36 YEARS AFTER THE INVASION: FOR REGROUPING OF REVOLUTIONARIES AND FIGHTERS, FOR AN UNITED AND DEMOCRATIC PLAN OF STRUGGLE, TO DEFEAT THE FAR RIGHT REGIME OF MULINO AND THE NEOCOLONIAL AND FASCIST POLICY OF DONALD TRUMP, US OUT OF VENEZUELA AND LATIN AMERICA.

Carlos Ernesto Guevara Villar-Socialist International League

Thirty-six years after the U.S. military invasion of Panama in 1989, the working people remember the imperialist aggression that left thousands of victims and marked a turning point in the country’s history. The invasion did not seek democracy or justice, but to impose by force a new political and economic order. As a direct result of the invasion, a regime conditioned and tutored by the United States and international financial organizations was established. That regime reorganized the State and the economy to guarantee the continuity of the neoliberal model, worsening labor conditions and the deterioration of social rights. The local bourgeoisie was the administrator of this scheme.

After three and a half decades, the Panamanian people continue to confront the post-invasion tutelary regime, which current government is headed by the far-right and pro-business José Raúl Mulino. He has, without much hesitation, surrendered to the interests of US imperialism, the mining transnationals, the international financial institutions and the Creole bourgeoisie. Mulino made clear from his first day in the Palacio de las Garzas the character of his government and has begun to apply austerity measures such as the modification of the legislation of the Social Security Fund and the pension system. He has also compromised strategic interests of the country regarding the control of the Panama Canal and now intends to impose, in spite of popular rejection and particularly that of the youth, the mine controlled by First Quantum, with Chinese capital as majority shareholder. In this context, sectors of the movement have begun to opportunistically and criminally modify their approach, now appealing to a false “win-win” situation to justify the mining reopening and the extractivist productivism of the Beijing government. The government also attempts to build dams on the Indian River.

This takes place in a regional context marked by the intensification of the imperialist offensive of the United States. The threats of the Donald Trump’s government are part of his attack against Latin America, with a specific focus on Venezuela. This attack is aimed at disciplining the peoples of the continent and reinforcing the mechanisms of domination. This neocolonialist policy must be repudiated in unity by the workers and mass movement at world level and by the internationalist left organizations, by means of forceful actions of repudiation capable of making US imperialism retreat and putting in check its neocolonial and rapacious offensive in the dispute for Venezuelan oil and the rare lands of the continent.

Thirty-six years after the invasion, we repudiate the imperialist aggression and vindicate the memory of the thousands of dead and wounded as part of the history of struggle of the Panamanian working people. There was no “collateral damage”, but a massacre planned to impose a post-invasion regime functional to imperialist capital. Honoring the victims implies rejecting any reconciliation with that imposed order and confronting its consequences today: the austerity measures, the destruction of social rights, the worsening of labor conditions and the plundering of common goods. Memory is only revolutionary if it is transformed into organization, struggle and conscious confrontation against the tutelary regime and its local administrators.

In the face of the advance of neocolonialism, the imperialist attack against Venezuela, the world disorder of capitalism in crisis and the offensive of austerity, we call for class unity of the workers and popular movement, of the youth and the oppressed sectors, in Panama, in Latin America and on an international scale. Although we are witnessing the rise of right-wing and far-right governments in the region, the peoples have not been defeated: they continue to struggle, resist and seek their own way out. Only the independent action of the masses, internationally coordinated, can stop the imperialist offensive and open the way to a deep transformation of society.

Panama, December 19, 2025

Imperialism out of Panama and Latin America!
No to austerity plans, let the capitalists pay for the crisis!
Down with the tutelary post-invasion regime!
Active solidarity with the Venezuelan people in the face of the imperialist attack!
International unity of the working class and the peoples in struggle!