🇵🇦🔥❗️ — Over the past 5 days, the key Central American Nation of Panamá has been facing up a nationwide wave of anti-government protests followed by a massive crackdown agains the protesters by the Center-leftist government of Laurentino Cortizo

Such thing happened after the Panamaian Government signed a new 20-year Cobre Panama contract with the Panamaian Government into law just over a week ago with First Quantum Minerals, a Canada-based company.

First Quantum Minerals main investors are the Transnational corporation Blackrock — once its main enemy — and the Chinese Company Jiangxi Copper, its largest shareholder & largest copper producer in Mainland China

The deal would result in First Quantum paying drastically higher Panamanian taxes in exchange of allowing continued operations at the site, the largest copper mine in Central America, under the Canadians, with the company accounting for 4.8% of Panama’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021.

Opened in 2019, the open pit Cobre Panama mine, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital and 20 km from the Caribbean coast, can produce 300,000 tons of copper per year.

In 2021, Panama's Supreme Court ratified a lower court's ruling that the original concession of mining rights granted to subsidiary Minera Panama until 2037 was unconstitutional. However, despiter it, Negotiations between the government and First Quantum were reopened and finalized earlier this year.

Protesters blocked the streets of Panamá cities, including the capital, to protest against Cortizo Government and asking for the total end of operations by the Canadian company, calling the corporation as "Colonial" and "Imperialist"

Netizens reported that alongside government forces, paramilitaries were spotted among peaceful protesters, firing upon the air to disperse the manifestations

According to local medias, 250,000 people took part on the protests only at the capital