The latest statistics released by the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) – Costa Rica Tourism Board – reveal that a total of 40,907 visitors from Britain traveled to the country in the first half of 2018 – representing an increase of 2.5% compared to the same period in 2017.
This steady growth is a reflection of the upward trend in British visitors to Costa Rica that has been seen in the last few years, strengthened by British Airways direct flights from London that began in April 2016.
Britain is now the second largest source market in Europe for Costa Rica, surpassed only by France, with 44,843 visitors from January to June this year.
All other European countries have also seen an increase in visitor figures, including Germany, uo 6.8% and Spain, 1.6%.
Overall, Costa Rica welcomed 1,661,145 worldwide visitors from January to June 2018, a 1.7% increase compared to the same period in 2017.
British nationals don’t need a visa to enter Costa Rica. You may stay as a visitor for up to 90 days under a tourist visa waiver, although the exact period is at the discretion of the immigration officer on arrival.
For more nformation is for travellers using a full ‘British Citizen’ passport to Costa Rica, click here.
Rodolfo Méndez Mata, ministro de Obras Públicas y Transportes.
After 45 days the government said it needed to pronounce on the Uber issue, it has reiterated the position that Uber and other similar transport are illegal, but it will not disconnect the platform, recognizing the challenge imposed by technological advances to the Government.
In the forground, Rodolfo Méndez Mata, ministro de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT), with German Marin, director of the Policia de Transito (traffic police) in the background.
For this reason, it undertook to review and modernize the existing legal framework for paid transport.
“Transportation services in all its forms are a source of employment and mean a socioeconomic solution for thousands of families. Aware of the fact that new technologies pose challenges for governments, we are looking for an integral solution to solve the situation of taxi drivers in a modern and innovative way for the benefit of users,” said Rodolfo Méndez Mata.
In Costa Rica, now with three years (on August 21) of operating in the country, Uber has 22,000 drivers and 738,000 users, and a source of direct employment for 550 people.
Uber reacted on Wednesday by reiterating its position to maintain an open dialogue with the Government.
“In three years of operations we have shown that the coexistence of different mobility schemes in the country is possible. Various voices from the Legislative Assembly, users, partners and civil society, in general, recognize that the time has come to implement a flexible, innovative and differentiated regulation as already exist in more than 132 jurisdictions worldwide,” said Andrés Echandi, general manager of Uber for Central America.
Though Uber has expressed its willingness to negotiate the regulation of its services with the Government, Echandi said weeks ago to that the platform cannot be regulated like the taxis.
This is because the transport service provided by Uber is a private contract between two people, at Echandi’s discretion.
The government is preparing a decree of a shortage in order to authorize the duty-free import of 25,000 tons of beans, for the period between June 2018 and May of next year.
Costa Rica produces just 21% of the approximately 48,000 metric tons of beans consumed per year. The rest is brought from abroad and does not pay entrance tax, since in each period the shortage is declared. Photo: Mayela López / La Nacion
As happens every year, the National Production Commission (CNP) must authorize the duty-free import of the grain, to cover the annual demand of 48,000 metric tons that can not be met with local production.
“..Costa Rica consumes around 48,000 metric tons of beans per year. Of that volume, around 10,132 dry and clean tons are produced in the national territory which covers only 20.83% of national consumption, therefore the remaining 79.17% has to be imported, detailed a CNP report issued on August 21.”
“..However, the entity in charge of analyzing the bean market found that there was an inventory held by traders of 13,359, on June 1 of this year. This reduces the import requirements for the next productive year, which begins precisely on the first day of June.
The CNP estimates that on this occasion, it will be necessary to import about 25,000 tons to fully meet the demand expected for the period.
In Costa Rica, a group of cooperatives, associations, and companies are evaluating presenting a purchase offer for the supermarket chain Gessa, in order to try to stop Walmart from making the acquisition.
At least 10 organizations are allied to make purchase offer to Gessa and thus stop the plans of Walmart
Elfinancierocr.com announced that a group, led by the Cámara Nacional de Economía Social Solidaria (Canaes) – National Chamber of Social Solidarity Economy – is working on a proposal to present to the owners of Grupo Empresarial de Supermercados (Gessa).
At the end of last month, Walmart announced that it had filed with the Comisión para la Promoción de la Competencia (Coprocom) del Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio (MEIC) – Commission for the Promotion of Competition of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce – a proposal to acquire the supermarket chains Perimercados, Súper Compro and the Saretto store, which currently belong to Gessa.
Monserrat Ruiz, executive director of Canaes, explained to Elfinancierocr.com that “… they hope to generate a dialogue table, in the next 15 days, with the stakeholders interested in investing and in that way be able to approach the owners of the formats Peri, Super Compro and Saretto. ‘We want to defend the market of organizations for solidarity social economy in retail matters and this includes being able to generate a strategy to talk to Gessa. The idea of participation is that it not be in the hands of large, transnational companies, which in the end would have 75% share of the pie, Ruiz said. The group is even open to any organization or company joining the offer they will put foward, added the representative.
“.. The representative said that the actors involved have the ‘muscle’ to be able to operate the Gessa establishments, but were emphatic that many of them could be contracted out or even disappear if the purchase is approved by Walmart.”
The Walmart purchase announced on July 19 is subject to the approvl. The EF says it tried to know the current status of this process, but it has to receive a response from authorities.
According to an investigation done by the EF, if the purchase is approved by the Coprocom, the geographical presence of Walmart would grow in at least 30 cantons across the country
The growth would be concentrated mostly in Guanacaste. For example, in Santa Cruz, Walmart would go from two to seven stores.
President Carlos said he has been busy at 'work,work, work' to see the numbers.
Most of the Costa Ricans polled on the President Carlo’s Alvarado performance in his first 100 days were negative. The poll by the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos (CIEP) de la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) – Center for Research and Political Studies of the University of Costa Rica – revealed that 47% of respondents rated Alvarado’s work as “bad” or “very bad” and 25% described it as “fair”, while 28% rated him positively.
