by SALMA MOOLJI
Dawn cracks with the swift motion of clouds cresting over the peaks of Panama’s rolling cordillera. It is six am; the roosters are already crowing and the children, already crying in the indigenous territory—the comarca Ngöbe-Buglé. Nestled over three Panamanian provinces, the comarca is home to just over one hundred and fifty thousand Ngöbe, who constitute the largest indigenous population in Panama and one of the largest in Latin America. Despite the morning chaos, the restless beauty of Cerro Colorado’s untouched wilderness is staggering. It is however, a beauty in imminent danger of disappearing.
Cerro Colorado, sitting at the heart of the Ngöbe comarca, is one of the world’s five largest copper deposits. If exploited, the mine would expose an open-pit of six hundred and thirty square kilometers, leveling the mountain. Discovered in the early 1970s, the deposit was quickly contracted, prospected and subject to development. It was also however, a great subject of contention. Even in its exploration phase, the mining of Cerro Colorado was an issue strong enough to unite the indigenous Ngöbe. Their subsequent fight resulted in Law 10, which formed the comarca Ngöbe-Buglé as a semi-autonomous territory in 1997. Plunging copper prices in the 1970s and 1990s left the battle and the mountain behind—twice—but only temporarily. It was only a matter of time before Cerro Colorado would rise from the recesses of market memory and into the economically sewn pockets of mining corporations.
In February 2011, mining was propelled back into the Panamanian spotlight. Martinelli’s government modified Law 8, which outlines the 1963 Mining Code to allow foreign state-owned enterprises to invest in Panama’s mines. With a rocky history of American colonization still fresh on Panamanian minds, Article 3 of the constitution strictly regulates foreign investment. Yet, the increasing scale of open-pit projects requires more, and larger investors—a role that can be filled by companies owned by foreign states. Perched to oblige, South Korea’s LS-Nikko Copper Inc. is forecast to buy a fifth of Minera Panama, and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Ltd. has taken an interest in Inmet’s Cobre Panama project in Coclesito, Colón.
While legislation is specifically targeted at operating mines and secured concessions, some Panamanians saw the mining code change as a preemptive move to secure future investment in the mining of Cerro Colorado. A torrent of protests swept the streets. Shutting down the Transamerican Highway on three separate occasions and crowding the gates of the University of Panama, Ngöbe, campesinos and students demonstrated, touting that they had not been blindsided by the government’s move. Scurrying to unblock the road for carnival, Martinelli cancelled the changes to Law 8 and in a statement claimed Cerro Colorado would be “neither promoted nor exploited;” a skeptical promise at best.
The vast majority of Ngöbe people are profoundly against mining. Initial exploration in the 1970s left Cerro Colorado jagged-edged by terraces of removed earth. The seventeen communities immediately surrounding the mountain witnessed as the mine caused a series of fish kills, increased dust and pollution, increased noise pollution, contaminated their water and allegedly caused serious illness. Traditional agriculture was abandoned—crops grew poorly if at all. The new mine workers’ camp brought an onslaught of non-indigenous workers, horrifying jobs, and quickly posed a threat to local culture. Even those that found employment at the mine site testified, “It was a horror to live; dirty, cold and hungry. Nobody wanted to be in that godforsaken place.”
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(Thanks to Feroz Mehdi)