Hundreds of Panamanians marched on Thursday to commemorate the anniversary of a deadly 1964 uprising against US control of the Panama Canal, with some protesters burning an effigy of President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to retake the vital global waterway.
More than 20 Panamanians, many of them students, died during violent clashes across the country in January 1964, after being fired upon by American security forces in response to mass demonstrations against the American presence in the country and control of the canal. had increased. At least three American soldiers were also killed.
This event is remembered every January 9 as “Martyrs’ Day”, regarded as paving the way for the transfer of the canal to Panama in 1999. It is also a reminder of the bloody past that still dominates national sentiment on the canal. In Panama, at a time of rising tensions with Trump.
“Today is a day to remember the sacrifice of our martyrs, but also a day to tell the world that Panama is sovereign and the canal is ours,” said Sebastián Quiroz, an 84-year-old retired unionist who was a student during the uprising. ,
The marching crowd chanted “The blood shed will never be forgotten” and “Liberate Panama” as they approached the Monument to the Eternal Flame, built in memory of those killed in 1964. Earlier in the day, President Jose Raul Mulino laid a wreath at the memorial. Site at a formal ceremony.
Trump on Tuesday ruled out using military or economic pressure to regain control of the canal, a main international shipping route that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The president-elect has criticized the cost of moving goods through the canal and ridiculed Chinese influence in the region. China does not control or administer the canal, but a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings has long managed two ports located at the canal’s Caribbean and Pacific entrances.
Panama has strongly condemned Trump’s threats.
“The only hands that control the canal are Panama’s and it will continue that way,” Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha told reporters on Tuesday.
Iván Quintero, a 59-year-old university worker who took part in the march, said no government can take away what the people of Panama have fought for for so long.
“Mr Trump has behaved very outrageously by threatening to take the canal away from us,” he said. “He needs to learn to show respect.”
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