President Carlos said he has been busy at ‘work,work, work’ to see the numbers.
The survey took in the response of 720 people over the age of 18, by telephone, between August 13 and 16. The survey has aa 95% confidence level and 3.7% margin of error.
In contrast, predecessor Luis Guillermo Solis, in his first 100 days in office had and approval of 40%, while 20% give him bad marks.
Asked this Thursday morning what he thought of the numbers, President Carlos said he has been busy to fulfilling his promise to the people of “work, work, work” and hasn’t had time to review it. He said he naturally would when he had a break in his work schedule.
Rico’s TICO BULL – I am an avid reader of Quora. In fact, I have been able to shift my time away from Facebook that is now spent on Quora.
What is Quora? Quora is a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by its community of users in the form of opinions. Its publisher, Quora Inc., is based in Mountain, California. Wikipedia.
On Quora questions about Costa Rica come up often. Some are silly, like “is Costa Rica an island”, or “what to do in Costa Rica”, but, for the most part, there are some really interesting questions and some really great answers.
Statues in front of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, downtown, San Jose. See more.
One that got my attention today, “Does the fact that Costa Rica has been left alone despite having abolished its military in 1948 prove that pacifism works, or has the country just been extremely lucky?”
Of the answers, the best, in my opinion, was from Nick Halverson, who lives in Costa Rica.
Nick writes:
No. Pacifism doesn’t work as can be witnessed throughout the world. In fact, as I write this, Nicaragua is in the middle of a government crisis/meltdown where government soldiers are attacking and killing civilians.
The best reasons, I believe, that Costa Rica has been left alone is the following:
a) Huge investment by the USA for regional peace due to the proximity of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is still a vital access route for many countries of the world.
b) Related to ‘a)’ is that China is investing heavily in Costa Rica. China is in a global long-play resource solution. They are securing food (fruits in Costa Rica, largest pork producing company in the USA, heavy investments in natural resources in Africa).
Related to a) & b): There was an actual bidding war between the USA and China when the Panama Canal was expanded several years ago. They both wanted to spend billions of dollars to make sure the canal was built properly to ensure global trade continued as smoothly as possible.
Therefore, the two largest superpowers in terms of economics and military, have a huge financial interest in regional peace.
c) Costa Rica has been blessed with some great leaders with international influence and progressive domestic policy. For a country that just recently celebrated its 5 millionth citizen, they have a lot of influence in the international stage. Oscar Arias was President during the 1980s invasion by US troops into Nicaragua and Panama. He was also President again about a decade ago when Costa Rica had a seat on the UN Security Council (the irony of a country sitting on the UN Security Council but not having their own military).
Currently students throughout the country are taught English in elementary school, and all future generations will have exposure to English as they continue to move into a service economy, and away from a product economy (coffee, pineapples, etc).
d) Who would invade Costa Rica? Panama, to the south no longer has a military. Nicaragua to the north, would love to invade, and tried to steal some land as recently as five years ago (resolved at the UN), but it would be a losing proposition. Nicaragua would get no international support and Costa Rica would get the support of the USA and/or China.
Therefore, the immediate neighbors don’t have an army or a strong enough of army to fight back the USA.
This would leave other countries would attack. They’d have to attack via the sea – slow, and would have to have a Navy, which would be picked up by radar days, if not weeks, in advance. Or a country would have to go through another bordering country. Again, slow and highly unlikely.
Keep in mind that the United States Coast Guard has patrol boats off the coasts of Costa Rica constantly on the lookout for drug runners. Additionally, the US Navy has tracking of all large ships in the world, so any major change would be immediately noticed by the US Navy.
Assuming a country made it to Costa Rica, and attacked….what is their prize? Amazing wildlife. Some unearthed gold. There are some oil reserves off the Caribbean Coast that the Chinese are rumored to have purchased the drilling rights to (unsubstantiated), but outside of that, there isn’t much here worth spending the billions of dollars it would take to conquer.
What makes Costa Rica amazing is the natural beauty and the amazing people. Conquerers prefer oil and natural resources.
What is your opinion? Post your comments below or to our official Facebook page.
Agregarious red-lored parrot named Paco has dropped by Albergue La Laguna, in the remote mountain community of La Tarde on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
Albergue La Laguna at sunset.
Paco is striking, with bright green feathers all over, a brilliant patch of red above his beak, and a dusting of blue across his crown. Tending first to a pile of breadcrumbs on the open-air dining room table, he settles in on a ledge on the second floor of the house.
“Paaaaco….Paaaaco,” 11-year-old Dalila calls to him in a sing-song voice, as she climbs the stairs to Paco’s perch. She mimics his caws and reaches out as if to grab him. Miraculously, the bird makes no move to fly away.
Taavo and Lorena’s farm.
Paco has become a sort of free-run pet of the family’s, whose lives are intimately tied to the rainforest surrounding their home.
Dalila among the rows of plants on Popo’s farm.
Six families, totalling around twenty-five people, live in La Tarde. Dalila’s parents, Gustavo “Tavo” Rojas Vindas and Lorena Berrocal Pérez, grew up here and today run a guest house. Dalila has spent her whole life here. When asked what she wants to be when she grows up, Dalila answers confidently. “A naturalist guide,” she says.
Red tiquisque harvested from Popo’s farm.
Ecotourism is the peninsula’s primary industry, driven by the region’s incredible biodiversity: here there are jaguars, boa constrictors, ocelots, howler monkeys, sloths, scarlet macaws, tarantulas, and pit-vipers.
Dalia and her family live just over 1 mile from the boundary of Corcovado National Park, a 164 square mile nature reserve, which draws an estimated 63,000 visitors each year.
A cocoa tree filled with fruit on Popo’s farm.
