Panama declares emergency in western province after deadly pension protests | Protests News

The clashes with the police have made at least one who died and about 30 injured in a large banana producing province.

Panama has declared the state of emergency in the west of Bocas del Toro province, where antigan -government demonstrators opposing a pension reform law are accused of having set fire to a baseball and looting stadium, including a provincial airport.

The demonstrations that broke out two months ago in Bocas Del Toro, a large banana -producing region intensified this week, culminating clashes with the police who made a dead person who were dead and injured about 30 people, including several police officers, police announced on Friday.

The presidential minister Juan Carlos Orillac declared during a press conference on Friday that the decision to suspend certain constitutional rights and to prohibit public rallies would allow the government to restore order and to “save” the province of “radical groups”, adding that the damages caused to public properties were “unacceptable and did not represent a legitimate protest”.

“Faced with the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the State will apply its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” he said.

The measure will be in place for five days, he said.

The demonstrators, supported by unions and indigenous groups across the country, faced the authorities concerning a pension reform law adopted in March.

The confrontations were particularly intense in Bocas Del Toro, widely led by workers of a local chiquita banana plantation. The multinational banana giant Chiquita described the workers’ strike an “unjustified work abandonment” and Limoge of thousands employees.

These workers finally withdrew from demonstrations after being able to negotiate the restoration of certain advantages which had been suppressed under the pension reform in March.

However, the government said that the Bocas del Toro road roadblocks had not yet been lifted, although it has not directly attributed them to the workers in Chiquita.

Violence culminated in the city of Changuinola, the main city of Bocas del Toro on Thursday, when groups of hooded people looted the businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with the police inside, the authorities announced.

The police said that “the vandals have taken over” local airport, stolen from vehicles belonging to car rental companies and looted an office and a warehouse containing supplies belonging to Chiquita. Airport flights were still suspended on Friday.

Panama’s right -wing president Jose Raul Mulino faces demonstrations on several fronts in recent months.

In addition to retirement reforms, the Panamanians were also on the street for an agreement that Mulino concluded with American president Donald Trump in April allowing American troops to deploy in Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

Mulino concession to Trump after the American chief threatened several times to “resume” the navigable path built by the United States.

Mulino also angry the environmentalists by threatening to reopen Cobre Panama, one of the largest copper mines in Central America.