A major movement win for the environment is under threat in Panama

This article A major movement win for the environment is under threat in Panama was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

“We were four cats,” recalled Aubrey Baxter with a laugh. It’s an expression that, in Panama, means a handful, and Baxter was casting his mind back to Panama City in 2021, when protests to close a vast copper mine in the Panamanian rainforest would draw a few dozen activists at best. “We were out every week, doing small actions, giving out pamphlets, talking about the mine. But there were so few of us.”

Two years later, those protests were being attended by hundreds of thousands of Panamanians. Teachers and students, doctors and trade unionists, farmers and Indigenous people — they were all marching the streets as one, and bringing the country to a virtual standstill. After a month-long nationwide uprising, including daily blockades of major highways and the copper mine’s port, the government had little choice but to give in. Despite it wiping 5 percent off Panama’s GDP, they closed the mine and banned any new mining projects nationwide.

The victory was historic, a shining example of what peaceful protest can achieve, but it came at a human cost. Four protesters lost their lives, hundreds were injured, and Baxter — a photojournalist living in Panama City — was one of five people to be blinded by pepper-spray pellets fired by police. His right eye was hit at close range and permanently lost. Yet, despite the violence directed at them, the protesters remained defiantly nonviolent. Students throwing stones at shielded riot police was as bad as the blowback got.

Four cats taking on a mega-mine and winning is the stuff of activist dreams. This is the story of how those they did it, but also how their victory has been under threat ever since. First Quantum Minerals, the Canadian company that owns the now inactive Cobre Panamá mine, has not given up. According to activists, the company is touring Panama’s secondary schools with pro-mining propaganda, and wants Donald Trump to intervene to reopen the mine.

‘For the first time, the public could see’

Baxter had started out as an animal rights activist, and started mingling with environmentalists during beach clean-ups, which brought him into the orbit of Panamá Vale Mas Sin Minería (Panama is Better Without Mining), a large coalition of social and eco-groups calling for an end to all mining in the country.

The coalition formed in 2021 after the Panamanian government named mining a pillar of its post-Covid economy. One of the founding members was CIAM, a legal advocacy group that had been resisting Panama’s mining sector for over a decade.

Twelve years earlier, CIAM’s environmental lawyers challenged the initial mining contract between First Quantum Minerals and the government in Panama’s Supreme Court. The judges ruled the contract was unconstitutional because there had been no bidding process, but the ruling wasn’t made public until 2018, and the public anger needed to make the government change tact failed to materialize. Despite the ruling, the mine started operating the following year.

The new anti-mining coalition started holding small rallies outside the Ministry of Industry each week, and submitted a draft bill to parliament for a mining moratorium. Attendance at the rallies was modest, but the group’s social media campaign was gaining traction because of some unique footage that CIAM had commissioned.

“Mining is a complex issue, it can feel like a faraway threat that doesn’t seem real,” said Joana Abrego, an environmental lawyer who has intermittently worked with CIAM since its inception. “Which is why we booked a helicopter to fly over the mine to capture images of the destruction. For the first time, the public could see the mine site and the scale of the damage being done.”

On top of the vast environmental destruction, there was the pollution. Reports by Panama’s Environmental Agency, accessed via freedom of information requests by activists, detailed 200 environmental infractions by the mine during its operation. The impoverished communities living around the mine say they were promised running water, schools and hospitals by the mine’s owners, but those promises failed to materialize. Instead, they got deforestation, soil erosion and river water so toxic that it killed fish and stung their bare skin.

‘That’s when I thought, we’re going to win.’

The anti-mining coalition grew steadily, allying with workers unions and welcoming in farmers, church groups and scientists. Ya Es Ya (Now Means Now), the Panamanian chapter of Scientist Rebellion, a movement for scientists to use the protest tactics popularized by Extinction Rebellion, joined in February 2023. The group was small but industrious, and Baxter became both an indispensable photographer of Ya Es Ya actions, and a good friend of its founder, Renate Sponer.