Small-scale tourism operations, like Tavo and Lorena’s guesthouse, are scattered throughout the peninsula.
Taavo knocks down fruits to take home.
The cabin is on stilts, and the six simple guest rooms sit above the dining area and kitchen. Tavo’s brother, Popo, offers a tour of his nearby farm. Though he sells most of his harvest, he plants and harvests his crops entirely by hand. There are a few tidy rows, but overall the property is wild.
Decked out in bright pink and purple rubber boots, Dalila points out the red and white tiquisque plants, the sweet potato, pineapples, bananas, cocoa trees, and yuplon.
Taavo takes a break after the tour of Popo’s farm.
In the evening, Lorena makes a feast: rice, cassava, potatoes, and beans, all of which is grown on the property; she serves chicken, papaya picadillo,paincillo, a dense bread made from corn; fried plantains with sweet chilli sauce; chilero, a condiment made of onions, chilies, lime celery, cilantro, and lemon; and agua de sapo, or “frog water,” a drink made from cane sugar, water, ginger and lime.
Dalila and Lorena returning from a walk on their property.
After dinner, as one of her parent’s guests pokes around outside the guest house with a flashlight, looking for the frogs that are croaking in the darkness, Dalila calls out a single word of warning:
The sun sets over Corcovado National Park, viewed from the road to Albergue La Laguna. The pacific ocean is visible in the background.
“Serpientes,” she says, shaking her finger with a smile. Snakes.
The bushmaster snake, which stretches 8 to 12 feet, calls this area home. The guest heeds the warning, turns off her flashlight and heads back inside.
Chávez greets Ortega during a welcoming ceremony in Caracas. Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Ortega, a former Sandinista rebel who previously ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s, first showed signs of weakness in early April, when students protested his mismanagement of a massive forest fire in Nicaragua’s biggest nature reserve.
By April 19, hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans, including former Ortega supporters, joined the demonstrations, after his government rammed through an unpopular social security reform.
In an echo of Nicaragua’s past, foreign money has contributed to the country’s current unrest. In the 1970s, the U.S. supported the regime of Gen. Anastasio Somoza – a brutal dictator who was eventually overthrown by Ortega and his revolutionary peers in 1979’s Sandinista Revolution.
This time, it’s not the U.S. that’s supporting an unpopular Nicaraguan dictator, it’s Venezuela.
Oil diplomacy from Venezuela
I am a former Nicaraguan resident, who was recently forced out of the country by violence. I am also a scholar of Latin America’s political economy. And my research in Nicaragua suggests that Venezuelan oil money helps explain Ortega’s rise – and his current fall.
Ortega was re-elected to the presidency in 2007 after two decades out of power. At the time, he was one of many left-leaning leaders in the region.
Demonstrators have been calling for Ortega’s resignation since April. Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas
“Oil diplomacy” was standard practice in Venezuela at the time. In the early 2000s, Venezuela was one of Latin America’s richest countries. Chávez used his economic brawn to support allies in Cuba, Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil by sending them financial aid and cheap crude.
Venezuela offered the Ortega regime unusually favorable terms of trade. His government paid 50 percent of the cost of each shipment within 90 days of receipt. The remainder was due within 23 years and financed at 2 percent interest.
This cheap fuel was distributed at market prices by Nicaragua’s government gas company, DNP. The government’s nice profit margin helped spur a period of remarkable economic growth in Nicaragua.
Between 2007 and 2016, Ortega’s government spent nearly 40 percent of oil proceeds to bolster ambitious social welfare programs, including micro-financing for small businesses, food for the hungry and subsidized housing for the poor.
Between 2007 and 2017, Nicaragua’s gross domestic product grew at an average of 4.1 percent a year. The boom peaked in 2012, with a stunning 6.4 percent growth in GDP.
The year before, Venezuela had sent a record $557 million in oil to Nicaragua – the equivalent of 6 percent of the Central American country’s total gross domestic product.
Ortega’s oil wealth
Beyond jump-starting the Nicaraguan economy, Venezuelan oil also directly benefited the Ortega family.
DNP, Nicaragua’s national oil distributor, is managed by Ortega’s daughter-in-law, Yadira Leets Marín.
From 2007 to 2016, Venezuela sent Nicaragua shipments of cut-rate fuel as a demonstration of its support for Ortega’s regime. Reuters/Jorge Cabrera
According to investigative reporting by the Nicaraguan newspaper Confidencial, the 60 percent of earnings from Venezuelan oil sales not spent on social programs – roughly $2.4 billion – was channeled through a Venezuelan-Nicaraguan private joint venture called Albanisa, run by President Ortega’s son, Rafael Ortega.
The funds were invested in shadowy private businesses controlled by the Ortega family, including a wind energy project, an oil refinery, an airline, a cellphone company, a hotel, gas stations, luxury condominiums and a fish farm.
There is no public accounting of Albanisa’s investments or profits. But according to Albanisa’s former deputy manager, Rodrigo Obragon, who spoke with Univision in May, President “Ortega used Albanisa to buy everybody off in a way never seen before in the history of Nicaragua.”
Ortega’s landmark social programs, coupled with the lucrative business ventures that allowed him to buy support, made him the most powerful Nicaraguan leader since Somoza.
During his 11 years in office, Ortega has abolished presidential term limits, installed his wife as vice president and banned opposition parties from running in elections.
In late 2015, plummeting global oil prices sent Venezuela’s mismanaged economy into recession, and then into a full-on collapse.
Chávez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, was forced to cut back on oil diplomacy. As a result, in 2017 and 2018 his government sent no oil shipments at all to Nicaragua.
<!– Below is The Conversation’s page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. –>Like the dictator he helped oust three decades ago, Ortega has relied on foreign money to buy his way through challenges. Now that Venezuelan money has dried up, he’s got little left to offer his people – one more reason, protesters say, Ortega’s time is up.
