PANAMA UNDER AN AUTHORITARIAN REGIME, COMPLICIT MEDIA AND UNPUNISHED FEMINICIDES

Panama is experiencing a situation that makes us think we're headed down a path of no return. The government of José Raúl Mulino, far from being an administration at the service of the people, has revealed itself to be an enforcer of the oligarchy and colonialism. Students are beaten, union members are deprived of their freedom, indigenous peoples are gassed, women are humiliated and abused, and the media has become the mouthpiece of power. This is the portrait of a state that no longer hides its authoritarian nature.

The president didn't come to power to govern, but to serve and boost the businesses of his colleagues who do pay a payroll, his friends who have workers whom they pay a salary. Since his declaration that his government is accountable to and belongs to "private enterprise," it has become clear that Panama is today a corporate fiefdom, where ministers with high-profile surnames— the usual rabiblancos, the Boyds, Galindos, Alfaros, the repeated government figures—dictate policies tailored to their needs, to strengthen corporate power, forgetting that all citizens expect him to guarantee the rights of all who live here.

Meanwhile, justice shows its racist and exclusionary face.

Political prisoners Genaro López and Jaime Caballero—activists and social activists deprived of their liberty for their social justice and political opposition activities—are being held in La Nueva Joya, a maximum-security prison, alongside other inmates who have committed serious crimes such as homicide and drug trafficking. This situation highlights a double standard of justice: while La Nueva Joya functions as a "maximum security" prison for human rights defenders and social activists, the same prison serves as "Renacer"—a rehabilitation program with more favorable conditions—for those with ties to the presidential government.

Indigenous leaders, handcuffed with shackles on their feet, are presented to society as dangerous beings. They seek to teach us a lesson and frighten us with this. Impoverished people are criminalized, while the corrupt enjoy impunity in Colombia, Italy, or Israel, demonstrating that in Panama justice is based on race and class.

Complicit media: ownership and mass manipulation

Traditional media don't inform: they misinform. As anthropologist Rita Segato points out, we live under a system of "ownership," where media owners—businessmen allied with the government—decide what people see and think. This idea is supported by the study "LESSONS ON THE NARRATIVE-POWER INFRASTRUCTURE IN COLOMBIA AND PANAMA," conducted within the Oye Project and supervised by Afroresistance and Reframe. 

State advertising buys silence. Traditional media, subservient to government money, hide the repression and glorify the government's virtues and alleged threats, based on gossip and fabrications, such as the malicious statement made by a woman who traveled by private plane to Colombia to collect President Mulino's presidential sash. Their humiliating gossip is not impartial.

News is a commodity. While it criminalizes protests, justifies the use of force against the people, and celebrates the deprivation of freedoms of the union sector. Deprivation of freedoms ordered by the government, the President has told us that Panama's stability depends on eliminating the union movement, not on eradicating the shameful levels of inequality we experience in the country.

The Thursday press conferences have become a commercial break for the government's virtues and for showcasing the President's perfect cabinet. We have to wonder if he is not disconnected from reality, incapable of recognizing a mistake. In the end, we are not just in the hands of a short fuse that explodes easily, who makes transparent the level of violence he is capable of exercising, in addition to enjoying a narcissism that prevents him from seeing the level of polarization he has caused, regardless of the consequences this could bring to the country.  

The mainstream media isn't journalism, it's propaganda. And its betrayal of its audience is yet another crime committed by this system that lines its pockets and silences social protest. Alternative media are the trenches. Independent platforms serve to expose what we are experiencing and reflect the truth.

Repression as a policy, the State's calling card

Students. A youth that will not stop fighting. The University of Panama is today a center of resistance that has called for national dialogue. The university community takes to the streets to demand respect for our sovereignty and is met with tear gas, beatings, and arbitrary arrests.

Unionists. Genaro López and Jaime Caballero, deprived of their liberty for fighting for workers' labor and human rights, are imprisoned. Their imprisonment sends a clear message from the government: "Whoever protests, we'll run over them." The number of political prisoners in the country will continue to increase. We're just getting started, with four long years to go, under repressive policies.

Genaro López and Jaime Caballero were deprived of their liberty for defending workers' labor and human rights. Their arrest sends a clear message from the government: "Whoever protests, we'll run over them . " The number of political prisoners will continue to rise. This is just the beginning. Four long years of repressive policies are still ahead.

In the midst of the crisis, women and girls pay the highest price. Femicides and disappearances are ignored by a state that prioritizes suppressing protests over seeking justice. Those who speak out are attacked and harassed by police forces in an act of patriarchal political violence. This government not only represses but also perpetrates gender-based terrorism.

In the memoranda signed with the United States government, Mulino compromises national sovereignty and violates the Neutrality Treaty. The cession of territories along the canal shores reawakens in every Panamanian the memory of the history of vassalage and ignominy that came with that country's constant intervention in Panama, while the police repress anyone who protests.

Fight and Resist

Today, the country is a laboratory for rulers in collusion with businessmen who play at subjugating the people by controlling the police, the media, the judiciary, and social power to break and crush the people. What other sense does it make to rule with blood and fire?

Remember, there's a force money can't buy: the organized rage of a people who endure but also know how to exploit it. Rage is organized for struggle.

• The students will remain in the streets

• The unions will not remain silent

• We women will continue to raise our voices

Alternative media are breaking through the siege; that will be an alternative.

We at Afroresistance support the call for dialogue by the University of Panama and other sectors that have expressed their desire to sit at the table to restore true stability to the country. With the executive branch turning a deaf ear, the country will live in a permanent state of tense calm. 

Let us never forget that this people drove the gringos from their territory, defeated open-pit mining, and stopped class-based zoning. They know how to resist and fight. Even though today, authoritarianism tries to sow fear, the dignity we carry within us has awakened and will become a habit.

IT WAS POSSIBLE, IT IS POSSIBLE AND IT WILL BE POSSIBLE

UNTIL DIGNITY BECOMES A CUSTOM