We must stop the President Carlos Alvarado, ex-presidents and businessmen’s manoeuvrers to call for a national dialogue, when hours before they were talking about the vandalism of demonstrators, who have been blocking the streets for five days, and announce strikes and mobilisations of the trade union movement, accompanied by actions of the popular movement.
In fact, after five days (4 October 2020) of road blockades by demonstrators who oppose a $1.75 billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), supposedly to confront the worsening crisis with COVID-19, the government and employers are calling for a dialogue to demobilise and make their plan viable.
The plan, designed based on IMF conditions, includes new taxes on banking transactions and global income, and increases in income and property taxes. It also includes the merger of some public institutions and the sale of others such as the International Bank of Costa Rica and the National Liquor Factory, among other measures, which means sacrificing workers and people, including layoffs.
We socialists, grouped in Socialist Proposal, a member of the IWU-FI, are in solidarity with the workers and people of Costa Rica, we denounce the anti-worker and anti-popular policy of Carlos Alvarado’s government, of reloading the crisis on the working class and the people, while favouring, as in Panama Cortizo-PRD’s government, bankers and businessmen, trying to impose its policy with the criminalisation of protest.
Panama, 4 October 2020