Insightcrime.org– Costa Rica’s recently elected President Carlos Alvarado Quesada has officially hit 100 days in office. But his government is still struggling to stall worsening violence that is being driven by local criminal groups battling for control of domestic drug markets.
New Data Reinforces Link Between Guns, Violence in Latin America
Costa Rica has long been known for its low crime rate and relatively stable economy, having escaped the bloody Cold War conflicts and brutal gang violence that have wrought havoc in other Central American countries. However, over recent years, the country has seen a continuous uptick in homicides.
In 2017, Costa Rica broke the country’s record in reported homicides with 603 and a homicide rate of 12.1 per 100,000 individuals. And 2018 isn’t looking much better.
In the first six months of this year, Costa Rica registered 302 homicides, which was 29 more than during the same period the year before, according to the Judicial Investigation Agency (Organismo de Investigación Judicial – OIJ). Officials project that 2018 will break the 2017 record with an estimated 625 homicides.
Costa Rica’s security situation has recently been dubbed a “free fall” by security analyst Paul Chaves from the Center for Criminology and Security Training (Centro Formación en Criminología y Seguridad). Despite that, the country still remains among Latin America’s least violent nations.
InSight Crime Analysis
Authorities and experts have explained the rise in violence by pointing to issues such as increasing criminal fragmentation, a greater presence of firearms and the country’s new role in the region’s drug map.
Costa Rica has, for years, served as a key transshipment point for Colombian cocaine heading to the United States and Europe.
From the beginning, local Costa Rican criminal outfits were contracted to guard drug shipments and move product across the country. Instead of making payments in dollars, transnational criminal organizations often paid local criminal groups in drugs, thus increasing the amount of product that stayed in Costa Rica, a trend seen in other key transshipment countries.
Over the years, with more drugs remaining in Costa Rica, illicit drug consumption has gone up, and local criminal actors have been quick to try to control increasingly lucrative local markets.
“On average, local groups can make upwards of $2,000 to $3,000 per day in one location. However, many groups sometimes control five, six or seven different drug dealing spots,” Costa Rica’s Minister of Public Security, Michael Soto, told InSight Crime.
Costa Rica’s official strategy to tackle drug trafficking has been primarily focused on targeting the leaders of local groups, which caused fragmentation and, in turn, a rise in violent competition for markets.
In 2012, officials arrested Marco Antonio Zamora Solórzano, alias “El Indio”, one of Costa Rica’s most notorious drug traffickers. Zamora had, for years, controlled key local drug markets, specifically in the southern part of the capital, San José. After his arrest, Zamora’s criminal structure fragmented into several groups that began to violently compete for access to drug markets in the capital, thus pushing up the homicide rate after 2013, according to Soto.
Upon capture, some of the most notorious micro-trafficking ring leaders have been able to direct local drug trafficking activities and the assassination of rivals from within prison walls.
Two recent examples include that of Leonel Mora Nuñez, alias “Gordo Leo,” who has been managing local drug sales and assassinations from a Costa Rican prison since his arrest in 2009, and Luis Angel Martinez Fajardo, alias “Pollo,” who continues to direct criminal activities in Costa Rica from a Nicaraguan prison.
In December, 2017, Fajardo was allegedly behind the killing of Nicaraguan national, Erwin Guido Toruño, alias “El Gringo”. The assassination of Toruño, who also played a key role in the San José drug trade, could also be behind increased violence as other groups rush to fill the void.
Along with increasing criminal fragmentation, a greater presence of firearms could also be leading to increased homicide rates. In recent years, reports of arms trafficking rings allegedly connected to Mexico, Colombia and Panama have surfaced.
“There is a high availability of weapons. The origins of the weapons are unclear, but there is an important flow [of firearms] through the Central American corridor as a result of civil wars,” Walter Espinoza, the Director of the Judicial Investigation Agency (Organismo de Investigación Judicial – OIJ), told InSight Crime.
The announcement last week of the creation of a new public security plan could signal a shift in the government’s overall strategy to combat warring micro-trafficking groups. The initiative, called “Creating Security,” is based on Medellin’s public security program and seeks to increase collaboration between federal and community officials, and prioritize resources toward prevention and police operations in high risk areas.
Whether the initiative will be able to revert the trend of violence and insecurity remains to be seen.
Article by Written by Bjorn Kjelstad* originally appeared at Insightcrime.org. Read the original here.
*Deborah Bonello and Juan Diego Posada contributed reporting for this story.
What are your thoughts? Post your comments below or to our official Facebook page.
Former presidents #CostaRica call for Peace and warn against perverse interests that may be trying to destroy “our harmony and fuelling hatred and xenophobia”.
“Hate and xenophobia degrade people and it has taken them to war in many nations, causing death and destruction… To resolve our problems we need to live in peace. Let us not allow our fraternal life to be put at risk”, says part of the message.
Expresidentes de #CostaRica hacemos un llamado a la paz y la concordia, y advertimos contra intereses perversos que pueden estar tratando de destruir nuestra armonía y de azuzar el odio y la xenofobia. No permitamos caer en la tentación. pic.twitter.com/ozJ5oBntEC
On his Twitter account, President Carlos Alvarado explained plans for Costa Rica’s first ‘three-level’ intersection that will be completed in the next 18 months.
Image Presidencia.go.cr
The work will connect the Ruta 32 (road to Liomon) and is part of the fourth stage of the northern portion of the Cirncunvalacion (ring road), a project that began more than 30 years ago.
Image presidencia.go,cr
On the government website, Presidencia.go.cr, we learn that cleaning work and earthworks have, that will lead to the construction of the fourth phase of the Circunvalación Norte project.
As per the website, “This stage -inspected this Wednesday morning by the President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado Quesada – contemplates the roundabout, an overpass and a 400-meter four-lane road. It will connect Calle Blancos with Route 32 and the Triángulo de la Solidaridad”.
