Some of us who live here in Panama have watched the unfolding drama in Tole, Chiriqui, Panama. The Indigenous peoples of Panama made a point. They told the government leave our lands alone and they made their point. They began like Gandhi in India and ended up responding with stones when riot police intervened; still they made their point. They hospitalized a government minister, they abducted several government employees, but they made their point.
Their point was to tell the government of Panama not to sell out their lands to foreign development of a strip mine. I suspect there were people in Korea watching this unfold with concern because they were the most likely beneficiary of the copper mining concession. Still the Nogbe Bugle made their point and the government has blinked and is going to repeal the Mining law. Yesterday, President Martinelli announced that 75% of the people of Panama disagreed with the law.
I doubt the law would have been repealed without the passive and then aggressive style of the Nogbe Bugle people. These are those same people who pick our coffee and the same people who line our roadways walking to and fro. They are also the same people who party on Saturday nights and fight with each other, not anyone else. They are a unique and proud culture in Panama and with their resistance they proved a point, democracy does work better when the government listens to their people.
The government of Panama did listen, perhaps in the future they will listen before, instead of after they pass a law. In history the voice of the masses needs to be very loud to overpower the voice of government and it’s agenda. We are going through a remarkable period in the Middle East now where the people are speaking. Panama is not the Middle East.
If this had been going on in the United States I would have been there with those tree hugging defenders of lifestyle and culture. Here in Panama I could not do it. If I had I might have shared the fate of the Spanish reporter Paco Gomez Nadal; he was deported. Not being a citizen of Panama I lack the right to have much of a public opinion.
The lesson for non citizen guests is to watch, to learn and to be grateful that President Martinelli is not Gaddafi of Libya. If he was, I would be leaving voluntarily. He did negotiate and he did yield to the people, a big difference between a dictatorship and a democracy.
Tonight I will drink a toast of Ron Abuelo, the vintage of the Vice President. The toast will be to the indigenous peoples of Panama and their courage in proving this is still a democracy and country I want to share.
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