Panama Protests – Everything you need to know about the protests over the Minera Panama mining contract.
Let’s start with the good news: the protests in Panama came to an end with the Constitutional Court’s ruling of November 27, 2023. All roads are open again, and the country can be visited without restrictions.
This post covers everything you need to know about the protests that swept Panama in November 2023.
What was it about, and why did the protests break out?
What restrictions were there for visitors?
What’s the current situation, can you visit Panama again without restrictions?
What was it about?
At the heart of the conflict is a mining concession of nearly 13,000 hectares in an area of primary rainforest on Panama’s Atlantic coast. This stretch of jungle is part of the Corredor Biológico del Atlántico Mesoamericano, a specially protected, unbroken rainforest belt running along Central America’s Caribbean coast between Colombia and Mexico. A constitutional complaint against the concession was filed as far back as 2009, and in 2017 the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional, though that ruling wasn’t published until 2021.
Open-pit mine of Cobre Panamá in the middle of the Corredor Biológico
Link to Google Maps with the location of the open-pit mine https://maps.app.goo.gl/J6UqQpReX5cViGmcA
Why did the protests break out?
In late October of that year, the sitting government rammed a new concession through parliament in just three days, bypassing the public consultation required by national law and international agreements. That turned almost the entire population against it: the environmental destruction, the missing consultation, the low concession fees and, of course, the corruption that shadows contracts like this one and that is rampant in the country anyway.
Another sore point was the law that bars foreign states from holding concessions over natural resources in Panama. (Korean and Chinese companies hold around 30% of the shares in the mining company Minera Panama and its Canadian owner, First Quantum Minerals.) The idea that foreign states can lay claim to Panamanian territory strikes a raw nerve, because for nearly 100 years the United States held the Canal Zone as a colonial enclave, an area no Panamanian could enter and where Panamanians had no rights. The canal treaty itself only came about through the double-dealing of a manager at the French canal company, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, an echo of the sleight of hand behind the current contract. Panama only won the canal back from the United States after decades of peaceful struggle, and has administered it only since 1999. So the whole country took to the streets: unions, teachers, indigenous groups and the broad public, in the cities and out in the countryside.
Mass demonstrations in Panama City
What restrictions were there for visitors?
Demonstrations and vigils were held every day, with daily protests in the capital, Panama City, and in many other cities across the country. In protest, the Pan-American Highway between Santiago and David was blocked at around 20 points for over four weeks. Traffic was repeatedly cut off at other points along the Panamericana too, and in places such as the city of Colón. That’s why the Aida and Mein Schiff cruise ships skipped Colón in November.
Bocas del Toro could only be reached by air, and the province of Chiriquí was cut off by land as well, while tourism and everyday life in Panama City carried on more or less as normal. Cruise ships still docked in Panama City, and excursions ran without a hitch.
Vigil in front of the Constitutional Court
What’s the current situation, can you visit Panama again without restrictions?
On November 27, 2023, the Constitutional Court declared the mining concession unconstitutional. The ruling was announced and made public in the media the following day, November 28, 2023. It met the population’s central demand, and over the following days all the road blockades were cleared.
That means all of Panama can be visited without restrictions again, and cruise ships are back to docking normally in the port of Colón.
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Boat trip to an Emberá village in Chagres National Park