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Alleged Colombian drug lord's arrest leads to questions about his ties to elite Panamanians
Pedro Miguel González affair sets back consideration of US-Panama free trade pact

Contenders jostle for position in race to succeed Torrijos

An Urban woe

Left rises to Saúl Méndez's defense
Panama News Briefs

Repression becomes the issue

Organized labor and the left have a much harder time convincing people that unions are a good thing and that people's economic relationships with one another are better organized on a socialist basis than they do convincing people that the government is obnoxious and corrupt and abuses its power.

Thus, when the labor/left umbrella group FRENADESO was protesting against company unions, the US-Panama free trade agreement and unsafe workplaces they convinced many Panamanians but didn't command overwhelming public support or convince a lot of people to take to the streets.

Since the government accused Saúl Méndez, the number two man in the SUNTRACS construction workers union, with conspiring to provoke violence by giving a man with a criminal record whom he had never met $500 and a pistol to start a shooting incident, the cause ju jour has shifted from economic issues to government repression. The change of emphasis can be noticed from the FRENADESO banner hanging from this overpass along the Pan-American Highway.

Photo by Eric Jackson

Alleged Colombian drug lord's arrest leads to questions about his ties to elite Panamanians
Pedro Miguel González affair sets back consideration of US-Panama free trade pact

Contenders jostle for position in race to succeed Torrijos

An Urban woe

Left rises to Saúl Méndez's defense
Panama News Briefs