By David Morera Herrera
The purpose of this article is to analyze the latest events that take place in the acute social and political struggle that persists in Panama for more than two months; as well as to debate what we consider to be the most appropriate revolutionary course of action regarding the left and the Panamanian indigenous and popular labor movement.
An exemplary and prolonged struggle
Since April 23, teacher unions are striking to demand the repeal of Law 462, that is the counter-reform to the pension scheme of the Social Security Fund. The Construction Union (Suntracs) and the banana union Sitraibana joined in April 28. The indigenous peoples gradually joined the fight by closing national routes and making barricades, in the framework of heavy clashes with the police forces. The Ngäbe villages struggle in Bocas del Toro, the north, and the Emberá-Wounaan in the Darién, south.
As Comrade Alberto Giovanelli has indicated in another article these days of struggles, although triggered by the imposition of Law 462, are combined with the rejection of the servility of the Mulino government towards Trump, by agreeing to allow the United States in the Panama Canal. It is also combined with the rejection of the government’s intention to reopen the copper mine in Donoso-Colón, which was closed after large demonstrations in 2023. The open-pit mining operation of the Canadian transnational corporation First Quantum was declared unconstitutional by the Panamanian Supreme Court, and represents a terrible ecological damage; as well as the rejection of the reservoirs on the Indian River. So environmental and anti-imperialist demands are combined, along with social economic demands around the issue of pensions. Anyway, the masses have not stopped fighting, with ups and downs, of course; but with an impressive combativeness and persistence, to which is added an increasingly virulent repression of President Mulino.A brutal repression
The government is up to its first year and it does it in an unpresentable way. The most recent opinion studies show a widespread rejection of government management by the population. A survey prior to the mobilizations, dating from January of the current year, indicated that 7 out of 10 Panamanians do not trust Mulino. Today, by virtue of their repression and arrogance, the discontent is undoubtedly much greater.
Thousands of displaced, hundreds of injured, more than five hundred detained without a warrant, hundreds intoxicated with tear gas, disappeared, seriously injured and at least two dead, including a young student and a year and a half old girl.
In addition, the persecution and imprisonment of Suntracs leaders, educators, banana growers and the rector of the University towards struggling students. The wage cuts to the strikers who have been on the move for months, the freezing of the accounts of the main Suntracs union, the backbone of the labor movement, take their toll. The repression has not been in vain and they make the mass movement defensive today, not offensive as it was for quite some time.
In that scenario, if the government is imposed, an increasingly authoritarian regime would be strengthened, certainly, but with feet of clay, due to the tremendous unpopularity of the Mulino character and what he represents as a disciple of the mafia Martinelli, former president fugitive from justice.
Repression and concerted action to demobilize
The statements released on June 30 by the leader John Hooker, regarding the mediation agreement of the banana union and Ngäbe people in Bocas del Toro with the Army (which has brutally repressed them), resulted in the lifting of the roadblocks, and to place expectations on the resolution of the issue of retirements in parliament.
It is no coincidence that on July 1, under the headline “Mulino is defeated in the Assembly,” the Panamanian Newspaper notes: “Jorge Herrera of the Panameñista party ended up winning the presidency with 37 votes in favor, which represents an unprecedented victory against the Executive. The task to which the new president of the Assembly has committed himself is the repeal of Law 462 and to open a dialogue to agree on its reform that will protect the interests of the Panamanian people and that will be done starting tomorrow. The imposition of Law 462 of the CSS is the one that has all Panamanians living in anxiety.”[i]
Immediately Saul Mendez, general secretary of Suntracs, came out to sing victory on social networks. To pretend that what was said by Deputy Jorge Herrera is a fact leads to disorienting the masses. Trusting in the ”bandit cave” of the parliament, or negotiating separately for each guild particular concessions on the pension issue, is criminal and is the surest way to defeat.
It is necessary to unify the struggles
The biggest lack that has dragged this portentous movement lies in its leadership. Despite the combativeness of the mobilized people and in the face of Mulino’s increasing violent repression, the leaders did not orient themselves to building a unitary organism that would plan and organize the struggle on a national scale, until they provoked a decisive defeat of Mulino. The masses have shown a lot of strength throughout this long day.
Another rooster would crow, if only Suntracs, Sitraibana, the unions of educators and the regions of native peoples, had taken the task of convening a democratic Meeting, which will adopt a unified list of demands and a plan of struggle to triumph.
The problem of power is at stake
But, the enormous rise of struggle of the Panamanian people is not indefinite. In life, especially in politics, there is nothing static. So what does not move forward, moves backward. What is striking is that the bulk of the left and all the mass organizations, not even at the height of the mobilization, have at any time raised the slogan of Abajo Mulino, nor (as we have already indicated) have the referring unions sought to establish organizations that unify the different sectors in struggle and that can gradually acquire that capacity to dispute power.
Because when there are conditions for a real workers’, indigenous and popular uprising, as it is in Panama, the problem of power is raised in the program, both in terms of the regime and the government. Neither the MLN National Liberation Movement (which leads Suntracs and the FER-29 in the student movement), the Citizen Pole, the Socialist Proposal of the ITU and the section of the SU the Movement to Socialism MAS (linked to the Brazilian PSOL) have raised this crucial question.
In this regard, from the LIS and together with Panamanian comrades who have actively participated in the protests, we understand it vital to raise the slogan of power for the refusal is: Out Mulino! and for the positive: Government of those from below: workers, native peoples, popular and oppressed sectors. Since the positive approach is undoubtedly abstract, we are rightly asked: Which workers’ and popular organizations would form such a government? Who exactly would govern us if Mulino falls? As the organs of power of the masses themselves have not matured, we propose the original Constituent Assembly convened by the organizations in struggle to refound the country, changing the oligarchic and pro-Yankee regime.
We can accept that, in relation to the slogans of power, today at this defensive stage, they are no longer of agitation, but rather of propaganda. But it is still valid, due to Mulino’s spectacular unpopularity, and in essence it remains the most outstanding strategic need of the Panamanian people who have faced him time and again in the streets. In addition, let’s look at Mulino’s prospects, let’s look at his political credibility, not only among the masses, but among the bourgeoisie itself, the change of helm in parliament is a clear symptom of that realignment that isolates Mulino more and more.
The largest unit of action against repression
Making this discussion about the exit of the strategic fund in Panama, does not imply at all that we have a maximalist position. The most pressing need in the immediate becomes to confront repression in all its forms. That is why the agreement or truce opened by Sitraibana with the support and assistance of other popular organizations is a dead letter agreement, without even asking at least for the decriminalization of all those persecuted, out of the hands of Suntracs and all kinds of police, administrative and judicial reprisals against those who are fighting.
With this criterion, from the LIS we invite the revolutionaries of Panama and the Central American isthmus, to assume without any sectarianism those democratic tasks, and at the same time, to continue debating and fraternally specifying the program and the political orientation, in pursuit of revolutionary regroupment.
[i] https://www.elperiodicodepanama.com/derrotan-a-mulino-en-la-asamblea/
