Image: Remix by Nonviolence News from photos by LT Chan and Lara Jameson on Pexels
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
Caught between a rock and a hard place of President Trump’s imperialism and President Mulino’s austerity measures, Panama’s workers and civil society have now entered into the third week of a general strike. Teachers, doctors, dentists, students and other unions have been holding protests, demonstrations, and rallies opposing threats to healthcare and social security, plans to add more US military bases, and a series of upheavals over Panama Canal fees and management policies.
Chiquita Banana workers were one of the leading groups to launch the strike, shutting down roads with blockades and paralyzing the ports. In retaliation, Chiquita Banana’s management in the United States fired 5,000 workers – 83% of the work force – over the strike. Protesters are facing the widespread use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and chemical agents, including with tear gas dropped from helicopters onto communities and schools. Two hours west of Panama City, a 12,000-person community has an even more immediate issue: the government plans to flood their town to create a lake that would ensure water flow to the Canal. All of this upheaval comes on the back of last year’s widespread strike that successfully halted plans for foreign mining operations – plans which are now being considered by the government again.
Panama isn’t the only nation in turmoil. To the south, President Petro called on Colombian citizens to form working class council meetings after a Senate vote failed to uphold a broadly supported referendum on labor rights. He also ordered the military and police not to intervene in this mass mobilization of Colombians to oppose the ‘fraud’ of the wealthy ruling class. In Peru, the populace is on general strike, demanding the resignation of President Dina Boularte and Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzén over the failure to prevent mafias from extorting transport workers, conflicts with transnational mining companies, socio-environmental issues and unfinished infrastructure projects. In Hong Kong, the father of an activist in the 2019 Umbrella Revolution is being threatened with 7 years imprisonment in what some are saying is a form of collective punishment aimed to repress further resistance. In Myanmar, activists are delivering disaster relief to people impacted by the 7.7 magnitude earthquake, distrusting that the military junta will distribute the relief aid it has received. (Interestingly, a group in the United States – arguably faced with a similar problem of the government failing to provide adequate disaster relief – the Uhuru Movement in St. Louis, Missouri, has been stepping up to help people hit with deadly tornados, filling a gap left by Trump’s cuts to FEMA and relief programs.)
Speaking of Trump, yet another round of judges and legal rulings ruled against him this week. Judges stopped the dismantlement of the Department of Education, temporarily reined in his use of the Alien Enemies Act, restored millions of dollars of federal funding to farmers, barred him from stripping collective bargaining rights from Foreign Service employees, and halted an attempt to deport people to South Sudan (a country embroiled in civil war). A judge also ruled that DOGE’s takeover of the US Institute of Peace was illegal and restored the funding, returned the staff to their jobs, and gave back their iconic building.
These legal wins are welcome news to resisting federal workers. This week, DOGE tried to takeover the Government Accountability Office, an independent legislative watchdog that finds waste, fraud and abuse in the government. It refused. Citing their status as a legislative office, they locked the doors against the DOGE, rejected orders to replace the head of the agency, and told the White House they were not bound by executive orders. As we reported last week, this kind of resistance to DOGE is growing among institutions established by Congress, not the executive branch, such as the Library of Congress and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additionally, Propublica research confirmed firsthand accounts (and internet rumors) about an example of robust noncompliance within embattled federal institutions. Earlier this year, Trump ordered EPA workers to identify colleagues working on DEI policies. In a stunning show of solidarity, all of the 15,000 EPA workers refused to comply. Not a single email was sent to the snitch line.
Trump resistance continues to make bold stands. From Aurora to Chicago, Illinois, thousands of demonstrators formed a 30-mile long human chain to protest Trump policies. In California, 15,000 educators took action against funding cuts. Virginia Commonwealth University students walked out of their graduation ceremony seconds after the MAGA-supporting governor began to speak. Over 100 protesters demonstrated outside the golf club where Trump held his $148 million ‘Crypto Dinner‘, which critics slammed as an ‘orgy of corruption’. Activists held a ‘banned words‘ demonstration in front of the Brooklyn Public Library with each person holding a sign with one word on the list of hundreds banned by the Trump administration.
