Skip to main content

Lessons from Panama’s Environmental Struggle

The mainstream climate movement in the U.S., though full of committed activists, demonstrates like clockwork its unwillingness to embrace a winning strategy. This summer will be no different as the big non-profits urge youth to participate in The Summer of Heat on Wall Street. The latter will consist of three months of modestly sized but photogenic direct actions at targets in the financial district of New York City. Small, tightly knit affinity groups from around the country will commit to one or several of these many activities, risking arrest to demonstrate their earnestness, while trying to capture the attention of the big business press, and through that vehicle, somehow convince politicians who are up to their eyeballs in fossil-fuel-based contributions to legislate an energy transition.

The folly of this perspective, marked out in the growth of CO2 emissions to historic highs, should be clear; but no change of course occurs. Fortunately, it should not be difficult for those open to more winning perspectives to see that a new, more successful model is emerging in Panama.

Panama is the fourth poorest country in the world and living with the legacy of direct U.S. control. Nonetheless, within the country there exists a powerful history of social and environmental struggle that recently led to a decisive victory against big mining.

José Cambra, a revolutionary socialist activist, a member of the Association of Teachers of Panama (ASOPROF), and a leader of the union-initiated People United for Life Alliance (APUV), speaking at a March 25 forum sponsored by a chapter of 350.org in Connecticut, says this victory shows that the movement built in Panama against a First Quantum Minerals copper mine is today the most important environmental movement in the world. It demonstrates, he said, that if we unite all of the unions and social movements in the streets, “we can win against these giant international companies.” (See a video of the forum: https://350ct.org/panama-copper-mine-protests/.)

In a polarized Latin America susceptible to right-wing populism of the type exemplified by Javier Millei of Argentina, activists have rightly viewed the upcoming May 2024 elections as a vehicle that could put wind in the sales of the domestic and international elite bent on renegotiating a contract with First Quantum. International financial analysts, however, are gloomy about that prospect. “So jarring were the protests,” several have commented, that “the prospect that any of the frontrunners will reopen the mine amid social pressure seem slim” (Bloomberg, Vincius Andrade, April 12, 2024).

How did the movement manifest the level of social pressure that has left the domestic elite, also under the gun from international investors to restore the $10 billion mine project and implement further deep cuts in social services, at least momentarily paralyzed? The short answer is a movement leadership willing to support the creation of spaces that allowed those victimized by government failures in every sphere of life to learn how the subordination of the nation to imperialist predation, cuts in basic social services, attacks on organized labor, denial of Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental crises were all connected.

The process leading to this consciousness about the relationship of environmental degradation to the degradation of all working-class life took a leap in 2022, when demonstrations of an already unprecedented size forced the government to negotiate openly with movement organizations on public TV. In those discussions, the government stood for the oligarchy, who was allowing rises in the cost of medicine, a growing lack of social security, and corrupt deals with greedy foreign companies. The movement organizations stood, in a principled way, for an economic and environmental policy that served the majority. This widely viewed spectacle built the authority of a movement not tied to the politics and parties of the bosses.

In October 2023, when the government of the oligarchy tried to sign a new 20-year contract with First Quantum Minerals, a company whose giant copper mine had long been declared illegal under Panamanian law, the suspicions and frustrations of all sectors of the working classes and Indigenous communities came together in a giant social movement that—while anchored by the patient work of union militants, community organizers, and Indigenous networks over decades—sparked new creative activity that could not have been anticipated. The movement, comprising a quarter of Panama’s total population, took the streets for 2 months. Fisher people used their boats to block marine coal shipments to the mine, shutting down the power plant. Other activists prevented land routes from being used instead. Indigenous communities blocked the nation’s major coastal highway, key to economic functioning, and began using the sites of the blockades to hold open political assemblies in which the political crisis was explored.

Rank-and-file militants outflanked the union bureaucracy, who did not want the struggle to go too far. They fanned out to speak to workers—town by town, workplace by workplace—and the response was so dramatic that union misleaders went silent in the face of their members’ mobilizations.

Perhaps most useful to activists looking for a way forward in the U.S. is a look at how this combined struggle around austerity and a polluting mine raised the consciousness of labor militants. According to Cambra, unionists brought into motion first by anti-imperialist sentiment and cuts in the social wage found themselves in the streets with youth and Indigenous activists who explained how the extreme extractivism and the climate crisis were related to the economic crisis and the corruption of the oligarchy.

Panamanian activists have provided us a model, built on mass action, which is independent of the bosses’ parties, action that brings together all of the victims of capitalist exploitation and oppression, to meet the climate crisis and the economic crisis head on. U.S. activists should learn and move forward.

>> The article above was written by Christine Marie, and is reprinted from Workers' Voice.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Activist Calendar

Tuesday, Sept. 2: Remove the Regime Protest; 4pm at 169 E 25th Street in Hibbing . Tuesday, Sept. 2: Hilltop Protest to Stop Trump; 4:30pm, corner of Central Entrance & Rice Lake Road in Duluth.  Sponsored by Northland Protests . Tuesday, Sept. 2: Duluth Tenants Meeting; 7pm at the UCC Peace Church in Duluth .  Wednesday, Sept. 3: Presentation on the Threats Talon Metals/Rio Tinto Pose to Tamarack Region Waters; 10am online.  Sponsored by Water Legacy . Wednesday, Sept. 3: Immigrant Solidarity Protest; noon on the corner of E 60th Avenue & Superior Street in Duluth.  Sponsored by Twin Ports Against Weapons Trade .   Wednesday, Sept. 3: Say NO to BlackRock's Takeover of MN Power press conference; 2pm at the MN Power Plaza.  Sponsored by CURE MN and Sierra Club .  Wednesday, Sept. 3: Public Mtg on Protecting Wild Rice & Fish From Keetac Mine & Tailings Basin Pollution; 6pm at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia ....

A Little Bit About Us . . .

MISSION STATEMENT: The Northwoods Socialist Collective is a group of working class activists based in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  We believe everyone should have a say in the matters that affect their lives.  That is why we are socialists.  We advocate for a socialism that is revolutionary, internationalist and feminist, as well as being anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-imperialist, environmentally sustainable and fully committed to LGBTQAI+ liberation.  We invite you to join us in the struggle to make our communities and world a better place! Below is an attempt to list the things that we do, and the framework that we have for achieving the goals listed is our Mission Statement. POLITICAL EDUCATION: We feel that a crucial part of building a socialist movement is political education.  We encourage our members to study Marxist theory, and to apply it to understand how the world works and what can be done to change it.  We put on monthly Socialism and...

Getting Involved

Karl Marx powerfully that "philosophers have sought to interpret the world, the point, however, is to change it."  Towards that end here is a list of ways that we encourage folks who are looking to make their community and world a better place to plug into: CALENDAR: The Northwoods Socialist Collective publishes a weekly calendar of activist events going on throughout northern MN and WI.  It's a great way to stay in the loop!  To sign up to get it by email fill out this form .  You can also find the calendar posted on our website , facebook page , twitter and instagram page .  We publish it every Tuesday.  The local DSA chapter also puts out a weekly calendar, as does Claire B , both of which we also recommend. MEETINGS: We hold monthly Socialism and a Slice current events discussions which are a great way to find out about what's going on in our community, and how you can get involved.  Some months we feature a local activist talking about an ...