Sponer is an Austrian genetic biologist who came to Panama decades earlier as a researcher for the Smithsonian Institute. After feeling the institute was bowing to political and economic pressures to downplay environmental issues, she quit and went off-grid. Sponer then spent a decade on a remote nature reserve where she farmed the land, shared knowledge with Indigenous locals and raised her four daughters. When she and her family eventually returned to civilization in 2021, settling in Panama City, she registered how rapidly climate change was destabilizing the world. She started searching for fellow scientists who wanted to do something about it, and stumbled upon Scientist Rebellion just as it was launching its debut actions in the U.K. in the run-up to the UN’s COP26 climate summit. 

When the government unveiled a new contract with First Quantum Minerals in July 2023, Panama’s Assembly agreed to open the first of three debates on the contract to the public, thanks to the tireless efforts of one independent assembly member. It meant anyone in the country could enroll to speak for 15 minutes on the contract, with their testimonies televised live. Sponer was one of them, and the experience proved to be revelatory.

“I was there every day and learned so much,” she said. “I saw the fervor in so many people. I don’t know where they came from, all these professionals and specialists, really dissecting this contract from so many angles, saying how terrible it was for Panama. That’s when I thought, we’re going to win. People are listening.”

In well-attended hearings, the contract was assessed by economists, academics, lawyers, doctors, Indigenous people, scientists — each using their particular field of expertise to highlight how bad it was for the country at large. 

As well as allowing First Quantum Minerals to operate the mine for at least another 20 years, potentially as long as twice that, the contract gave the Canadian corporation incredible powers. It could further expropriate and deforest swathes of protected land around the already giant mine site, lay claim to and divert the course of nearby rivers and, tellingly, establish a no-fly zone above it. 

While Abrego believes the last stipulation was likely an attempt to stop more helicopter flights by camera-wielding CIAM activists, the overall impression was that the company was behaving like a foreign power taking over a portion of Panama. And by obliging it, the government seemed to be happy to sell off part of the country for profit, even if the whole region’s trade and water supplies could be at the mercy of a foreign company.

While the mainstream media ignored the negative testimonies, and ultimately so did the assembly, highlights were cut up and spread far and wide over social media. At the same time, Ya Es Ya was exploding on social media. “Our Instagram soared. We went from having a few hundred followers to 15,000,” remembered Sponer.

In effect, the political hearing had become a citizens’ assembly, and the people who heard the facts responded with action. “All these strangers on social media started destroying the mainstream media’s pro-mining framing. As soon as they put something out, it would be taken apart by all these people,” said Baxter, who also noticed a difference out on the streets. “During actions, it was so inspiring talking to people who knew so much compared to two years ago.”

‘I’m ready to die for this’

Sponer and her daughters were out marching with Baxter on the day he lost his eye. It was Oct. 19, 2023, the same day Panama’s parliament was voting on the new contract. Despite the best efforts of the government and the mainstream media, the contract was increasingly unpopular, and thousands marched to the palace that housed the National Assembly to demand it be voted down.

By now, protests against the mine were happening every day and across the country. When the crowds reached the new metal fencing that had been erected around the palace, the waiting riot police decided to do something they’d never done before. They started firing tear gas instantly into the peaceful crowds. In the chaos of bangs and screams and burning air, Sponer’s teenage daughters couldn’t breathe and started panicking. Baxter helped the family run for safety and regain their breath nearby. “I stopped taking my kids with me to protests after that day,” Sponer said.

Baxter wanted to get pictures of the protest and headed back to the palace, but by now the only people left were the police, still safely behind the metal fencing. Baxter spotted some activist leaders trying to enter the palace, and started filming them with his phone. First, a tear gas canister ricocheted off the fencing right in front of him, then a police officer walked up to the fence, gun raised and repeatedly fired at his face. The whole gruesome event, including Baxter’s agonized screams and stumbling after the pepper-spray pellet hit, was captured on his phone. 

Baxter came out of surgery knowing that the assembly had approved the contract and that he had been permanently blinded. He recorded a video that night, his right eye still painfully swollen, imploring people to keep fighting for the future of Panama. “After seeing Aubrey get shot, I was so pumped up. I knew I was ready to die for this,” Sponer said.

