Time Bomb

The skirmish between Wounaan Indigenous people and settlers from the Tonosí Valley, which took place last Monday in Chimán, is a clear symptom of three serious social problems that threaten to turn into a larger crisis if they continue to be neglected: the mass migration of peasants toward new places, the general poverty of the population (particularly of peasants and Indigenous people), and the poor distribution of land. It is easy to see that these three problems are interconnected: the first results from the second; and the second, from the third.

The farming methods traditionally used by the peasants of Azuero, that is, clearing and burning, are not consistent with the environmental criteria that must protect the forested areas that still exist. But before banning this practice, the peasants must first be offered an alternative to meet their subsistence needs. If the demarcation of the Indigenous territory is part of the problem, its boundaries must be clarified immediately in an even-handed, transparent, and definitive way.

These problems do not appear out of nowhere: they ferment over months of intolerance and lack of communication. If the authorities had promised to listen to the Indigenous people and did not do so, part of the responsibility falls on them. It is not enough for the government to investigate the shooting and call for good sense: it is necessary to mediate between the parties in conflict. In order to implement quick solutions, and to avoid further bloodshed, what happened in Chimán must be analyzed in depth until its causes are understood.

Many questions can be pondered, but the following three are unavoidable: Why have the peasants of Tonosí left their valley to go and settle in Chimán? Why did they resort to weapons instead of to the authorities? Why is land (“lacking intrinsic value,” according to the Buddha) more valuable to them than life itself (“whose intrinsic value is infinite”)? The answers will be the usual ones: poverty made them migrate, hunger set them against one another, and desperation drove them to arms.

Let us hope the government’s apathy is not, today too, the usual one.

While a solution is being found, the police must keep order in the area, for human life, whether peasant or Indigenous, is more valuable than a plot of land. Only quick and effective action by the Government can keep this situation from degenerating into a tragedy. The timing could not have been worse: in the transition of power from the outgoing President to the incoming one, a kind of virtual headlessness takes hold of the machinery of government. I pray to God that the pettiness of partisan interests does not interfere with the protection of these marginalized groups, who have been driven, after decades of neglect and injustice, to rise up in arms over a piece of land.