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Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels
GARDI SUGDUB, Panama (AP) — On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground.
They go voluntarily — sort of.
The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades.
On a recent day, the island’s Indigenous residents rowed or sputtered off with outboard motors to fish. Children, some in uniforms and others in the colorful local textiles called “molas,” chattered as they hustled through the warren of narrow dirt streets on their way to school.
“We’re a little sad, because we’re going to leave behind the homes we’ve known all our lives, the relationship with the sea, where we fish, where we bathe and where the tourists come, but the sea is sinking the island little by little,” said Nadín Morales, 24, who prepared to move with her mother, uncle and boyfriend.
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Panama’s Inflation Upheaval Causing Food, Fuel Shortages
Panama’s Inflation Upheaval Causing Food, Fuel Shortages
It started as a teacher’s strike to protest the high cost of gas, but it’s now the largest civil unrest in Panama since the end of dictator Manuel Noriega’s reign in 1989.
With fiery roadblocks disrupting commerce and causing shortages of food, fuel and other supplies, the Panamanian government has entered a new round of talks meant to placate the masses and avoid further economic damage, which some assess at $500 million and counting.
President Laurentino Cortizo had already made two major moves to quell the unrest, only for it to continue.
On June 11, he widened subsidies to extend a freeze on gas prices to all consumers, capping the price at $3.95 a gallon, which was 24% lower than the end-of-June price. He also promised to pursue price caps on 10 basic goods, including pasta, beef loin, vegetable oil and canned sardines.
With protestors demanding economy-wide price cuts and increased spending on education and health care, the demonstrations continued, not only in the form of marches and strikes but also roadblocks of major highways, including the internationally-critical Pan-American Highway. The Panama Canal has thus far escaped disruption; strikes by canal workers are illegal.
Last weekend, Cortizo announced a deal by which the government would reduce the price of gas again — this time, to $3.25. That price cut was offered in exchange for an assurance that the roadblocks would be cleared while discussions of price relief on medicines and other essentials continued.
However, on Monday, leaders of the National Alliance for the Rights of the Peoples (Anadepo), a protestor coalition representing labor unions, civic organizations and indigenous people, announced they were breaking their commitment, saying they had made the deal under pressure. Some groups said they weren’t represented in the negotiations.
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The Panama Papers: Laundering Havens for War Budgets (Video)
The Panama Papers: Laundering Havens for War Budgets (Video)
In mid-April, economist Michael Hudson told The Real News Network that global oil and mining industries and the U.S. State Department created Panama and Liberia for the express purpose of tax evasion.
Read a full transcript of Hudson’s exchange with host Sharmini Peries below.
SHARMINI PERIES, TRNN: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.
Within a week the 11 million documents called the Panama papers, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has become a household name. The documents are connected to the Panama law firm Mossack Fonsesca that helped establish offshore accounts for some of the wealthiest and most powerful leaders to launder money and evade taxes.
Our next guest, Michael Hudson, says Panama was created as a tax haven by certain sectors of our economy for this purpose. Joining us now from New York is Michael Hudson. Michael is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and he’s a former balance of payments economist for Chase Manhattan bank. He is the author of many books, and the latest among them is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy. And if you want to know more about that book, on our site you’ll find Chris Hedges interviewing Michael Hudson on this book. Thanks for joining us, Michael.
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