Panama’s then president, Laurentino Cortizo, signed the contract into law the next day. Rather than deflate the protest, the police aggression and political obstinacy inflamed it even more. “That signature of the president changed everything,” Baxter said. “We do all this, have so many people out protesting, and still they don’t even consider us. That was the feeling.”

Workers unions announced strikes and helped organize blockades of major roads. Local fishermen started a boat blockade around the mine’s port, stopping crucial deliveries of fuel, and braving tear gas attacks by helicopter to eventually shut down all operations in the mine. Agricultural workers and Indigenous groups descended from the mountains to support the blockades. Teachers’ unions went on strike, meaning schools and university classes were suspended. Thousands of young people then poured out onto the streets, some occupying their university campuses.

The introduction of Panama’s youth proved to be a key factor in turning a major activist campaign into a full-blown revolution of the people. One youth group called Sal de Las Redes (Get Out of Social Networks) decided to stage its own type of protests alongside the anti-mining coalition. These youth-orientated events would take place in neutral spaces with no organizational banners or political allegiances, only the Panamanian flag. “It was a game changer,” said CIAM lawyer Abrego. “People not aligned to unions or politics, everyday people who didn’t feel represented by the other groups but were upset about the new contract, began to join these youth gatherings. And they quickly started growing. It was the spark that lit the fire.” 

Once the Panama flag was the symbol, everyone wanted to come and join the protests. Doctors and nurses joined the strikes. Even those who couldn’t leave the house, the very old and the very young, banged pots from their windows in support. “It went out of our hands,” remembered Sponer, a big smile on her face. “One moment it was our ideas, us trying to motivate other people. Then suddenly it was everybody. It was wonderful. Absolutely amazing.”

For Baxter, who had been told by doctors to stay indoors and heal for two months, the emotions were mixed. “I felt happiness at how many people were rising up, that we were having an impact, that the world was watching. But I felt betrayed by my government. That they could mutilate me like this. And I was worried that more repression and more violence was going to come.”

With Baxter out of action, Ya Es Ya didn’t have a photographer, and Sponer put out a request on the group’s social media channels for protesters to share their photos. “The pictures came from all over Panama, a flood of photos, so many she didn’t know what to do,” Baxter said, grinning. “We were not four cats anymore!”

Pure joy

After two weeks of daily road blockades and marches involving hundreds of thousands of people, Panama was in crisis. Store shelves were emptying, food prices were rocketing and the country was hemorrhaging around $80 million per day in lost productivity. 

On Nov. 3, the day Panama was celebrating its historic separation from Colombia, President Cortizo made a concession. He signed a moratorium outlawing all new mining in the country. But the legislation had no bearing on the existing copper mine contract, and therefore no effect on the protests, which were being turbocharged by November’s patriotic schedule of five national independence days. 

Against his doctor’s advice, Baxter ventured out a week later to join a protest camp that had formed in front of the Supreme Court. “I shouldn’t have been there, but if I stayed home, I knew I’d get depressed,” Baxter said. “I felt so patriotic. While I was there, I felt like so many people were giving me strength and support.”

The protest camp had been set up to support a continuous vigil outside the court while the judges considered numerous appeals against the newly passed contract. CIAM lawyer Abrego and Baxter both attended the vigil’s opening ceremony alongside a veteran of Martyrs’ Day, a historical event of huge importance to the Panamanian people.

After Panama separated from Colombia in 1903, it controversially sold the Panama Canal Zone to the U.S., which included the canal and five-mile-deep strips of land on either side of it. Sovereignty of the zone gradually became a live political issue, and on Jan. 9, 1964, U.S. students living there raised the U.S. flag above their high school, which led Panamanian students to march into the zone to raise their flag beside it. Canal Zone police arrived, fights broke out, the Panamanian flag was torn, and hundreds of angry Panamanians then stormed the zone. Canal Zone police tear-gassed and ultimately opened fire on the crowds, killing 21 people.