Buenos días! Recorremos el sector que será la primera intersección a tres niveles en el país. Conectará con la ruta 32 y forma parte de la cuarta etapa de Circunvalación Norte. Estará lista en 18 meses y es el resultado de trabajo en equipo que permite que Costa Rica avance. pic.twitter.com/dodeAcCzDC
The Triángulo de la Solidaridad was the scene Monday morning of a police action to evict the dozens of squatters, some living there for more than a decade, building semi-permanent structures, with electrical and water services.
Triángulo de la Solidaridad tugurio (settlement) is in the path of the new road. A family resettlement process led by the Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements (MIVAH) will house the squatters evicted on Monday.
“We have achieved a successful concerted resettlement, allowing families to have access to the housing subsidy information so that they can carry out the procedures before the competent institutions and free the necessary strip of land so that the works can be started by the MOPT,” said the Minister of Housing and Human Settlements, Irene Campos Gómez.
Meanwhile, the First Lady, Claudia Dobles, highlighted the coordination between the institutions that allowed the eviction of families with humanitarian focus, guaranteeing the integrity of the people.
“This authorization is part of the government’s process to reactivate infrastructure works, such as this one from Circunvalación Norte that was many years behind, despite its great impact on the national economy,” she said.
Work on the Circunvalacion north began last September with the construction of the 1.3 km section between Leon XIII and Colima de Tibas, currently 80% complete. In March, work began on the 2.25 km section of the Colima de Tibas to the Triángulo de la Solidaridad.
The obstacle in the road is the La Uruca to Leon XIII. Eight expropriations have yet to be settled. The government says construction will commence on this section once the legal proceedings are complete, but would not indicate a time frame.
The project cost is US$163 million dollars, financed through the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE), as part of the Programa de Infraestructura Vial Estratégica – Strategic Road Infrastructure Program. The contractor on the project is the Estella – H. Solis Consortium.
I found this article while surfing The Internet – For some reason we don’t call it the world wide web anymore. The title intrigued me: Steve Jobs, Success, Expats, Costa Rica. That is how I read, pick out the important words (to me). Need to. On a daily basis I read a couple of hundred titles and dozens of stories. Yes, daily.
This one by Adriana Gutierrez caught my attention. What’s Steve Jobs have to do with Costa Rica and isn’t he no longer with us? I am a big fan of Steve, love his iPhone and iPad and have read just about everything about him, even saw all (I think) the movies about him. And I love Costa Rica. So, combining the two makes it even better.
In life, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told us to “think different” in the infamous campaign that shot MacIntosh computers to the forefront of the tech revolution in 1984. And in his time spent writing three books about Steve Jobs, author Carmine Gallow shared the seven rules for success that he learned from following the mogul. Here they are, reapplied for those considering making the move to start to “live different” in Costa Rica.
1. Follow your passions.
“Do what you love” is more than a line Steve Jobs delivered in his now famous Stanford commencement speech. “People say you need to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true,” Jobs said. “The reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t have it, any rational person would give up.”
Out of those who have already visited Costa Rica, it is likely that many have experienced the passion evoked by the natural surroundings and pura vida lifestyle. It is this passion that propels prospective buyers to navigate the foreign real estate market and all of the challenges that this presents. But if you can just make it to our office, we can help alleviate a lot of the stresses that people find about the home buying process in Costa Rica.
2. Find your noble cause.
When trying to woo a PepsiCo CEO to join Apple in 1983, Jobs asked “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?” They took the job.
Once upon a time, people used to move to first world countries like the USA and Canada to seek out new opportunities. Today, many people are turning to places like Costa Rica where living is less expensive, the climate is idyllic, the people are friendly, welcoming and non-judgmental, and the politics are geared towards sustainability and social equality. Costa Rica is a destination for people who don’t just look for business models; they look for noble causes and ways to give back to their local community. It’s easy to be inspired by those around you in a place as diverse in caring causes as the Costa Ballena.
3. Simplify everything.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” Jobs once said. He strived to build simplicity into everything, from design to strategy, focusing on only the “gem” products.
You have only so much energy and attention to give, and Costa Rica provides a back-to-nature-and-community platform from which to simplify everything and focus on the gems. And the gems that are clear here are nature, family, friends, taking in the moment, clean food, clean energy, clean air, clean water, peace and tranquility.
4. Unleash your creativity.
Jobs once said the secret to creativity “comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing.”
Creativity happens when we expose ourselves to ideas outside of our field. Those who come to Costa Rica learn quickly that this is not a country like the one they came from. People here take their time. They are often late; they decide on if they will do something based on the weather that morning, or if they have nothing more important to do that day. And rather than get frustrated, the expats who are successful in their Costa Rica endeavors learn from this culture that stress is unnecessary and often counter-productive; that family and safety take precedence over money or deadlines; and that “mañana” truly is another day.
5. Create “insanely great” customer experiences.
The key to the Apple Store success is its people. Apple hires for personality because they can teach anyone to sell an iPad; they can’t teach friendliness.
The lesson here is to hire people who are passionate for the brand, and who have pleasant personalities and good culture. So how does this apply to Costa Rica? Well, I’ll tell you that it applies in our office, and in a lot of what we see in our Costa Ballena communities. Costa Rica wants only the best people here. We want our neighbors to be kind and caring and to look after their piece of Costa Rica with the same intentions as the rest of the nation, which are to conserve the environment and to welcome guests with warmth and respect.
6. Become the storyteller-in-chief.
Through the expert use of storytelling, Steve Jobs painted a picture of a villain, a struggle and a hero.
Costa Rica wants to tell you a story. It is not a product to buy but a lifestyle to own by living it. People come here to make their dreams of living a healthier, more physically connected life a reality. From the moment you wake to the songs of the morning birds and howler monkeys, and the bright warm sun on your face as you step outside your door, your whole day will continue to be filled with powerful, emotional experiences from people and places that touch deep into your core.
