On May 27, the president of Panama, José Mulino, declared a state of emergency in the province of Bocas del Toro. Mulino created a high-level commission to deal with a wave of protests roiling the country for over a month. In late April, protesters from a wide diversity of social sectors began an indefinite general strike, along with additional protest actions. Their central demand: Repeal Law 462, which modified Panama’s social security system. Protesters argue that the shift to individual accounts based on worker contributions will leave future generations of Panamanians with “hunger pensions” that won’t meet basic needs.
The protests have remained at the top of national news headlines for weeks, in part because they have successfully disrupted various aspects of daily life in Panama. Teacher strikes, for instance, have led to canceled classes in schools across the country. And Panama has seen major economic effects. In Bocas del Toro, striking banana workers ground Chiquita’s operations to a halt, prompting the company to fire around 5,000 workers. Meanwhile, protesters have been blocking roads in various parts of the country, disrupting commerce and tourism. And police attempts to forcibly reopen them have led to violent clashes with protesters.
What generated this wave of sustained mobilization? And why does a resolution to Panama’s crisis seem no closer than it did when protests began in April?
Shared, overlapping grievances
Sociologists Jacquelien van Stekelenburg and Bert Klandermans note that collective mobilization is a complex process. Many people, even those sympathetic to a cause, never participate in protest activity. That said, the larger the pool of sympathizers, the larger the pool of potential protesters. This year’s protests in Panama are fueled by a broad sympathy pool. Among Panamanians, the recent changes to the social security law are highly unpopular. In fact, 82% of respondents in a public opinion survey conducted in April said that they did not like the new law.
While the changes to the social security law have generated the most sustained protest activity, protesters have a multitude of grievances. Since April, in addition to protesting Law 462, Panamanians have protested against the potential reopening of a copper mine, a proposal to dam the Indio River, and a memorandum of understanding that President Mulino signed with the United States, allowing U.S. troops to use bases in Panama.
The president of Suntracs, a construction union that has taken a central organizing role in the protests against the social security law, noted that “people are joining the fight in a united effort.” The overlapping grievances have increased the sympathy pool – and generated momentum as new groups joined the protests.
Prior protests, prior successes
Several of the contemporary grievances are connected to prior cycles of mobilization in Panama. One analysis described the memorandum of understanding with the United States as a move Panamanians see as “a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Canal Neutrality Treaty.” The 1977 treaty, which led the U.S. to pass control of the canal to Panama, was in part the result of mass mobilization. This is not long-forgotten history – Panamanians celebrate the success of these protests annually on Martyr’s Day.
And the current protests against the copper mine are directly tied to a more recent example of successful mobilization. The copper mine that Mulino is working to reopen just closed in 2023 after the longest and most widespread protests in Panama since the protests against the Noriega dictatorship in the late 1980s. For weeks, students, environmental activists, indigenous groups, and labor organizations blocked roads across the country and created a small sea blockade to disrupt the mine’s port access. Following those protests, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled the mining concession unconstitutional and the government announced that the mine would be closed.
As sociologist Paul Almeida explains, a central factor “increasing the probability of individual participation in social movements is past protest experience.” This is particularly true if the movement successfully achieved its goals. In part, protest experiences serve to create feelings of efficacy. And social psychological research suggests that people are more likely to participate in a protest when they believe it can successfully address their grievances. In addition, participating in protests can create new networks. If people stay in touch with fellow activists, they are more likely to engage in future activism.
Panama’s past history of successful mobilization – some quite recent – created a mobilizational potential that was sparked by Mulino’s series of unpopular policy announcements.
Panama’s government has pushed back against protesters
The government response to the protests has only fanned the flames. The police responded to numerous protests with repressive tactics. While repression may succeed in ending a protest movement, it carries the risk of doing the opposite: generating new grievances and intensifying protest. Political scientist Sabine Carey shows that this risk is particularly high in democracies. Thus, the use of repression to manage protest in a democracy like Panama should be seen as a risky move. Indeed, after the recent arrest of two union leaders, thousands took to the streets in protest.
The declaration of the state of emergency set up a high-level committee to open dialogue on the social security law. Yet Mulino has continued to assert that he is not open to dialogue and will not revise the law. Unsurprisingly, initial efforts by the committee to initiate discussions with protesters were unsuccessful. In Bocas del Toro, community groups refused to meet with a government delegation. Likewise, indigenous leaders in Guna Yala severed all dialogue with the government in the face of the ongoing repression.
Recently, Mulino agreed to have a Catholic archbishop and Jewish rabbi serve as intermediaries in negotiations with protesters. And on June 11, the leader of the banana workers union met with members of Panama’s National Assembly and agreed to stop blocking roads in exchange for concessions to the banana sector. However, teachers and other community leaders quickly stepped into the organizational role previously held by the banana workers union in Bocas del Toro and are continuing the roadblocks.
Can Panama negotiate an end to the protests?
Negotiating agreements with protesters is a difficult task, especially when the protests include a diverse base of participants. Mass protest movements, like the current one in Panama, typically lack a single leader able to speak for all protesters and make binding agreements on their behalf. Even if it’s possible to identify a set of leaders, they are unlikely to come to the table if they don’t have the government’s guarantee that they are safe from arrest.
While the recent agreement represents a win for banana workers, it does not address the grievances of most protesters. Panamanian officials have failed to bring a broad set of leaders to the table in part because they continue to apply high levels of repression even as they offer narrow openings for dialogue.
The broad scope of protesting groups – and the breadth of their grievances – has created resiliency in the face of the recent divide and rule strategy. Although openings for dialogue have increased, the government has proceeded in a clumsy and counterproductive way. This does not bode well for an end to the crisis in the near future.
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