Two of the five Panamanians who have been protesting for 35 days in front of San José's Inter-American Court of Human Rights began a hunger strike yesterday to demand that the court implement its ruling against Panama in 2001.

Rodolfo Vence, 50, and Javier Muñoz, 68, declared a hunger strike to demand that the court order the Panamanian government to pay severance to 270 state workers who were fired in 1990 by then-President Guillermo Endara after their union protested against privatizations.

Three other Panamanians, Rubén Guevara, Erick González and Luis Miranda, said they will join their friends in the hunger strike if they don't receive an answer from judges soon.

“Two friends are on an indefinite hunger strike. We greatly regret making this type of decision, but we're ex-public workers and we don't have jobs or any assistance from the state although there was supposed to be severance pay,” González said, explaining they will maintain the hunger strike until the judges agree to meet with them so they can explain the urgency of mandating that Panama keep its word.

The protestors have plastered the outside of the court with posters and are sleeping on cardboard boxes, protected from the rain by plastic tarps.

When the case was presented to the court in 1994, Panamanian government representatives defended themselves by saying the workers were let go because they were accused of sedition and threatening the country's security. Most of those fired worked for the Institute of Water Resources and Electricity.