7. Sell dreams, not products.
In a public presentation in 1997 to launch the iconic “Think Different” ad campaign, Jobs said, “Some people think they [Mac buyers] are crazy, but in that craziness we see genius.”
Expat audiences don’t care about the place, the politics, or the ideals of a destination as much as they care about themselves, their own hopes and their own dreams. The Costa Rica expat’s genius is that they can tell that this is going to be a place that inspires them, that feeds their creativity, and that helps put them in the right place – body, mind and spirit – to bring their dreams to life.
CARACAS, Venezuela — A powerful earthquake shook Venezuela’s northeastern coast on Tuesday, August 21, 2018 at 5:32 pm local time (21:32 UTC), frightening residents in the capital city of Caracas, who evacuated buildings and briefly interrupting a pro-government rally.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude of the quake at 7.3 and said the epicenter was 20 kilometers 12 miles) northwest of Yaguaraparo, Venezuela, at a depth of 123 kilometers (76 miles).
A witness in Cumana, one of the biggest cities near the epicenter, said there were initial reports of several injuries at a shopping center where an escalator fell, but that there were no other immediate signs of damage in the vicinity.
John Boquett, a firefighter captain in Caracas, said there were no initial reports of injuries.
The quake was felt as far away as Colombia’s capital of Bogota.
Map of the August 21, 2018 Earthquake near the Venezuelan Coast. Courtesy USGS
In Caracas office workers and residents fled from their buildings and homes. The confusing moments after the quake were captured on state television as Diosdado Cabello, the head of the all-powerful constitutional assembly, was delivering a speech at a march.
“Quake!” people yelled as Cabello and others looked from side to side.
A similar-sized quake in the same area left dozens dead in 1997.
The Peruvian Authorities are reportedly going to start barring Venezuelan migrants from entering the country unless they have passports, the government sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
According to Reuters, the measure aims to curb a surge in immigration from economic crisis-hit Venezuela that has already driven hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Brazil.
Shortages of food and medicine, exacerbated by hyperinflation, have reportedly forced more than a million Venezuelans to flee to neighboring nations such as Ecuador, Colombia and Peru in recent months.
Meanwhile, Ecuador will also bring back passport control with the border other South American nations Saturday to curb the influx of Venezuelans fleeing crisis at home, Interior Minister Mauro Toscanini said.
“The Ecuadorian government is seriously concerned about humanitarian situation affecting thousands of Venezuelans who come to the country, to guarantee safety arrivals will be required to present passports to enter Ecuador,” Interior Minister Mauro Toscanini said in a statement quoted by the communications ministry.
Venezuelans have been able to cross into Ecuador and Peru with a national ID. Concerns were raised after thousands of Venezuelans started moved to Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Ecuador to escape conflict and poverty in their home country.
Last week, the annual inflation rate in Venezuela reached 82,766 percent. In late July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it expected inflation in Venezuela to hit 1 million percent this year.
The oil production in Venezuela has declined in the past few months due to economic and political crisis, as well as the US sanctions, which resulted in government’s revenues’ drop and soaring inflation.
In May, US President Donald Trump signed an order prohibiting US citizens and legal bodies from making any transactions involving debts tied to the Venezuelan government debt as well as preventing Venezuelan officials from selling equity in any government-owned entity, including PDVSA, as part of its tightened sanctions on the country’s government. This step followed Maduro’s re-election, which the United States has criticized as unfair.
In turn, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has refused most international aid, claiming outside powers are bent on removing his government from power.
Last Wednesday, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that two UN relief agencies were seeking $78 million for refugees displaced by Venezuela’s economic collapse to neighboring countries
“UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency] and the International Organization for Migration have launched regional appeals of $46 million and $32 million respectively to help governments and host communities with the response,” Dujarric said.
A UN emergency response fund earlier provided $6.2 million to the two agencies to help kick start humanitarian appeals, Dujarric explained.
Former National Record holding swimmer and Olympic medalist Sylvia Poll remembered her childhood when she had to leave her native country, Nicaragua, due to the civil war to move to Costa Rica, where she was received with open arms and solidarity.
Photo taken from Sylvia Poll’s Facebook.
Because of this, the eldest of the Poll sisters, silver medalist at the 1988 Olympics, in the women’s 200 free and Costa Rica’s first Olympic medal, made a call on her Facebook account to the Costa Ricans to ask for a more solidary, respectful and compassionate country.
Sylvia also swam for Costa Rica at the 1992 Summer Olympics. She also won a total number of 8 medals at the 1987 Pan American Games; and 2 of her times from those Games still stand as Costa Rican Records in 2009 (100 free and 100 back).
As of 2009, she and her younger sister Claudia are Costa Rica’s only Olympic medalists
“What happened yesterday (Saturday) in the Parque de La Merced … NO !!”, she wrote on her social network.
“I was born in Nicaragua, where during my first years I had a beautiful childhood, but because of the war of 1979, I suddenly emigrated with my family to Costa Rica,” she recalled.
Sylvia Poll, 47, was in multiple competitions and events, winning medals and outstanding performances always representing Costa Rica. “Thanks to that love received when we arrived as immigrants, I became a Costa Rican and represented Costa Rica as an athlete with a lot of love and pride,” she added.
Poll accompanied her comment with the video of the song Nicaragua, “Nicaragüita”, interpreted by the Costa Rican music group Editus.
Sylvia Poll was born in Managua, Nicaragua. Her parents were Germans and they settled in Nicaragua where Sylvia and her younger sister Claudia were born. After the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake and rising political tensions, Sylvia’s parents decided to move south to Costa Rica.
Rico’s TICO BULL – While the myth that “we are all rich” applies to foreigners from North America and Europe, when it comes to Nicaraguans, the false information is linked to old urban myths that prevail in the Costa Rican imaginary.
