The Ngöbe-Buglé Indigenous people took to the streets once more during the week of October 24th as a result of President Martinelli's failure to take their demands into account regarding changes to the country's mining code.
The Ngöbe-Buglé Indigenous people took to the streets once more during the week of October 24th as a result of President Martinelli's failure to take their demands into account regarding changes to the country's mining code.
The Ngöbe (also spelled Ngabe-Bukle) people of Panama held a series of peaceful demonstrations in Chiriqui,Veraguas, in the autonomous Indigenous region of the Ngöbe in Panama on September 1st to protest the hydroelectric project known as CHAN-75 on the Changuinola River as well as others planned within Ngobe territory.
After half a year of constant protests that were supported by Global Response campaigns, the Ngöbe people have proposed two bills to Panama’s National Assembly. One bill would revoke an executive decree that violates their right to freely choose their own political leadership. The other bill prohibits mining and dam construction that would negatively affect Ngöbe communities.
After the protests against mining reform in the Mining Code, the government of Ricardo Martinelli will retake dialogues this Wednesday with the Coordinator for the Defense of Natural Resources and the Rights of the Ngöbe Buglé Peoples.
The president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, promised that the new Mining Code will not affect the territories of indigenous communities.
Last week, while the rest of Panama was celebrating Carnival, Ngöbe people from across the country gathered to elect a new president of the Ngöbe Bugle Congress, Panama’s largest Indigenous organization.
First, let's celebrate a victory! For the second time in the last six months, last week Indigenous Ngöbe protesters forced Panama's president and legislature to revoke a law that threatened their lands and rights.
Panama’s president Ricardo Martinelli announced today that he would revoke a reform to the country’s mining law that provoked thousands of Ngöbe Indigenous people to protest by blocking major highways over the past weekend.
On Feb. 15 some 5,000 members of Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé Indigenous group held
a day of national protests against changes to the Mining Resources Code that
they said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies.
The protests, organized by the People’s Total Struggle (ULIP), started at 10
am in San Félix, in the Ngöbe-Buglé territory in the western province of
Chiriquí.
More than 1,000 Ngöbe people – men, women, and children – took to the streets in different parts of Panama this week to protest a proposed change in the country’s mining law. Nine Ngöbe people were reported wounded and 22 jailed, including three children. Environmental and human rights organizations and students carried out parallel protests against the mining law reform at the National Assembly.
It’s one down and two to go in our campaign to revoke repressive laws in Panama that threaten the environment and violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples. If you sent letters or emails for this campaign, you’ve already helped bring about this first victory – thank you! But there’s more to do, so let’s keep up the pressure.
It began on July 2 when workers for the Bocas Fruit Company went on strike because they had not been paid for two weeks. By July 8, police reported 7,000 protesters in Bocas del Toro province, and on July 9 the estimate rose to 10,000. The largely Indigenous population poured out its anger over new laws and government repression by marching and blockading the major roads. Police cracked down with brutal force, killing at least two and possibly as many as seven Indigenous protesters, injuring and jailing hundreds, and affecting thousands with tear gas.
Land Acknowledgement
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