

As protests con­tin­ue to swell on the high­way, there are grow­ing con­cerns over Pana­ma’s free­dom of press. On 20th Jan­u­ary, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist and fix­er, Rosie Simms, was denied entry into the coun­try. She had been work­ing on behalf of the Cana­di­an broad­cast­er CBS who were cov­er­ing a sto­ry about Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­nies in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Many believe that this is symp­to­matic of a wider issue relat­ing to free­dom of press. A recent report by Reporters With­out Bor­ders revealed that Pana­ma has dropped 58 places on the free­dom of press index since 2010.

As the protests con­tin­ue, oth­er parts of the coun­try have joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty. In Donoso dis­trict, Colón province, a group of Ngobe and campesinos have blocked a road to the Petaquil­la min­ing project. In Bocas del Toro province, Banana plan­ta­tion work­ers have announced that they will strike in 73 hours unless the gov­ern­ment hon­ors its agree­ments. Truck­ers, stuck in San Felix, have also pledged to strike. In the cap­i­tal, many peo­ple have tak­en to streets in sup­port of the Ngobe.

After five days of protests there is major dis­rup­tion through­out Pana­ma. Mar­ket sell­ers in the cap­i­tal have report­ed loss­es of up to $10,000. In Bocas del Toro, Banana Com­pa­nies have esti­mat­ed a loss of $270,000 due to road clo­sures. Accord­ing to the Cham­ber of Com­merce the econ­o­my could face a total loss of over 10 mil­lion dol­lars.

Mean­while, the Cos­ta Rican gov­ern­ment has expressed con­cern that 270 of its cit­i­zens remain stuck in Pana­ma due to the road clo­sures. Pres­sure has been increas­ing for all sides to enter into talks.

UN rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Pana­ma have urged both Ngobe lead­ers and the gov­ern­ment to begin ‘a peace­ful dia­logue’ and ‘to avoid vio­lence.’ Although Pres­i­dent Mar­tinel­li has said the sit­u­a­tion is ‘reach­ing a lim­it,’ he has refused to reach out to the Ngobe. He also con­tin­ues to under­mine the legit­i­ma­cy of the protests by accus­ing oppo­si­tion par­ties of ‘manip­u­lat­ing’ them.

In a con­tin­u­al dis­tor­tion of the facts, the gov­ern­ment has been using mis­lead­ing rhetoric such as ‘kid­napped’ and ‘hostages’ when refer­ring to trav­el­ers delayed on the high­way.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, 4th Feb­ru­ary, mobile phone cov­er­age was sus­pend­ed along a large stretch of the high­way where the pro­test­ers are con­cen­trat­ed. Lat­er in the after­noon, six teach­ers were arrest­ed in the city of San­ti­a­go whilst protest­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The sit­u­a­tion is extreme­ly charged and ten­sion is mount­ing across the coun­try. As vio­lence con­tin­ues to unfold in San Félix, jour­nal­ists and human rights orga­ni­za­tions are being denied access to the area. The gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and there have been no attempts so far to reach out to the Ngobe and begin peace­ful talks.

On Feb­ru­ary 3 Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers (CFD) block­ad­ed the entrance to the Ore­gon Governor’s Man­sion with a mound of christ­mas trees. Activists held ban­ners, read­ing “Ral­ly at the State Land Board Meet­ing Feb. 14” and “KITZHABER LIES, FOREST DIE!” One per­son was arrest­ed.

On Octo­ber 11^th 2011, Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber approved a plan to almost dou­ble log­ging in the Elliott State For­est. Vot­ers, expect­ing a green Gov­er­nor, are out­raged at the hypocrisy of his actions. “The old Elliott State For­est man­age­ment plan already allowed an appalling amount of clearcut­ting,” says Erin Grady, a mem­ber of CFD, “The State Land Board made a 60 year com­mit­ment to this plan in 1995. And only six­teen years lat­er, they just threw the whole plan in the trash!” If log­ging in the Elliott con­tin­ues at the cur­rent rate, this for­est will be gone with­in our life­time.

In the past year, there has been wide­spread dis­ap­point­ment regard­ing Kitzhaber’s deci­sions towards the Elliott. For­est activist Echo Live­ly says, “If any­one was unsure about it before, we can now be sure that Kitzhaber is in the pock­et of indus­try in Ore­gon.” Anoth­er for­est advo­cate com­ments, “The only thing green about Kitzhaber is the mon­ey.” Kitzhaber has made many mis­takes man­ag­ing envi­ron­men­tal issues in Ore­gon, but there is still time to save this cru­cial rain­for­est of the Pacif­ic North­west.

CFD invites any and all who are enraged with Kitzhaber and oth­er mem­bers of the State Land Board to attend a ral­ly at their next meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 14th at 10:00am. It will be held out­side the Depart­ment of State Lands locat­ed in Salem at 775 Sum­mer St. NE. Come tell Kitzhaber that we won’t let our forests be destroyed with­out a fight.

-Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers