Riots in Colon

[sjmbruce]

Has anyone been to Colon in the last couple of weeks? I read that some ships cancelled all stops in Colon due to rioting in late October.

[BillB48]

I believe a Princess ship cancelled stop to let passengers off for tours when they were in Gatun Lake... hence no stop in Colon. I was going through the Canal at the time of the disturbances but since the ship was not scheduled to stop it was a non issue. From everything I have read the government backed off on some land sales around the Colon Free Zone which was the what ignited the whole thing off.

[Richard in Panama]

Just another day in Panama. The riots were protesting a law that had been approved to start charging tenants in the free zone rent, or allow them, if they wished to purchase their property. The free zone is the second largest in the world. These guys are doing several billion US$ a year in business and the plan would have raised some money that could have been invested in cleaning up Colon. However the folks making the money were able to get poor folks to protest (just give them some money to protest and they will) and the street thugs in Colon took advantage . . . All is back to normal. Free zone guys are making lots of money. Colon is dirty and poor. And there is no impact on the ships . . . everything returns to normal: you wouldn't want to wander around Colon anyway. Panamanians don't wander around Colon! The weather is fine. The Canal is making money. Anyone who will work CAN work, in fact there are jobs going begging. Panama's GDP growth for this year should end up around 10% - something any country in the world would envy. So come on down!

 

Regards, Richard