On a somber note, this week marked 5 years since the murder of George Floyd and the largest protests in US history. While citizens held rallies, vigils, and commemorations; the Trump Administration instructed the Department of Justice to dismiss investigations into police departments accused of racially-motivated police brutality, including in Minneapolis, MN (where George Floyd was murdered) and Louisville, KY (where Breonna Taylor was murdered). Many of the initial gains from the 2020 protests are facing setbacks and rollbacks, but activists continue to push for solutions. These include campaigns for police accountability and racial justice, and also efforts outside the system, such as forming their own safety teams on public transit and mobile care units for mental health crisis.
In the United Kingdom, King’s College committed to fully divest from weapons companies and companies involved in the occupation of Palestine. The decision comes as people worldwide honored Nabka Day with protests against ongoing genocide and humanitarian aid blockades by Israel, including 600,000 marchers in London, 100,000 at the Hague, and thousands more in New York, Stockholm, and Paris. In Glasgow, Scotland, hundreds of university students walked out of class and went to join a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on campus. Students and faculty at Stanford University in California launched a hunger strike in solidarity with starving Gazans; a 40-day hunger strike has also been started by veterans and peace activists. Australians occupied the rooftop of a parliament members’ office. Other demonstrators clashed with police outside the Eurovision Contest in Switzerland. In Richmond, California, kayaktivists with Palestinian flags deployed a giant water banner that read “Big Oil = Death” in front of an oil tanker. In Ireland, Palestine Action breached the gates of Shannon Airport, spray-painted a US military plane with the message “US Military Out of Neutral Ireland”, and prevented it from delivering arms supplies to Israel. In Israel, the group Standing Together led a march to the border of Gaza to attempt to deliver food and aid; they were violently rebuffed by Israeli police, leading to many arrests.
In more Nonviolence News, climate activists disrupted a luxury lifestyle event pumping yachts and private jets. Activists in London drew much-needed attention to the highly-secretive Africa Energy Summit, calling out its racism and neocolonialism along with climate issues, human rights violations, and destruction of forests. Women health workers (ASHAs) in India have been maintaining a protest encampment while staying on strike for over 100 days, calling for fair wages, retirement benefits, and reasonable workloads. Two thousand South Africans marched in Pretoria calling for government accountability over ongoing violence toward women and girls. An international campaign has launched to reduce worldwide military spending by 10%, with participation from organizations in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Senegal, India, Pakistan and beyond.
You’ll find more stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive. We gathered 94 articles this week, including some interesting reads about a profile on Patience Nabukalu, a 27-year-old Ugandan climate activist at the heart of the #StopEACOP campaign, and how 1,000 Starbucks workers are opposing their new dress code.
Find all these stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive>>
Nonviolent action is powerful because of its incredible diversity of ways to take action. For example, there’s a campaign to help stop the climate crisis by rejecting fast fashion and repairing your clothes. Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion sank a Lamborghini in front of a conference of the world’s largest fossil fuel insurers and another XR team occupied a castle in Belgium. A small team of Chinese scientists are using white blankets and snow machines to test ways to save a dying glacier. In Argentina, an interesting art-based project engaged children on economic issues, using hand-drawn illustrations and conversations to reveal why even the very young should have a voice on how economic policies are shaped. Rock climbers scaled the cliffs of Yosemite and hung a giant trans flag off El Capitan, saying “trans people are natural and trans people are loved”. A participatory art installation is addressing Chinatown gentrification – and its alternatives – through Mahjong.
From Panama to Peru, the United Kingdom to the United States, people like us are standing up for justice using the extraordinary tools of nonviolent action. With protests, general strikes, walkouts, divestment, visibility actions, art and music, marches, kayaks, giant banners and much more, they’re seeking to stop harm, prevent destruction, protect the vulnerable, and build a better world for us all.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
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