lo-de-alla.org

Indigenous peoples protest against Martinelli government’s offering their lands to foreigners

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador, El Salvador, for February 18. See original here.]

By Fernando de Dios

The reform of the Mineral Resources Code approved last Thursday by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli has sparked rejection by a number of social sectors led by the indigenous peoples of the Ngäbe Buglé district, in the west of the country.

They have organized protests in the past few weeks and the situation threatens to bring on a re-enactment of the violent repression that occurred in the Bocas de Toro province last July, which cost the lives of ten people. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for December 21. See original here.]

Panama, December 20 – With a demonstration in front of the former embassy of the aggressor country, Panama today paid homage to the 5,000 who died as a result of the military invasion by the United States 21 years ago.

Organizations and institutions, among them the Asociación de Familiares de Caídos (Association of the Families of the Fallen) and the Frente Nacional por la Defensa de los Derechos Económicos y Sociales (National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights), gathered to demand that the government declare December 20 a day of national mourning.

In the first moments of December 20, 1989, a total of 27,000 United States soldiers invaded the isthmus after their planes had attacked and bombed the capital, and particulaly El Chorrillo [one of the poorest areas of the country], the neighborhood most severely damaged, as well as other cities. (more…)