In Costa Rica, Nicaraguans often work in agriculture, construction and service sectors
These myths on Nicaraguan migrants include, “They don’t pay the Caja; They receive more social benefits than Ticos; They get free housing. They take jobs away; They do not contribute to the local economy; and are uneducated,” among many others.
Let’s look at some of the myths. How much of this is true and how much is false?
MYTH: MIGRANTS DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE LOCAL ECONOMY
Truth: According to the study “How immigrants contribute to the economy of developing countries, OECD 2018”, which you can consult by clicking on this link, the contribution of immigrants to the national economy represents around 12% of added value.
According to the report, in Costa Rica a greater proportion of nationals tend to be employers, if they live in a region where the number of immigrants is high.
The study details that a greater integration of the migrant population, improving access to public services and the labor market, can even improve their economic contribution to the country.
Even so, it is considered that the contribution is still limited, although its presence does not affect the salaries of Costa Ricans.
MYTH: MIGRANTS TAKE AWAY WORK FROM COSTA RICANS
Truth: The diagnosis of “Contexto Migratorio Costa Rica 2017” (Migratory Context Costa Rica 2017) reveals that 82% of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica are employed and only 4% in open unemployment, the rest is outside the labor force.
Of these there are 12.8% who work for their own account and 2% who are employers. Seven out of ten are salaried employees of some company or institution and 15% of some private (domestic) household.
According to the study in the area of private employment, the main areas of work are in agriculture, industry and construction and are due, in particular, to differences in the educational level of those that “come to Costa Rica to occupy low-skilled and low-paid jobs.”
The report on the contribution of migrants to the country’s economy says that although there is a lower rate of employment in nationals and a parallel growth in foreign employment “it is possible that they complement the labor force born in the country”; that is, they occupy jobs not wanted by nationals.
For example, the case of domestic workers: as large numbers of women from Nicaragua work in domestic work in the country. The same applies to construction and other ‘hard’ and ‘dirty’ jobs Costa Ricans are not willing to do.
MYTH: THE MAJORITY OF VIOLENCE IS COMMITTED BY FOREIGNERS
Truth: The information available on crime in the region and its increase since the 1980s indicates that the rising trends in the case of Costa Rica is not different from those of the generality of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The acts of delinquency are varied and can range from theft or petty theft to major criminal acts such as homicide.
In the case of homicides, it is known that the main element of coincidence over nationality is that the victim and the perpetrator knew each other, which delegitimizes any difference over nationalities. Only 37% of cases occur among unknown persons, according to the State of the Nation. The latter mostly have to do with robberies or assaults and to a lesser extent by hired killers or commission.
In the last two decades, the average number of homicides committed by foreigners has oscillated between 10% and 20%.
Regarding the fight against drug trafficking, the figures are the majority in the case of Costa Ricans. In the 2014-2018 period, the Ministerio de Seguridad Publica (MSP) detained 1,953 people, of which around 25% – 494 – were foreigners.
MYTH: THE JAILS ARE FULL OF FOREIGNERS
Truth: The majority of people convicted with imprisonment come from population groups living in poverty according to the latest State of Justice Report.
In general terms, prisoners are composed mainly of men and especially Costa Ricans (87%). According to data from immigration, the 13% made up of different nationalities, are:
65% Nicaraguans
12% Colombian
5% Panamanians
3% Mexican
The majority of foreigner prisoners correspond to illegal migrants and very few, less than 1%, to refugees.
MYTH: A MAJOR PART OF SOCIAL ASSISTANCE GOES TO FOREIGNERS
Truth: By 2006, a total of 205,972 Costa Ricans had received aid from the Avancemos programs, received money, support from the care network or another community home and other centralized aid through the Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social (IMAS).
In contrast, a much smaller percentage of Nicaraguans received the same assistance.
MYTH: FOREIGNERS DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY (CCSS)
Truth: Costa Ricans contribute more on average per person to Social Security than foreigners; This is explained because they have greater purchasing power and are better positioned in the income quintiles than the average of immigrants. The average per capita of Costa Rican citizens is ¢462,867
Even so, immigrants also contribute an average of ¢337,961 per capita.
According to the OECD report, the level of participation in social security by Costa Ricans is 68% and that of foreigners 50%.
MYTH: ALL NICARAGUANS ARE UNEDUCATED
Truth: The different reports and studies carried out in this regard agree that it is true that a significant percentage of the Nicaraguan population in the country has lower academic levels than the average for nationals; however, it is false that everyone lacks some type of academic training.
Of the Nicaraguan population taken into account in the study Diagnóstico del Contexto Migratorio Costa Rica 2017, 6.7% of them had higher or university education, 1.2% technical education, and 9.45 completed secondary education or high school.
The recent xenophobic attack against Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica is an expression of “ignorance”, “fanaticism” and “a very misunderstood form of what is patriotism and nationalism,” says Costa Rican sociologist Abelardo Morales, who specializes in migration issues, borders, and social development.
Some 400 Costa Ricans demonstrated in downtown San Jose on Saturday against Nicaraguan migration in Costa Rica
For Morales, a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (UNA), the xenophobic demonstration in La Merced park in downtown San Jose on Saturday, where 44 people were arrested, is a symptom of a “discontent with the Costa Rican social system that is negatively channeled by some sectors against the Nicaraguans”.
Morales warns that the refusal of the Government of Nicaragua to seek a dialogue solution to the socio-political crisis could provoke “an uncontrolled exit of Nicaraguans”.
If the political problem in Nicaragua is not solved, not only will the conflict be maintained, but “there could be a risk that it creates instability in the rest of Central America” Costa Rican sociologist Abelardo Morales Gamboa
Costa Rica is home to a significant percentage of people born in Nicaragua, practically since the war against Somoza. After the 1990s, that population increased significantly. Between 2005 and 2006 migration tended to decrease, which coincided with the arrival of Daniel Ortega to power.
