Popular Uprising in the Streets of Panama.

March 14, 2018

Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano

Protests in the northern city of Colón has resulted in clashes between protesters and police on Tuesday, together with allegations of looting of businesses and an attempted assault on a container train, according to the authorities.

Colón woke on Tuesday finding almost all of its stores closed, construction projects paralyzed, hardly any public transportation and schools closed, all of this in response to a call for a strike to ‘reject the perverse plans of urban renewal’, according to Edgardo Voitier a leader of the Committee for the Salvation of the Atlantic Coast. Calling the gentrification of Colón, “a process of expulsion of the poor and middle class out of the city center where over 80% of the people reside.”

Voitier went on to say, “We are under the suspicion that deep down there is a process of using public resources to make a beautiful city, but only for the rich. Instead of considering housing solutions the people are being expelled from the downtown area.”

The Frente Amplio for Colón (FAC), a platform made up of several civil organizations joined the protest throughout the province calling for an end to the so called urban renewal that is being promoted by the Panamanian government.

“The government is trying to hide their real intentions but this is all about making Colon a private and elite city, as has happened in the old part of the Panamanian capital, where only the rich and foreigners can live. “

The Secretary of Development , Jorge González,  denied these accusation and said on TVN that more than one billion dollars are being invested in works in Colón, and that displacement  is not taking place.

The action in the street was supported by students and professors from the University of Panama, who blocked traffic on the Vía Transístmica, a main artery into the capital. Members of unions representing the bottling trades and construction workers who are building the new high rises in the center of Colón but have little hope of living in them.

One student leader at the protest stated, “It is important to do this kind of combined action in support of the province of Colón, for the compañeros, and the people of Colon who are suffering the ravages of a government that has no plan or morality for public policy.”

For his part, the Secretary General of Femsa Panama, Alejandro Jones, assured that all the main roads in the country were blocked for an hour in solidarity with the residents of Colón. He did not rule out future actions depending how the situation evolves.

The leader said that “all unionized workers” participated in the protest “throughout the country.”

The police, meanwhile, reported the burning of police vehicles and tires in the streets. Some arrests were made for breaking into warehouses. The director of the National Police, Omar Pinzón, told reporters that firefighters are investigating a fire that broke out at midnight in the ruins of the patrimonial Casa Wilcox, while seizing several homemade bombs, hammers and other objects allegedly used by some infiltrators’ to generate violence.

But Edgardo Votier countered that by explaining to the journalists that the mobilization is peaceful and is demanding deep solutions to serious problems such as health care and public education.

The Frente Amplio for Colón (FAC), a platform where several civil organizations converge, also joined the protests throughout the Caribbean province and accused the the Panamanian Government of promoting an image to try to hide its real intent of gentrification. What they want is to privatize and make elite the city of Colón”, as has happened in the old part of the Panamanian capital, where only the rich and foreigners can live.

On the other hand, the Secretary of Goals of the Panamanian government, Jorge González, said on TVN that “more than one billion dollars are being invested” in works in Colón, and denied that “people are being taken out of the city” to make space for the wealthiest.

The businessmen of the Colon Free Zone, the main free port of the hemisphere, said that they will not stop their work, although today there is little traffic because the eight internal transport lines joined the strike and protest march sending a clear message to the promoters of neo liberalism.

http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2018/03/14/informe-especial-arde-panama-levantamiento-popular-en-colon-huelga-general-represion-y-toque-de-queda-la-restencia-no-cede-videofotos/

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation Resumen North América Bureau