Sources in Panama affirm president is lying about talks with Marco Rubio
Panama City, February 3 (RHC)-- Social leaders in Panama have denounced that President José Raúl Mulino lied about the conversations with the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, regarding the sovereignty over the Canal.
Among the first reactions to the statements of the ruler in a press conference on the bilateral conversations, the general secretary of the National Union of Workers of the Construction Industry and Similar, Saúl Méndez, warned that the position of the visitor from the empire was contrary to what was expressed by Mulino who described the meeting as "respectful" and "positive," and said that he does not feel "that there is a threat against the treaty and its validity."
What a State Department note says, Méndez said, is that Rubio issued an ultimatum to Mulino to abandon the interoceanic route and that he will inform the Central American countries that he will retake the Canal and with that he has just declared war on Panama.
According to a message written by Rubio on his social network, “The United States cannot allow, and will not allow, the Chinese Communist Party to continue its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area. We also discussed efforts to end the mass migration crisis in the hemisphere and guarantee fair competition for American companies.”
For Méndez, they are not interested in either the sovereignty or self-determination of peoples, as stated in a video by the former presidential candidate in 2019, and he also rejected Mulino's announcement to make available to the United States a landing strip for the repatriation of migrants in the town of Metetí, in the Darién jungle.
What he wants is to disguise a military base and the arrival of American warplanes to attack the brother peoples of the region, in addition to bringing undocumented immigrants from other countries, under what conditions, for how long, or will it be a concentration camp, he questioned.
“Mulino has been a gringo and a traitor all his life,” stressed Méndez, who added that in the face of all these lies, the people have to unite, obliged to defend a free and sovereign country.
For its part, the political analysis magazine, El Periódico de Panamá, rejected the decision of the Executive announced to the press to annul the agreement signed between Panama and China, related to trade, technology, science, education, aid to the electric and primary sector of the economy, of which the Asian nation has an accumulated millennial culture.
This is the agreement signed in 2017 between both countries, the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, with the aim of promoting the exchange of goods, technology, capital and personnel.
That means, according to the publication, that the Government yielded to the United States, everything that involves relations with the Asian giant. In addition, it pointed out that Mulino makes a serious mistake, by pointing out that the Panamanian State cannot intervene in issues and matters of the Canal.
In this sense, it indicated that the head of State loses sight of the fact that the aggression that borders on intervention in relation to the Panama Canal is against the nation and its self-determination, so that evading this similar position of President Donald Trump constitutes an open violation of sovereignty.
Rubio's agenda this Sunday in Panama concluded with a tour of the Miraflores locks, accompanied by the administrator of the Canal, Ricaurte Vázquez, and tomorrow Monday he will supervise a repatriation flight of Colombian migrants.
He will then continue his tour through El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, in that order, it was reported. (PL)