The incident, now known as Martyrs’ Day, drew global condemnation and triggered a slow U.S. retreat from the canal, with the territory dissolved in 1979, and full control of the canal transferred to the Panamanian government on the last day of 1999. To open the vigil before the Supreme Court, a commemorative torch was carried from a memorial on the site of the U.S. high school to the steps of the court, and Baxter was asked to hold it. “It was one of the most special moments of my life,” he said.

On Nov. 28, the day Panama celebrates its independence from Spain, the court unanimously ruled that the contract was unconstitutional, and the president finally announced that the government would close the mine. Sponer was at home when she heard the news. “I was exhausted, my voice was gone from all the chanting, and I’d stayed up late again, managing our group’s social media,” she said. “When I saw the ruling, I cried and went out to the main street where young people had been marching. It was overwhelming.” 

Baxter returned to the camp in front of the Supreme Court with a feeling of “pure joy.” But Abrego, who was also jumping for joy and hugging people outside the court, was already feeling pangs of concern. “I thought yes, the mine will be closed,” she recalled, “but what will follow? It will still be a hazard to communities and the environment, and the government will not protect them.”  

Over the month of daily uprisings, police arrested more than 1,500 protesters, and injured many hundreds more with their liberal use of tear gas bombs, pepper-spray pellets and beatings. Teachers had their salaries withheld, unions had their bank accounts frozen, Indigenous protesters were ambushed by the farmers and landowners who employ them, and the media launched a smear campaign to try and seed division among the groups. Four protesters were killed by enraged motorists while manning road blockades, with two run over and two more shot in cold blood. 

But the protesters stood their ground and kept resisting, and now one of the biggest mines on the continent was shutting down. “Everyone gave something, a little grain of sand,” Baxter said, “and together we made the beach.”

Massive brainwashing campaign

It’s now just over a year since those historic protests, and the Cobre Panamá mine remains closed. The bad news, however, is that First Quantum Minerals — according to Sponer — has been conducting “a massive brainwashing campaign” to get it reopened, and Panama’s brand new government appears to be supporting it.

In February 2024, First Quantum Minerals and its Panamanian subsidiary Minera Panamá started offering all-expenses paid tours of the mine to anyone interested — journalists, academics and students — in an effort to dispel “misinformation” spread by social media. After a massive outcry by activists, the Ministry of Industry stated that the tours were illegal, and they wound down within a couple of weeks.

But the company returned with a virtual tour of the mine, specifically a 3D Virtual Reality simulation, as part of a slick mobile installation that combined VR headsets with traditional displays, smiling guides and colorful merchandise. Bearing the new brand “Cobre Conecta,” the installation debuted at Panama’s International Book Fair in May, promising to show how responsible, eco-friendly mining was possible in Panama. Given the technology and merchandise it was paired with, the VR tour proved particularly popular with children.

This is perhaps how the installation came to Panama’s secondary schools as part of its nationwide tour. When Sponer found out it had visited her three eldest daughters’ school, and they had tried the VR tour of the mine, she was incensed. 

“I complained to the headmaster. I told him it was intolerable that my girls had to listen to this talk,” she said. “The reality is that the mine is inactive, the Supreme Court found 25 infractions of the Panamanian constitution in its contract, and there is a moratorium on new mining. But the company is instilling this belief that mining is wonderful, the mine will open again and mining is a viable future career in Panama.”

Abrego firmly believes that First Quantum Minerals are targeting Panama’s youth because of the role they played in spreading the anti-mine protests. While there is no specific regulation against a school tour like this in Panamanian law, Panamá Vale Más Sin Minería has filed a complaint to the education minister. So far there has been no response.

The company’s strangely unshakeable confidence in the country’s mining sector might stem from the attitude of Panama’s new right-wing government, which was elected in May. The new regime announced it would postpone dealing with the mine issue until this year, and instead prioritize social security reforms that could see Panama’s pensions privatized. 

Nevertheless, the government has not remained totally quiet on the mine. President José Raúl Mulino has argued that the protests were more against the corruption of the previous government than the mine itself, and backed a new paradoxical policy for Panama to reopen the copper mine in order to close it.

