Closures and demonstrations to continue Monday

Panama is likely to wake up on Monday to a continuation of cross-country closures and demonstrations as leaders of the most widespread protests in the country’s history call for a single negotiating table and earlier agreements unravel.

Indigenous people in the Tolé and Viguí area kept the Inter-American highway closed on  Sunday, July at the intersection that connects Horconcitos and Boca del Monte, in eastern Chiriqui, despite the fact that the Government and representatives of the Ngäbe Buglé reported earlier that they had reached an agreement to freeze the price of a gallon of fuel at $3.30 so that all roads in eastern Chiriqui would reopen. Toribio García, a popular Ngäbe leader, considered that they had been “betrayed” with the signing of that agreement, this morning, in the San Félix sector.

“They are characters who come excited to a dialogue, whose situations are handled tactically by state negotiators and they fell into their nets,” he said. “We were betrayed, so I ask all the bases to stand firm,” he added.

Lino Gallego, delegate of the general congress of the Ngäbe Buglé region, of the Soloy corregimiento, Besikó district, expressed –– that the majority of the representatives in the San Félix negotiations “are improvised people, who only seek to gain political prominence”. For Gallego, the signed document does not respond to the true interests of the indigenous people and only represents the interests of the government of Laurentino Cortizo.

The regional transportation leader, José Acosta Mendoza, lamented that the indigenous comrades betrayed the people with that agreement.

“That was not the objective of the fight, unfortunately, the government managed to divide them and impose their plans to open the road,” he estimated.

Members of the Chirican Educators Association also expressed their dissatisfaction with the San Félix agreement and reiterated that they will remain in a work stoppage.

The Alianza Pueblo Unidos por la Vida reiterated Sunday, the request it has made for there to be a single negotiating table with the government As this has not yet been achieved, this alliance decided to “intensify” the actions in the streets for this Monday, July 18

In addition to Suntracs, the United People Alliance is made up of unions such as the Association of Teachers of Panama, the National Central of Workers of Panama, the National Confederation of Independent Union Unity, the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso) and the Association of Physicians, Dentists and Related of the Social Security Fund, among others

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