Panama: the unions break the agreement and return to the streets

First modification: 07/19/2022 – 11:49

“The country is completely stopped,” says Luis Sánchez, leader of the Veragüenses Association of Educators (AEVE). The union, which has led the demonstrations since May 23, returned to the streets after breaking the agreement signed on Sunday with the Panamanian government.

“We return to zero”

“The truth is, the bases did not agree with that commitment document that was signed. I had warned him, that this had to be taken to the grassroots, to the teachers who are in the streets, to the people who are in the streets, and unfortunately they said no,” laments Sánchez.

“Another thing is that in that document there was a commitment to the discussion tables of the basic basket. They didn’t show up today and left us sitting. We go back to zero again. And they are accusing me that I have a hidden agenda! Luis Sánchez, the only agenda he has is justice for the Panamanian people, with the entire popular movement that has formed ANADEPO [Alianza Nacional por los Derechos del Pueblo Organizado]”, denounces the union leader.

The agreement had established the reopening of the obstructed sections of the Pan-American highway that connects the country with Central America, as well as a fixed price for gasoline. With this decision, the strike of more than two weeks and the street demonstrations that have caused shortages throughout the country are resumed.

“Governance is in question”

“The agreement has been broken because it was very limited. There is a significant number of organizations protesting, there are different levels of aspirations. For example, there is a document signed by several of these organizations, which has 32 demands and measures that the Government has to take, and what has happened, which I think is the most important thing, is that the leadership of AEVE, which was the which was leading the entire mobilization, and more or less articulating it, has been overtaken by the construction workers’ union, which has a political outlook that is perhaps a little utopian but more long-term and more radical,” explains Harry Brown, director of the International Center for Political and Social Studies of Panama.

For the political scientist, Panama is currently heading towards being an ungovernable country: “We have not reached the point of Chile in 2019, or the scenes of a few days ago in Sri Lanka, but governability is in question,” he stresses.

Despite the high figures of economic growth and income of more than 2,000 million dollars a year through the Panama Canal, this Central American country has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world.