news

Alas, one reporter can only be in one place at one time. These are scenes from the Seguro Social protests in Panama City, but there were also other actions taking place on the Atlantic side and in the Interior on September 23.

Panama's labor movement --- or the SUNTRACS construction workers' union at least, tends to be pretty astute at canvassing and analyzing working class opinion, and while they called for a September 23 general strike right after Dr. Juan Jované was fired as Social Security Fund director on September 10, as the date approached they lowered expectations by a notch by calling it a "warning" strike. As it turned out, most public employees --- particularly teachers and Seguro Social employees --- heeded the strike call, but most private sector workers (with the notable exception of the construction workers) went to work. A lot of people who worked nevertheless made their way down to Parque Porras for a mid-day protest rally.

The strike and protests bitterly divided Panamanian society, and the mainstream media were solidly against Dr. Jované and the strikers. However, it seems that the dispute is not yet over, and that the side that quickly claimed victory may have overplayed its hand.

For example, La Prensa abandoned all pretense of being a defender of free speech and called for the criminal prosecution of those who wrote and published leaflets advocating the strike. Then former National Polce chief Ebrahim Asvat's El Siglo created a furor with an unsubstantiated claim that while Juan Jované was in charge at Seguro medicines MIGHT HAVE been diverted from Social Security pharmacies to Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas. Then current National Police chief Carlos Barés alleged, without offering a shred of evidence, that on September 11 student radicals had tried to set fire to the University of Panama chemistry building, in order to release a toxic cloud over the capital. Then Education Minister Doris Rosas de Mata announced that the Instituto Nacional would be reopened, under a new schedule to make up strike days and under the condition that the school year would be cancelled if there were any more protests of any sort. The television stations solidly took the government side in this, holding "debates" in which all participants opposed the strike, or in which one token strike supporter faced five or more opponents.

But La Prensa was unable to make that case that the authors of the strike leaflets had committed a crime, and moreover the Catholic Caritas-Panama social ministry alleged that its publisher, along with the president of MEDCOM (the RPC and Telemetro networks), holds a financial stake in one of the major multinational insurance groups that it says would like to get a private concession to manage the public Social Security pension fund. And did medicine from the public health care system really make its way to Colombian rebels operating along our borders? Juan Jované pointed out that Seguro operates no clinics or pharmacies in the Darien or Kuna Yala, so that if supplies from public health care facilities in those areas went to Colombian insurgents, they would have come from the Ministry of Health --- a Moscoso political patronage operation over which he never had any control. And by the way, when the new Seguro Social budget was passed, it not only increased overall spending (so much for the allegation that Jované failed to hold the line on costs), and not only set aside more than one third of the system's cash reserves for the purchase of bonds that will allow Mireya to go on an election year spending spree, but it also restored Seguro subsidies for the police chief's brother's scandal-plagued fiefdom, Juan Carlos Barés's Instituto Oncologico Nacional. Oh, and Chief Barés's allegations? Everybody at the university says that the attempt to torch the chemistry building was a police fabrication, and the dean of the department allegedly threatened added that there are no chemicals stored on the premises capable of releasing a toxic cloud over Panama City. And Doris Rosas de Mata's hard line at the Instituto Nacional? A meeting of teachers, students and parents overwhelmingly rejected her conditions, and to emphasize it held a protest march to the presidential palace.

SUNTRACS secretary-general Genaro López lashed back at the multiple allegations against his union and its allies. "All of this is part of a strategy of repression against the popular movement," he charged. "We blame the government."

López denied that the September 23 strike had failed. "It was a 24-hour warning," he said, adding that "this is a long struggle."

On September 27 the protest movement met at the University of Panama and decided to hold another march on October 9 and to call a 24-hour strike on October 30, which might be extended. President Moscoso alleged that the next strike is designed to disrupt the Panama centennial festivities (our 100th birthday is November 3) and vowed that she won't allow it to happen.

The photo above and the two below are of the strikers gathered in front of Seguro Social's Arnulfo Arias Madrid Hospital Complex.

Above we see strikers from a small Seguro Social office on Via España, drumming up support from passersby.

The photos above and below, as well as this issue's front page picture, were taken a little before 9 a.m. on September 23 on and around the University of Panama campus. At about 8:30 a small band of students tried to block the Trans-Isthmian Highway, but they were quickly driven back by police, who chained the gates to the university and covered the entire campus in clouds of tear gas.

Tear gas tends to drift. The faintly stinging clouds from the campus up the street didn't stop these nonviolent protesters along the Transistmica in front of Seguro Social, but some of the people in the area walked away from the scene.

From early in the morning, the government stationed policewomen like the ones shown above, who were dressed in jungle combat fatiques but not equipped for any serious riot control duty, along major streets in Panama City.

Later in the morning of September 23 a number of relatively small groups like the one shown above marched from different points around the city down to Parque Porras for a series of strike meetings and a lunchtime rally.

These final three photos were taken at the September 25 march from Parque Porras to the presidential palace, which was significantly smaller than the several preceding Seguro Social protests.

Above we have the Caritas-Panama Social Ministry, a Catholic organization that's part of the protest movement. Below is a women's group, several members of which are mocking Mireya Moscoso with paper Pinocchio noses.

Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
Scenes from the Social Security protests
Billy Ford bolsters the Endara ticket
Ambassador Watt's bombshell
On the campaign trail

Back to top

Panama Information, Hotels of Panama - Executive Hotel
Panama Information, Real estate in Boquete - Valle Escondido
Panama Information, Real Estate in Las Cumbres - Villa Concordia