After the frequently violent protest campaigns of 2010 and 2011, which left a toll of two dead and succeeded in getting the newly amended mining law repealed, the Ngäbe Buglé people came out again in February this year to press for prompt passage of a special law banning all mining and hydroelectric projects in their semi-autonomous territory, the Comarca Ngäbe Buglé, carved out of the old provinces of Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí and Veraguas in 1997 and covering about a third of Panama’s total territory. They believed that Bill 415, agreed upon with the government in 2011, was being held up deliberately in the national assembly and that the government was trying to excise key provisions from it.
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