Threat of more street action over Barro Blanco

NGABE BUGLE protesters have refused to return to the dialogue table with the government and are threatening to take the fight  back to the streets.

 Ricardo Miranda, of the April 10 Movement (M-10), said Saturday, August 1, that any indigenous voices at the table are personal opinions and do not represent the feelings of the people, reports La Prensa.
He said that M10 will not return to the dialogue table established by the government because they feel it’s just a way to extend the problem while the Genisa company, continues to work to on the project. now over 95% complete.
“The struggle continues,” Miranda said and will now be on the streets, and will be showing up in Tole, Chiriqui, in Vigui, bordering the province of Veraguas, and in Changuinola.
However, the regional chief Chito Gallardo said the M-10 is considering continuing the dialogue table, “for the safety of our people.”
He added that, to re-engage in talks, will be for the will of people and not as individuals, as argued by Miranda.
Miranda denied the possibility, saying that “it is not so”, since neither the M-10 nor the Mayor of Muna, Rolando Carpenter, “were ever going to sit at that table “.
He said that there will be problems if the government insists, as it has done until now, on finishing the project.
The position of indigenous people, both the M-10 and the September 22 Movement, led by the deputy regional chieftain, Clementina Pérez, is that the structure, is demolished.
A statement from the Indigenous Commission says that it will not endorse any proposal now present or in the future, that has not been agreed by its members. They insist that the failed roundtable talks revealed incompatibilities, crimes and breaches of environmental rules made by Genisa, and they claimed that the project deserves to be canceled.
Manuel Dominguez, Panama’s Secretary of Communication said the government will insist on dialogue to resolve the situation of Barro Blanco.
“We have to look for a moderate outcome and that is why in recent days we agreed tothe United Nations as the mediator of dialogue and we are only waiting for an agreed date to restart the talks,” he said.