…Marvin Wilcox is a human rights defender and leader of the producers of Barú affected by a government project known as Contract-Law 36-17, which grants the use of 6,000 hectares of land for 20 years for the mass production of bananas by the private company Banana Piña, reportedly a subsidiary of the multinational Del Monte Fresh. He is also a member of the Comité en Defensa de la Tierra de Barú (Barú Land Defence Committee) and “Unidos por el Agro”. The Barú Land Defence Committee is a group of rural producers seeking to protect their lands from concession to multinational companies. On 16 May 2019, Marvin Wilcox was observing the inspection of a local producer’s farm by an agrarian judge in Chiriquí. Despite his peaceful conduct, the human rights defender was detained and handcuffed by the police on fabricated allegations of “being physically violent to a machine” and verbally abusive to its conductor, as well as blocking a path. On the day, a number of machines were being used to destroy a banana plantation of around 60 hectares, as part of an expansion project reportedly of the transnational company Del Monte Fresh…