October 21, 2007
Ortega says foreign textile firms `enslaving’ workers
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has accused foreign textile companies, mostly Taiwanese, of “enslaving” workers and leaving the country instead of paying higher wages.
Ortega said several industries closed in free zones following the government’s recent decision to increase the minimum wage by 18 percent.
“There is talk that the companies are going to leave the free zones, that people are going to be left unemployed,” the leftist Ortega said in a speech late on Wednesday.
“When they find that they have to pay more, it is no longer worthwhile and they leave,” he said.
The president said the owners of textile industries “enslave” Nicaraguan female workers, forcing them to work long hours in exchange for “the lowest salaries in all of Central America.”
“When they see that they should increase their employees’ wages by 18 percent, they decide to leave for places like … China and Vietnam, although they are Taiwanese,” Ortega said.
The Nicaraguan president said his country needed “long-term investment and not this kind.”
Free zones, which offer incentives to foreign companies by cutting tariffs and quotas, started to operate in Nicaragua in 1990 and have become an important source of jobs. More than 83,000 people work in 112 firms, most of them from Taiwan, South Korea and the US.
Miguel Ruiz, secretary general of the Sandinista Workers Union, which is close to the government, said on Wednesday that at least five factories have closed this year.
He attributed the fact to “a 30 percent reduction in work orders.”
In related news, Taiwanese Ambassador to Nicaragua Wu Chin-mu (吳進木), who was also present yesterday evening, told a Central News Agency reporter that Huang Ming-wei (黃明偉), general manager of Nien Hsing Textile Co (年興紡織), verified that the company had set up a plant in Vietnam but that it had no plans to leave Nicaragua.
Wu said the policy to increase salaries was put in place after Ortega took over the Nicaraguan presidency, but that labor costs still were the lowest in Central America.
A Nien Hsing official who mentioned some of the problems encountered in Nicaragua’s free zones in an interview with the Miami Herald last week said that pulling out its investments was one of the company’s possible strategies.
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State of disaster declared in Nicaragua after torrential downpours
Torrential downpours caused “Rio Grande de Matagalpa” river to grow 9 metres and overflow the town damaging infrastructure and ruining crops throughout the area. That forced Pres. Ortega to declare a state of disaster.
President Daniel Ortega declared a state of disaster after days of incessant rains in Nicaragua left at least nine people dead and thousands homeless in the Nicaraguan department of Matagalpa.
“We are declaring a state of disaster and not a state of emergency,” he said, adding “a state of emergency limits the rights of the citizens and here we are not limiting any right to any citizen.”
The torrential downpours caused the “Rio Grande de Matagalpa” river to grow some nine metres and overflow into the town damaging infrastructure and ruining crops throughout the area.
The strong currents have caused vehicles to overturn on the roads and dragged makeshift homes, cars and household appliances into the river.
The situation has still caught many residents off guard, and rescue teams have been working constantly in order to help the local inhabitants.
“Nobody was prepared, some of us were coming back from work and suddenly we realised the river had overflowed and it began creating havoc,” a local resident told Nicaraguan television.
Rio Grande de Matagalpa which borders the city by the same name, has some of the strongest currents in the area.
Ortega meanwhile met in Managua with a Venezuelan delegation in Nicaragua to help assess the damages in Matapalga and other districts of the country affected by the floods which destroyed several neighbourhoods and toppled bridges.
The Nicaraguan president asked his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez for help in dealing with the situation.
Chavez said a team had been sent to Nicaragua to help his delegation assess the overall damages.
Heavy rains meanwhile continued to fall throughout the country, including the capital.
The city’s mayor Dionisio Marenci said that if it continued to rain, floods could force the closing down of the Sandino international airport.
The recent damages caused by the constant rains throughout the region have affected thousands of Nicaraguans who were still trying to recuperate from the damage caused by Hurricane Felix last month.
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October 20, 2007
Día de la Resistencia Indígena
Managua, Oct 16 — Columbus Day on October 12, marking
the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the Americas 515 years ago, will
no longer be observed in Nicaraguan schools as of this year, an
official source said.
In the opinion of President Daniel Ortega last week on the eve of October
12, the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the “New World” meant the
start of genocide against the indigenous population in the America.
According to Minister of Education Miguel de Castilla, the date will
be celebrated from next year on as “Indigenous Resistance Day,” to highlight the struggle of native peoples against European colonialism.
In remarks made to local media, De Castilla added that from this year
on, every October 30 the Nicaraguans will mark the granting of
autonomy to the mainly ethnic Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast in 1987.
Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Spanish for “Day of Indigenous Resistance”) is the name for an October 12 national holiday in Venezuela. The holiday on this date was known as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) prior to 2002, a name that is used together with Columbus Day in other countries across the Americas.
