economy

Ngabe protesters stream into the capital, block the street in front of the Legislative Palace

The national territory shall never be ceded, transferred or alienated, not even temporarily or partially, to other states.

Article 3 of Panama's Constitution

Article 1. Article 4 of the Mineral Resources Code shall be as follows:

Article 4. None of the following entities or persons may obtain mining concessions, nor exercise or enjoy them:

1. A foreign government or state or any official or semi-official institution; with the exception of those juridical persons which have the economic or financial participation of one or more foreign governments or states or official or semi-official institutions if and when such persons are constituted as juridical entities under private law....

Proposed amendment to the Mining Code

Another cause of social unrest is mining. The final message of last November's meeting of Central America's bishops said: "Not every investment is desirable. This is the case of mining. It has become, along with deforestation, a major threat to environmental sustainability in the region. In general, countries have weak laws about foreign investment and lax regulations to guarantee that pollutants such as cyanide are safely managed for the safety and health of the population. Nor have mechanisms for consultation that enable affected communities to be accurately informed or to enforce their demands been developed or legally recognized. ..."

Communique of Panama's Catholic bishops

Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance.

Mining Chamber of Panama (CAMIPA) website,
its sole pronouncement on legislation

What our government has done is authorize the stages that advance the projects that other governments have given us.

Minister of Commerce and Industry
Roberto Henríquez

It's convenient for the government to declare a moratorium for the next two years, until the existing mines are exploited.

Vice President and Foreign Minister
Juan Carlos Varela

Rich kids who never did their homework in school, seeking to use their inherited millions and political connections to become billionaires and sneering at those who would get in their way. The poorest of the poor, trudging across roadless expanses to the nearest place where they can catch a ride into the city, to defend what little they have: their homes, their farms, and the clean water that they have to sustain themselves, their crops and their animals.

At a glance it looks like the argument over proposed changes to the Mining Code is a totally unequal struggle, which will have the usual result to which Panamanians have become accustomed.

It could be, but this is a most unusual political battle:

• The nation's Catholic hierarchy, which a few years ago sided with the decadent Richard Fifer against its own parishioners -– especially its Liberation Theology faction -– over the Petaquilla gold mine, has a new archbishop and a new position on strip mining;

• What President Martinelli proposes to do --- cede vast tracts of Panama to corporations owned by the governments of South Korea and Singapore for strip mining projects --- clearly violates the Panamanian Constitution, and even if the president controls a corrupt judiciary and gives scant heed to such documents, the section he chooses to abrogate states a principle dear to the hearts of all factions of Panamanian nationalism;

• It's happening well off of the highways and mostly away from television cameras, but there is an indigenous uprising brewing in the Ngabe-Bugle Comarca. One of its key issues is Martinelli's promise to hand over Cerro Colorado, the heart of the comarca and the headwaters of the Cricamola, Cubivora and San Felix rivers from which much of the comarca's population and many people outside the comarca depend, to a strip mining company owned by the South Korean government, all without any pretense of consulting with the local people;

• There are centrifugal forces at work within President Martinelli's ruling coalition, including a revolt within the Panameñista Party by folks who think that the alliance with Cambio Democratico is a disaster. The party's leader, Vice President Juan Carlos Varela, has not been in accord with Martinelli's mining policy, to the extent that he voted against the Mining Code changes that the Cabinet Council sent to the National Assembly; and

• A few genuine environmentalists have obtained government jobs and are remaining silent, but the environmentalist movement is stronger than ever and opposing this legislation. The government has been unable to buy a turncoat to endorse its strip mining policies.

Before the hearings got underway, people were coming into the city from the Ngabe-Bugle Comarca to protest and National Assembly president José Muñoz, who had invited various environmentalist critics of the Mining Code changes to testify at the committee hearing but pointedly had not invited any indigenous leaders, complained that the Ngabe had no reason to take their protests to the streets.

On January 24, while people were signing up to testify at the hearings before the Commerce Committee, the Ngabe were gathering at points in the metro area away from the legislative palace, but when the hearings started the next day Ngabe-Bugle General Congress general cacique Rogelio Moreno expressed his annoyance about the insult by leading a street blockade in front of the legislature.

In preparation for the hearings' start, an alliance of the Centro de Incidencia Ambiental (CIAM), the Asociacion Nacional para la Conservacion de la Naturaleza (ANCON), the Fundacion Panama Sostenible (PASOS), the Fundacion Almanaque Azul and Human Rights Everywhere (HREV) presented a counter-proposal to the legislature. If it ever gets to a committee hearing, it would be either as a separate item of business or --- as a whole or in parts --- as an amendment proposed by an individual deputy. The plan submitted by the five groups would ban the use of cyanide and mercury in processes to separate metal from ore; revoke the mining permits of companies that are in non-compliance with environmental laws or permit conditions; prohibit strip mining in watersheds that supply water for human consumption, in protected wilderness areas, in recreation areas and in indigenous comarcas; and cancel all unused mining concessions.

When the testimony got underway, Muñoz shuffled the published order to move the time allotted to Mining Chamber of Panama (CAMIPA) president Roberto Cuevas. His presentation was largely taken up by a diatribe against environmentalists, whom he accused of receiving large sums of money from abroad and not spending it on recycling or other projects that mining executives think it should be spent on. He proposed that of the four percent of the mining companies' "gross negotiable production" that would theoretically be payable to the government --- the companies would be the only ones really in a position to determine what their "production" is and how much of it they would qualify as "negotiable" --- five percent be set aside for reforestation of areas that have been strip mined. Under existing laws the companies are supposed to cover this expense from their own resources, and indeed the worst scofflaw mining companies have reforestation subsidiaries to feed at the public trough if CAMIPA's suggestion is enacted into law.

Following the CAMIPA show, ANCON's Alida Spadafora prefaced her remarks to the committee with a retort to Cuevas in which she noted that environmentalist groups are doing many things to clean up Panama but have chronic budget problems, unlike the foreign-financed mining companies that are trashing our environment.

The hearings essentially set the mining industry and a few groups that are ideologically opposed to all environmental laws or other restrictions on the activities of private companies against much of the rest of Panamanian society. Other than those of the indigenous people who stand to be dispossessed in favor of strip mines, the mining industry's key economic adversary is the tourism industry, which stands to lose a lot of its business due to environmental degradation.