President Ricardo Martinelli announced by early March that he was willing to back down from the initiative that was rejected by the Ngöbe Buglé people and that caused several protests in Chiriquí and Veraguas provinces.

The repeal of the mining law was approved on Tuesday by the Commission on Trade and Economic Affairs and this could be defined as the first concrete outcome of the negotiations held during the past weeks by a Parliamentary Commission and the Coordination for the Defense of Natural Resources and the Rights of Peasants and the Ngöbe Buglé People.

The repeal of the controversial law, that increased benefits for foreign mining companies, means that the mining code will go back to its text of 1963.

The opponents warned about the negative aspects of the reform, among them the possibility to expand open pit mining and increase the participation of foreign governments in extractive activities through corporations.

The indigenous people also demanded the respect to the right of indigenous communities to be consulted on this kind of projects, something which is established by ILO Convention 169.

The repeal of the reform was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, March 16th, but the discussion was suspended because a member of the Coordination for the Defense of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People was denied intervention, according to Prensa Latina.

Meanwhile, Radio Temblor, stated that Martinelli’s decision to back down from the reform is a “heroic act by the native peoples” that will become a milestone “in the history of the Panamanian social struggle.”

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/interamericana/