QCOSTARICA – The protests and blockades did not occur Wednesday, however, Costa Rican tuckers closed again, at around 5:00 pm transit through the border post of Paso Canoas, in protest against measures applied by Panamanian customs.
On Wednesday, Panamanian customs closed the entry of trucks with a Costa Rican license plate to Panamanian territory and demanded that they unhook the containers and be hauled through Panama by Panamanian truckers.
“Truckers from Costa Rica, members of several truckers’ organizations in that country, have just closed again the controls and entry and exit precincts for cargo transportation from Panama and Central America in Paso Canoas, on the Costa Rican side,” reported Panama’s TVN News.
The measure is in breach of a directive from the Panamanian government, issued on October 14, eliminating the measure that Costa Rica truckers to unhook the contained at the border unload in fiscal warehouses and not in company warehouses.
These provisions were reciprocal.
Until Tuesday, October 20, as worked agreed to. In addition, the stay in Panama of the Costa Rica truckers was extended to 10 days.
On Wednesday, a change by Panamian customs angered the Costa Rican truckers.
Since May, the Costa Rican border land crossings at Paso Canoas (Panama) and Peñas Blancas (Nicaragua) have suffered blockades. They first occurred in protests over the requirements adopted by Costa Rica with GPS controls, transit from border to border in convoys, the prohibition of unloading in company warehouses.
After the flexibility of the requirements in Costa Rica, the protest passed on the side of the border affecting Costa Rican truckers, as the other countries maintained measures that they put into effect as reciprocity.
The blockades on Wednesday are not related to the protests of the first two weeks of October that resulted in blockades throughout the country and violence.
