Central America
Panamanian union calls for protests against mining contract
October 23 |
The Single Union of Construction Workers (Suntracs) of Panama called this Saturday to popular sectors to new mobilizations in rejection of the Mining Contract, approved the day before by the National Assembly and then by the Executive.
Through a communiqué, the leader of the union, Saúl Méndez, said that the organization will continue fighting against the agreement and urged union, student and civil society groups to continue with the protests.
Méndez emphasized that the Mining Contract – which he categorized as a contract that sells the homeland – allows the plundering of natural resources and damages human health and the environment.
He stated that it is time to take to the streets so that the people can put order before those who are inclined to sell out Panama. He added that in the next few hours they will announce the actions that will be part of the new days of struggle, which will be decided in a national union council to be organized for this Sunday at the Suntracs headquarters.
He held responsible for what he called an affront to the homeland the Council of Ministers, the 44 deputies who voted for it this Friday, the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice who endorsed it and President Laurentino Cortizo, who signed it after its approval by the Legislative.
He compared their endorsement of the referred agreement with the attitude of the Panamanian authorities in 1903, when they handed over to the United States the transoceanic Canal, which rightfully belonged to the Panamanian people.
The approval of the contract with the Canadian transnational First Quantum Minerals was also rejected this Saturday by the National Workers Central of Panama, the Ecological Ecclesial Network Mesoamerica-Panama and the Polo Ciudadano movement.
In their statements, they emphasized that the opinions of important sectors of society were not taken into account to sign the agreement, which they point out for the environmental damage, the harm to the communities and the extraordinary concessions made to the foreign company. Some of these concessions are catalogued as violating the law and the Constitution and limiting national sovereignty.
Central America
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
The Government of Mexico announced on Tuesday that it has strengthened coordination with Guatemala following an armed confrontation in the community of Agua Zarca, in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango department, where a soldier was wounded in an attack attributed to organized-crime groups operating on both sides of the border.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch, confirmed that Mexico is exchanging information with Guatemalan authorities and that Mexican Army units have been deployed along the border to reinforce surveillance and assist in reconnaissance operations.
The attack, Guatemala’s Defense Ministry stated, reflects the “criminal dynamics” dominating that border region, where different groups compete for drug and arms trafficking routes.
According to Guatemala’s Defense Ministry, the clash left a soldier wounded in the leg after suspected criminals crossed from Mexico and opened fire. The wounded soldier is reportedly in stable condition. Authorities also seized high-caliber weapons, explosives, tactical gear and drones, which were handed over for forensic analysis.
Mexican Defense Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo announced that a coordinated plan of operations will be launched involving both Mexican and Guatemalan forces along the border to counter these criminal networks.
Harfuch emphasized that the violence is not isolated but symptomatic of the ongoing struggle between criminal organizations for territorial control, and reiterated Mexico’s commitment to bilateral security cooperation and its intention to strengthen institutional presence in vulnerable border zones.
Central America
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
The National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) stated that the ruling party Libre’s request to annul the general elections is not supported by law in the absence of evidence of fraud, and that such a move puts democracy at risk. The country has yet to learn who its next president will be, following the elections held on November 30.
In a press release, the university said that “a general annulment, lacking structural proof of fraud, constitutes a direct violation of the principle of preserving electoral acts and of the legal certainty of the democratic system.”
It further noted that electoral annulment “is a legal institution of strictly exceptional and restrictive nature, and a last resort, whose application is constitutionally legitimate only when there is full, objective, direct, and decisive proof of the structural legal destruction of the popular will.”
“Annulment is not an ordinary mechanism for political challenges, nor an instrument to correct electoral defeats, but an institutional safeguard intended exclusively to protect the sovereign people when their will has been replaced through proven structural fraud,” the statement continued.
UNAH emphasized that annulling the elections without verified evidence of fraud “would amount, in constitutional terms, to an indirect disregard of popular sovereignty, altering the very essence of the democratic rule of law.”
Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla said on X that he is prepared to compare his tally sheets with those of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Honduras. Since Friday, Nasralla has fallen behind his opponent Nasry Asfura of the National Party.
Central America
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
The director of the National Anticorruption Council (CNA), Gabriela Castellanos, stated on social media that the Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) did not fail due to a lack of messaging but because of a “lack of substance.”
“It wasn’t socialism; it was a populist caricature without theory, coherence, or the ability to translate into solutions for the everyday lives of the Honduran people,” Castellanos said.
“The defeat of Libre cannot be explained solely in electoral terms. It reflects a deeper rupture: the gap between a narrative that tried to call itself ‘socialist’ and a citizenry that does not live off ideological abstractions but off concrete urgencies,” she added.
“In Honduras, a discourse grounded in abstract concepts can never replace the urgent conversation about prices, jobs, security, and access to basic needs. That inability to turn theory into solutions widened the gap that ultimately fractured its candidacy,” she noted.
While the right continues to gain votes following the elections, Libre’s presidential candidate, Rixi Moncada, has secured only 19.11% of public support, placing her in third position. “Socialism, in its rigorous sense, is not about activist shouting or improvised directives. It is critical thinking, structural analysis, and a deep understanding of how society works. Libre did not offer that. It offered an impoverished version — an ‘occasional socialism,’ reduced to recycled slogans, without method, without bread, and without the people,” Castellanos said in response to the party’s reaction over the weekend.
“The Honduran people rejected an empty discourse,” she concluded.
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
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