opinion

The Peace and Justice Service in Panama (SERPAJ-Panama), one of the chapters throughout all of Latin America of an organization that has observer status at the United Nations, under the honorary presidency of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, has accompanied the Committee for the Closing of the Petaquilla Mine (Comite pro Cierre de Mina Petaquilla) since its foundation in 2007 and has known about the problem since CARITAS Panama, then under  Héctor Endara, picked it up on their radar years earlier. Also, we have accompanied the Farmers Coordinator for Life (Coordinadora Campesina por la Vida) in their struggles against dams in the face of the canal expansion project and for the improvement and defense of rural communities, specifically in Colon, Cocle and Panama.

We accompanied the Asociacion Rey Quibian, representing over a thousand Ngabe divided among Nueva Lucha, Nuevo Sinai, Rio Palmilla and Chicheme in the district of Donoso, in and around the Petaquilla mining concession. We have conducted hundreds of meetings with all of the Petaquilla indigenous and farmer communities, meetings that have led to threats to our physical integrity and to attacks along the road by elements associated with mining on several occasions.

For reasons stated to this committee by others, whose elucidation will not fit in the short time allotted, the Comite pro Cierre de Mina Petaquilla, the Coordinadora Campesina por la Vida, and the Asociacion Rey Quibian, whose president Martín Rodríguez has empowered us to speak behalf of the four indigenous communities, and the Asociacion de Productores Agricolas de La Pintada under Rubén Bernal, together with SERPAJ Panama, strongly oppose the draft mining code reforms and demanded a moratorium long enough to allow us to not only examine some mining factors but also the questions of royalties, taxes and administrative aspects, which are addressed in the bill in ways that are important but not sufficient.

We need a moratorium that permits us, above all, to fully clarify the responsibility that goes along with open pit mining, for the negative effects on global climate change; for the real impact that such mining has on tropical zones like Panama, where there are intense rains, extraordinary biodiversity and water wealth; the worldwide tendency to prohibit strip mining; the growing prohibition in the European Union on the use of cyanide, especially in the exploitation of gold; the massive non-compliance with environmental norms and obligations on a global scale; the barbarous disrespect of the Indigenous People's Bill of Rights that was proclaimed by the United Nations --- such that the mining sites in Panama have been declared unpopulated by indigenous people in Canada, a lie that hides from the Canadian government the behavior of its companies in Panama.

We need a moratorium that permits us to examine the effects of strip mining in Panama, particularly in Petaquilla; which permits us to analyze the decisions of the districts of Tonosi, Macaracas, Guarare, Sona and La Palma to prohibit strip mining; that gives time to the other districts in the Republic of Panama to join the others; and so that all who do not know about strip mining and are exposed to it, especially in Chiriqui, Bocas, Darien and the Ngabe-Bugle Comarca, to inform themselves and pronounce their opinion about this vital subject that so intimately concerns them.

We need to know why, despite huge efforts on our part, and of the associations that we have accompanied, it has not been possible that the subject of Petaquilla be analyzed in any provincial coordination meeting, and why there has been total disrespect to the pertinent request for this on the part of almost all of the representantes in Cocle.

We need a sufficiently broad moratorium to clarify why Petaquilla Gold has illegally continued its operations when, since at least 2004, it has lacked an environmental impact study; why it has appealed and successfully blocked all the measures taken against it by ANAM, the authority that has fined it $1 million and ordered it to pay the minimum mitigation costs; which has anulled the alleged public consultation in December of 2007; which has permitted the continuation of a situation in which Petaquilla Gold has not complied with a single one of the 30 conditions that have been imposed.

We need to know why none of the court cases and lawsuits promoted by SERPAJ-Panama in the name of the communities have progressed. We need to know why teachers in Coclesito were threatened for speaking out against mines and if it is true, as is rumored, that the school in that place is partially funded by Petaquilla Gold; and also as it is said, that some public officials in Colon received or receive payments from this company.

We need a moratorium that allows us to know the conditions under which Petaquilla Gold expropriated, bought or usurped lands and farms from farmers and indigenous people in Petaquilla, deceiving them about the powers they obtained by the 1997 concession, threatening that things would get worse with the government if they didn't leave at once because they were going to call in the police, as has happened to the Naso, who were evicted by the government at the behest of Ganadera Bocas. 

It is important to verify to whom the usurped lands of the uprooted farmers and indigenous people were transferred.

For four years the indigenous woman Merardo Morales and Martín Rodríguez have been waiting for Petaquilla Gold to explain why their houses in Agua Colora were burned, and why other indigenous homes were burned and destroyed, causing the people to flee in terror abandoning their farms --- 10 in all --- after which managers and employees of Petaquilla Gold ate the indigenous residents' chickens, pigs and crops.

We need a moratorium, Mr. deputies, because there were many abuses of the miners against the communities and neither ANAM nor the government have shown any interest, let alone defend the communities.

We to know why, before mining came to Coclesito and surrounding regions that had no drug problems, alcoholism, family breakdown, single mothers, sexual abuse against children and adults, and AIDS, but now it has all of that present. We need to know why the University of Panama did not comply with the unanimous decision of the University General Council to help the communities in Petaquilla.

We need a moratorium so that the Panamanian Society of Engineers and Architects can investigate whether Petaquilla Gold and Minera Panama comply with the legal requirements that the constitution demands for their operations in our country; to verify whether it's true that the catch basins are not built in the most proper site and if their construction can cause birth defects that would be explained by the continuous and permanent pollution of surface and ground waters.

As of today, neither the government nor anybody else has undertaken a medical mission to Petaquilla, despite the floods, the spills from the catch basins and other tragedies that have befallen residents and gravely affected their health.

Mr. deputies: We need a moratorium that permits us to know if Inmet Mining, the Canadian mother company of Minera Panama, has been the object of penalties, fines or administrative or judicial decisions by the countries in the European Community, the Middle East, Canada, the United States or Latin America, such that Panamanians would be able to know whether the company deserve to be authorize to operate in Panama.

Finally, we need a moratorium in order to collate the draft mining code reforms with our constitution, with international environmental law, and with the international human rights protections.

And one last question, Mr. deputies:

You have an obligation to enforce our laws as to companies as well as to governments, to make laws that serve our needs and not just to resolve the financial problems of companies. Our investment needs are not above our national interests, nor our sovereignty. I don't accept that a country of the Far East (which is not China) had given President Martinelli an ultimatum that the Mining Code must be reformed by a certain date or that there would be consequences.

At the beginning of the 20th century, certain European countries used warships to blockade Venezuela to enforce payment of a debt that that country refused to pay. As a result of this incident, the Drago Doctrine, which prohibits the use of force to collect debts, was approved.

If we Panamanians have not been able to even put Petaquilla Gold in order, or Minera Panama, what can we think the government can to do if Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam or Canada point a cannon at it when they go to claim our rights under international law --- that is, when states and not just companies that enter into conflicts over mining issues in Panama, which is exactly what would follow from the Mining Code reforms?

I leave you to reflect upon that.