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Indigenous clash with police in Panama
Several dozen indigenous Panamanians armed with spears, sticks and stones clashed with riot police Friday, disrupting traffic on the Pan-American Highway to protest recent changes to the country's mining law.
Authorities said several police were wounded when the protest on the outskirts of Panama City turned ugly as they tried to clear the way for traffic across a bridge that had been occupied since dawn by members of the Ngobe-Bugle ethnic group.
The indigenous groups have complained that the reformed law -- untouched since the 1960s -- would spoil pristine rainforest areas and force Indian communities to relocate.
Demonstrators confronted authorities with spears, arrows, shells and rocks. Some 200 police responded with tear gas, causing panic and a brief stampede of onlookers nearby.
"We have been blocking the bridge and the police are attacking us," one indigenous man told AFP when he was arrested near the Pacora River as he tried to escape a police barricade.