Open to close

Since the Cobre Panamá mine was forced to suspend all operations during the port and road blockades of 2023, First Quantum claims that it is spending around $12 million per month on site maintenance and environmental stability measures. 

More than 120,000 tons of mined copper concentrate remains on site, an extremely valuable and toxic powder that could eventually poison local soils and rivers if left there. Further validating Abrego’s fears that the closed mine would still be an environmental hazard, a recent report revealed a large wastewater dam on the site was being poorly monitored and close to collapse.

Activist groups have called for the mine to be permanently shut down before environmental disaster strikes, but the new president has dismissed their fears out of hand. A long promised independent environmental audit of the mine, commissioned by the government, and key to understanding the means and costs of safely decommissioning the mine, is still not even close to starting one year on.

As well as being a mounting environmental hazard, the closed mine is a financial one too. First Quantum Minerals has initiated private arbitration proceedings against the Panamanian government, which could see the nation pay at least $20 billion in compensation for lost profits. While both sides have stated that arbitration is not their preferred path, the financial threat looms over this whole affair. 

In this climate, the argument for temporarily opening the mine in order to pay for its safe, permanent closure is an appealing if mercurial one. This line has been pushed hard by Panama’s pro-mining media, which have commissioned polls showing up to 23 percent of the population might support the move. However, the time period between the opening and closing is conspicuously absent, and First Quantum’s CEO Tristan Pascall has said that it could take 15 to 20 years to shut down the mine safely.

In December, Pascall tried out a more aggressive move, calling on incoming U.S. President Donald Trump to back the mine’s reopening, and framing the site as key to the economic war between the U.S. and China, the latter being the world’s biggest consumer of copper. Days later, Trump threatened to retake the Panama Canal, citing unfair shipping fees and China’s growing influence over the region.

Far from worrying about U.S. intervention into Panamanian politics, Abrego thinks Trump’s comments have been helpful, because both the canal and the mine were then conflated in the national media. “Trump has reminded us that this mine is a threat to the sovereignty of Panama, that it is about other states meddling with our country” she said, “and that is the reason why people were so upset to begin with.”

For Sponer, Panama reclaiming the canal from the U.S. directly inspired the mass protests against the mine a year ago. “Panama’s people fought the most powerful nation in the world, they did it nonviolently, they were patient, and they won. Twenty years later, and now it’s their government selling territory to Western corporations with no benefit for the people. It reactivated their patriotism.” 

Could that potent patriotism be reactivated again soon? The Panamanian president has announced that a debate on the future of the copper mine will resume in February, and anti-mining activists are now busy preparing their arguments. Sponer is attending meetings and seminars with experts on the topic of mine maintenance, while Abrego has helped to found a working group of experts to shadow the government’s efforts to close the mine. She is also forging links with academics to explore economic models for the country that aren’t reliant on extractivism. Asked for an example, Abrego cites neighboring Costa Rica, which has built up a sizeable tourism industry while protecting its extensive rainforests.

Baxter meanwhile is being swamped by legal battles around the loss of his eye. Even though the police officer shooting at him was clearly filmed, an internal investigation by the city police found they had no case to answer. Baxter is now appealing that verdict while pushing ahead with a criminal case to seek justice.

“I have legal expenses, lots of stress. Everything is delayed,” he said. “They are trying to make me a victim again, but my mind is strong. I used to only be into animal rights, and in the background, not used to speaking. Now that’s really changed. Losing my eye has given me the flame to do the work. It extended who I’m protecting. Not just animals, but people, and the whole world.”

As for the battle to come over the copper mine’s future, Baxter is sanguine. “Panama’s people feel quiet, but they are not,” he said. “They are just on hold. People are quiet in their mouths, but not in their minds. A lot of thinking is happening right now.”

Abrego meanwhile believes the mine is still a very sensitive topic in the country, and that Panama’s people could soon be back out on the streets. “It’s natural for people to settle down a bit, emotions were very high in 2023,” she said. “But the majority still want this mine closed, the new government is dealing with many contentious issues, and people are not happy. The fire that started these protests is still alive.”

This article A major movement win for the environment is under threat in Panama was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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