Panama’s Top Union Leader Goes Into Exile in Bolivia

According to SUNTRACS, the country ‘s largest union, its general secretary, Saúl Méndez, had to flee Panama due to the political persecution by Mulino’s right-wing government.

On July 19, 2025, Saúl Méndez, the top leader of the Single National Union of Workers in the Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS), fled from Panama to Bolivia. The Panamanian secretary of state declared that Méndez obtained a “safe-conduct” (a formal document guaranteeing safe passage) at the request of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

Since May 21, 2025, the union leader had been in asylum in the Bolivian embassy to protect himself from possible arrest, after denouncing the political persecution that protesters and union leaders were facing in Panama by the government of President José Raúl Mulino.

Upon leaving the Bolivian diplomatic institution, Méndez shouted, “Let’s go and then we’ll be back. Long live the Panamanian people!” Police and a group of supporters then escorted him to the airport. Méndez has served as secretary general of SUNTRACS since 2010, one of the most powerful unions in the country.

Since April 2025, unions of teachers, workers, agricultural workers, students, and others, began a national strike in rejection of Mulino’s neoliberal policies, including:

A pension system reform (Law 462) that reduces pensions and opens the way for the privatization of social security.
The military agreements between Washington and Panama, signed in April 2025, that propose the installation of US military bases in Panamanian territory.
The plan to reopen a copper mine that the Supreme Court of Justice ordered closed in 2023, following massive protests.

In May 2025, amid widespread protests, Panama issued an arrest warrant against several union leaders, including Méndez. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, through the Second Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime, charged the union leaders with alleged crimes of “aggravated fraud, money laundering, illicit association, falsification of documents and prevarication”, citing a complaint filed in 2022 by former members of SUNTRACS. The complaint had been dormant and “practically closed” by the prosecutor in the Bocas del Toro province assigned to the case because “there were no crimes” found, Antonio Vargas, a lawyer for SUNTRACS, told La Prensa. Yet, the complaint was revived in May amid the national strike.

Méndez and other union members have denied the charges, stating that the union’s primary source of funding is member dues and accusing the government of political persecution.

Repression of Protests Continues in Panama

Méndez breaks silence
Méndez has kept a low profile while at the Bolivian Embassy in Panama. But once he arrived in the Andean country, Méndez made several statements denouncing the situation in Panama.

The union leader appeared in a video addressed to the “united, honest and hard-working Panamanian people”, in which he denounced the political repression of the government. “[These are] moments in which the dictator has violated the constitution and the laws,” Méndez said, listing various examples: “Political prisoners have been tortured, murdered, persecuted, and massacred, such as the case of Jaime Caballero, Genaro López, the case of comrade Erasmus Cerrut, the case of the illegal dismissal of teachers, the yellow trials, and the attempt to dissolve SUNTRACS.”

“Power comes from the people. We can never again vote for these corrupt people; we have to be clear that we have to raise our alternatives from below, from the humble, honest, and working Panamanian people,” said the secretary general of SUNTRACS.

Méndez also stated that he will continue to fight from a “new trench” and encouraged SUNTRACS to remain firm and united to confront the Mulino government: “The people, their organizations, their leaders, teachers, unions, indigenous communities, peasants, students, parents, we must all fight for what is ours, that our conquests are respected and that democracy truly represents the interests of all. We continue in struggle, without struggle there is no victory”.

Miguel Angel Rodriguez, another of the union’s lawyers, pointed out that the asylum is political, without conditions, and that Méndez’s return will depend on having minimum guarantees from the Panamanian Public Prosecutor’s Office about their intentions.

In addition to Méndez, union leader Erasmo Cerrud is in asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy awaiting a safe-conduct that will allow him to flee from the persecution of the Panamanian government. For his part, 70-year-old unionist Genaro López, who led SUNTRACS for two decades, remains under arrest after appearing before the Prosecutor’s Office in May 2025. He has also described the process against him as a “political persecution”.

“The government seeks to destroy SUNTRACS”
In addition, days before Méndez’s exile, the Panamanian government filed a lawsuit before the country’s labor court to dissolve SUNTRACS and ordered the closure of the cooperative that the union used to store its members’ funds. The secretary of labor, Jackeline Muñoz, said: “We filed a lawsuit before the specific courts requesting the dissolution of the union. This is an abbreviated process that is carried out in the Judicial Organ … The Labor Code establishes that when a social organization constantly departs from the purposes for which it was created, it is a cause to request its dissolution.”

For their part, the union organizations, grouped in the National Council of Organized Workers (CONATO), warned that the move marks the beginning of an offensive against union freedom and the fundamental rights of workers.

Antonio Vargas, who is also a member of SUNTRACS, said that he will fight against the government’s decision which, according to them, seeks to destroy a revolutionary workers’ organization. “We have always defended the workers,” he affirmed. “The Constitution, the law and the Labor Code establish that a union cannot be dissolved administratively, they have to present the evidence before a sectional Labor Court and prove their claims.”

(Peoples Dispatch)