Large sections of Panama’s working class have been mobilising since April in nationwide strikes and protests against the José Raúl Mulino government. Teachers were the first to walk off and have maintained an indefinite national strike for more than 11 weeks.
In part, the strikes are rejecting an agreement signed between the Panamanian and United States governments to re-establish US military bases and personnel along the Panama Canal, in violation of the country’s sovereignty.
José Cambra is an executive committee member of the Panama Teachers’ Association (ASOPROF), which has played a leading role in the strikes. In the second part of our interview, Cambra spoke to Green Left’s Ben Radford about the need for international solidarity with Panamanian workers.
Read part one here.
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Could you expand on the role US imperialism is playing in Panama?
Donald Trump, on the very day he took office, announced he would take back the Panama Canal. He sent both his secretary of state [Marco Rubio] and defence secretary [Pete Hegseth] to Panama.
Panama’s security minister [Frank Abrego] — the same man responsible for the repression — signed a memorandum of understanding with Hegseth to re-establish three US military bases. The agreement uses the US names for these bases — Rothman Air Base, Sherman Base, and Howard Air and Naval Base — and does not even mention their Panamanian names. The Spanish and English versions make no mention of the US recognising Panama’s sovereignty.
Panama’s constitution explicitly states that any matter related to the canal or its adjacent areas must go through the National Assembly and, if approved there, must then be subjected to a nationwide referendum. The government refuses to do this, claiming it is merely a “memorandum”.
The fact is, Panama and the US have signed two treaties, known as the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. One of them has now expired — it ended on December 31, 1999 — and through it, the canal and all surrounding lands and buildings were returned to Panama.
What remains in force is the Permanent Neutrality Treaty, which, in Article 5, states that after December 31, 1999, only Panama may have military bases or forces on its territory. In other words, it prohibits foreign military forces — yet the US has now managed to re-establish three military bases through a memorandum.
Mulino openly repeats the colonial mindset of the Monroe Doctrine. Early in his term, he declared that the US’ southern border lies in the Darién Gap, in Panamanian territory. He has cooperated with deportation flights — planes carrying migrants deported from the US now land in Panama, from where migrants are sent back to their home countries. In this way, he is serving US interests against our Latin American brothers and sisters.
The US is also behind the push to reopen the copper mine. But it will not end there. Trump is insatiable. Once he gets one thing, he moves on to the next. It would not surprise us in the slightest to see Trump send troops to take over operations of the Panama Canal.
This current struggle is the greatest threat to those imperial ambitions.
Are there concrete links between Panama’s government and far-right governments in Latin America, such as Javier Milei’s in Argentina or Nayib Bukele’s in El Salvador, or are they mostly ideological connections?
The links are primarily ideological — Mulino admires Milei, he follows Milei’s lead. Mulino is not part of the far-right international network that recently met in Madrid under the coordination of [Isabel Díaz] Ayuso, but, ideologically, he is.
What we are seeing is an attempt to present himself to the oligarchy as the strongman who can defend their interests with an iron fist. That is why this is going to be a government in constant crisis. Because there is a deep, entrenched distrust among the people towards the political class and the oligarchy. There is a widespread class consciousness that this government rules for the rich.
By the way, in Panama people rarely talk in terms of left and right. People speak more about those at the top and those at the bottom. When the government accused us teachers of being Communists, nobody cared. They use that old smear, which in other times might have stuck, but the government is so discredited that the accusation meant nothing.
Sadly, when it came to the election, people were guided by their urgent need for work and voted for Mulino. What we have not yet managed to do is direct this strong political class consciousness towards a real political alternative. We, as teachers — who have been at the forefront of the social movement — believe we should help build a teachers’ party that can link up with other popular forces and offer a genuine electoral alternative for 2029.
It is worth mentioning that Mulino has committed the only crime that allows the National Assembly to put him on trial and remove him from office: by signing that agreement with the US, he has violated the Treaty of Neutrality and violated the Constitution in the service of a foreign power, which is grounds for impeachment.
Four social movement leaders have signed a formal petition for impeachment, but that petition is collecting dust in the assembly. They will not touch it — because if they did, they would have to remove the president, and they do not have the political strength to do that.
How can people in other countries support the struggle?
It is a very difficult situation, and international solidarity has been essential. On June 9, an action was organised by the World Congress Against Neoliberalism in Education. Visits were made to Panamanian embassies and consulates across Latin America and Europe. This gives heart to those on the frontline.
There is also the example of the CNTE, the National Coordinator of Education Workers in Mexico — not the SNTE [National Educational Workers Union], which is a bureaucratic union. From places such as Chiapas, Oaxaca and others, they called a strike to demand that a promise made by AMLO’s [Andrés Manuel López Obrador] previous government be fulfilled: to roll back a neoliberal reform that privatised workers’ pensions. They launched a movement to demand new President Claudia Sheinbaum keep that promise, because, unlike AMLO, she has a parliamentary majority.
The CNTE mobilised an estimated 20,000 teachers and professors, who camped out in Zócalo [the main square in Mexico City]. In the middle of that encampment, the comrades from the World Congress Against Neoliberalism in Education, who were meeting in Mexico, held a solidarity rally with the 100 general secretaries of the CNTE present. They gave their full solidarity to the CNTE struggle and the struggle in Panama.
What we are asking for is this: wherever there are struggles, explain what is happening in Panama. Talk about the ways we have fought, because what is happening here has already happened, or will happen, in other Latin American countries. These vultures want to pocket the pension funds that we, the workers of Latin America, have paid into with our own labour. We must stop them and reverse what has already been done, in countries such as Chile and Mexico, where it has already happened, and in Panama, where they are doing it now.
This must become an international movement — a movement to reclaim our pensions. The World Congress Against Neoliberalism in Education held a virtual forum on July 2 with people from many countries discussing the pension crisis in Latin America and how we are being attacked by the oligarchies.
We believe these kinds of solidarity actions are needed — just as we stand in solidarity with teachers, workers, women, the poor and the marginalised around the world.
[Read the full interview at links.org.au.]