The festival originally commemorated the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, and was made a holiday in 1921 under President Juan Vicente Gómez. The new Day of the Indigenous Resistance commemorates thus the resistance of the indigenous peoples against the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
On the 2004 Day of Indigenous Resistance, a statue of Columbus was toppled in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. The pro-Chavez, left-wing website Aporrea wrote: “Just like the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas”[3]. The famous toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue had occurred the previous year.
All this revival of the Indian resentment against the white Spanish conquerors (and Columbus) is supported and promoted by Venezuela’s current President, the Bolivarianist Hugo Chávez, himself a mestizo of mixed Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish descent.
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Manatee found slaughtered in Southern Belize – first time in seven years
Manatees or sea cows – they are the aquatic darlings of the conservation world and it just so happens that Belize has been traditionally known as the last remaining paradise for the West Indian specie. But a series of manatee deaths, both natural and man-made over recent years, have caused these gentle herbivores to become more endangered than ever.
It’s been a while since we’ve had the displeasure of reporting the discovery of dead manatees on Belize’s coastline; nevertheless, these 400-800lb. creatures have not have a good day for some time with an increase in deaths from propellers of fast moving vessels that clip them while grazing on the sea grass beds in near shore estuaries or when sleeping near the surface.
The latest discovery however was a tad different when representatives from the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) and the Protected Area Conservation Trust (PACT) spotted the scant remains of a female carcass sometime last week while on a site visit to “Garobo Point” – an area south of Deep river.
The meat was literally stripped from the bone, which fetched a high price in Guatemala and Honduras where they are considered delicacies. This certainly means that the poachers have not given up their habit – a practice that was not in existence for the last seven years.
During a telephone interview, George Emmanuel, TIDE’s Communication Coordinator say that preliminary investigations have concluded that the manatee was slaughtered during the second week in September while Belizeans were under severe threat of Hurricane Felix. “The offenders risked their lives to seize on this opportunity to hunt illegally. While we were at home boarding and caring for our families they were out at sea hunting. We will pursue every lead to find these offenders and continue to work to prevent any further slaughters to these mammals.”
During the approach of both Hurricanes Dean and Felix, the National Advisory Committee warned us against staying out at sea due to the life threatening dangers posed by the powerful storms. During that time, TIDE did not carry out its normal twice-daily patrols of the Port Honduras Marine Reserve (P.H.M.R.), making it easy for the killers.
Emmanuel is also almost certain that the perpetrators are not Belizeans, but rather foreigners from a neighbouring country since “unlike Guatemalans, Belizeans do not eat manatee meat.”
This and other deaths have proven to us that we must increase our efforts to work along with our neighbouring countries, our local partners as well as the Government.
Manatees in Belize are listed as endangered under Belize’s Wildlife Protection Act of 1981 ever since fishermen would set up camp for days or even weeks in Belize to capture and kill those graceful creatures.
Protected manatee habitat areas include Bacalar Chico, Southern Lagoon, the Bay of Honduras and most recently, Swallow Caye Wildlife Sanctuary – just a 40 minute speedboat ride from the city. It’s home for a relatively large population of them, so chances of seeing one is almost 100%.
Manatees are usually found feeding or playing in a deep murky hole behind the island or inside the creeks leading into the mangrove. Current population at this spot is believed to be about 18 adults and calves.
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Sweden sells fighter planes to Thailand
Thailand’s air force confirmed on Wednesday that the country is preparing to buy six Swedish Gripen fighter planes in a deal worth 3.7 billion kronor ($560 million). Air force chief Chalit Phukphasuk also told reporters that a decision would be made after December’s general election on whether to buy a second batch of six Saab Gripens.
A source close to the air force said that Thailand had initially planned to replace its ageing F-5E fighters with US F-16 Fighting Falcons. But the deal eventually fell through since the Americans were “not allowed by their laws to sell weapons to countries whose governments have been ousted in coups.”
Owe Wagermark, director of communications for Gripen International, was delighted with Wednesday’s announcement.
“This is absolutely fantastic. It is an important step with regard to our positioning and is incredibly positive for Gripen. It means that we will retain our position as global leaders,” he told a news agency.
Ola Mattsson, secretary general of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (Svenska Freds), was considerable less enthusiastic.
“It should be completely out of the question for Sweden to sell Gripen planes to Thailand. It’s a military dictatorship,” he said.
Mattsson listed secular tensions in southern Thailand and an arms race in South East Asia as further reasons not to sell.
“The Swedish state shouldn’t contribute to a rearmament spiral in the region. Such a move runs contrary to our foreign and security policy,” he said.
Since assuming power in a military coup last year, the Thai government has approved a 66 percent increase in military spending.
Russia’s Su-30s were long tipped to get the nod ahead of Gripen and the US F-16s. Prior to being removed from his post, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is reported to have been close to signing a deal for the Russian fighters.
But last year’s military coup would appear to have tipped the balance in Gripen’s favour.
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