That decrease was oscillating thereafter, but it is clear that in recent years there has been a significant increase, and that is having a strong impact on the opinion that Costa Ricans have about the arrival of Nicaraguans.
Abelardo Morales Gamboa
According to Morales, we must take into account that Costa Rica has been experiencing a series of complex political, economic and social processes, the (presidential) elections showed a certain political-religious polarization that has created an atmosphere of much discussion and much confrontation of an ideological nature.
“I believe that one of the elements that has strongly hit the perception of some groups that are not very tolerant and fanatical was that some criminal acts occurred in which some Nicaraguans were involved, such as the murder and rape of a tourist in El Tortuguero. All this gave rise to some groups began to generate information, often false, about a crime wave in which Nicaraguans were involved.” explained the sociologist.
The Tortuguero incident and false or misleading information circulating in the social media has provoked a certain xenophobic reaction, which, according to Morales, has more to do with a wider discontent of a large part of the population of Costa Rica about the situation in Nicaragua and with the Government currently in power (in Nicaragua).
There is also the idea that the Nicaraguan conflict may move to Costa Rica.
A comment on the Facebook page that incites the fear and xenophobia suggested that Costa Rica require of all visitors, as a condition of entry, a police record. The comment was focused on Nicaraguan arrivals, though it was not spelled out. The poster wrote, “if we are required to obtain an ‘hoja de delinquencia’ (police record) to get a job, why shouldn’t visitors be required to do the same?”
Perhaps even more disturbing is this, that same group claiming ‘it was worth the effort (of the demonstration)” on the police action Monday morning to evict families from a “tugurio” (shantytown) in Heredia. The truth is that the eviction is part of the government’s running plan to clear the path of the construction of the northern section of the Circunvalacion,
The social media groups have also been very active in “thruthalyzing” a number of myths about Nicaraguan migrants.
It is very important to identify which groups were involved in the xenophobic manifestations. Morales explains that in the Saturday demonstrations they were some organizations that, it is supposed, have authoritarian profiles and that in turn summon a series of groups conformed by the brave barras (hooligans) of soccer, elements that are known that they are violent groups, even with criminal antecedents, and other groups of urban subcultures, without own identity and sometimes groups that would say rather “misfits”, to some extent very vulnerable to xenophobic discourses.
Though there is not much evidence that the conflict in Nicaragua could spill to Costa Rica, one of the difficulties of the Costa Rica government is to control the people entering. The concern is that people who have been involved in paramilitary groups, harassing, persecuting, even murdering protesters, may come to Costa Rica.
This fear is fueled by social media accounts of an organized effort by the Ortega-Murillo administration to send (order) these people to Costa Rica to creater social disorder, leading many to believe that the Nicaraguan conflict could be extended south.
“We know that the Nicaraguan state will not attack Costa Rica, but there is no control over these para-political organizations that have been linked to the acts of violence. It is a fear that several population groups have been externalizing,” says Morales.
On Sunday night, President Carlos Alvarado’s message on national television was clear that the government’s position is one oriented of not allowing violence against foreigners.
The reality is that xenophobic manifestations will continue to occur, in fact in social networks there are still people inflamed and this has to do to a large extent with an irrational attitude.
“There is a lot of ignorance, there is fanaticism around a very poorly understood form of what is the patriotism and nationalism,” says Morales.
“I believe that the answers to this should be, in the first place, a firm and clear attitude of the Government (of Costa Rica) in relation to how to manage and how to resolve the demands posed by the migratory situation that is experiencing with the arrival of more Nicaraguan population. Also, actions of control and rejection of the public demonstrations of these xenophobic groups. The other is the coordinated action of various organizations of civil society, institutions and the Costa Rican population that is against this type of demonstrations,” says the sociologist.
Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves to supporters, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 5, 2018.
BRASILIA — Jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has increased his support by 5 percentage points and would win Brazil’s October presidential election if he was allowed to run, a poll by CNT/MDA showed on Monday.
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves to supporters, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 5, 2018.
The survey, which was last taken in May, found that almost half of the leftist leader’s supporters would transfer their votes to his running mate Fernando Haddad if Lula is disqualified from Brazil’s most uncertain race in decades.
The Brazilian real led losses among Latin American currencies after the poll showed investors’ favorite Geraldo Alckmin, the candidate most likely to enact fiscal reforms, lagging far behind his rivals.
Electoral authorities are expected to bar Lula from the election due to a corruption conviction. Despite that, he took 37.3 percent of voter intentions in the latest poll, up from 32.4 percent in the same poll in May.
His nearest rival was far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro with 18.3 percent, followed by environmentalist Marina Silva with 5.6 percent and business-friendly Alckmin with 4.9 percent.
Support for Marina Silva and center-left candidate Ciro Gomes has slipped since the May poll, while support increased for Bolsonaro. Alckmin, a former governor of Sao Paulo state, has also gained ground marginally.
It was the first major poll since candidacies were officially registered last week, but it did not provide results for the likely scenario of a race without Lula.
Lula’s supporters were asked who they would back if he is out of the race and 17.3 percent of the people surveyed said they would cast their vote for Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor who would head the Workers Party ticket.
Another 11.9 percent of the voters surveyed would migrate to Marina Silva, 9.6 percent to Gomes, 6.2 percent to Bolsonaro and 3.7 percent to Alckmin.
Lula, Brazil’s first working class president and whose social policies lifted millions from poverty in Latin America’s largest nation, was jailed in April to start serving a 12-year sentence for receiving bribes.
The nationwide survey of 2,002 people was carried out by pollster MDA for the transportation sector lobby CNT between Aug. 15-18 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
Miguel Barroz Lozano, 82, sits with his wife on the front porch of their farm house in rural Matanzas Province, Cuba, July 9, 2018.
MATANZAS, CUBA — Cuba’s decision to change its constitution and allow private property ownership has been shrugged off by small farmers, who say the island will never feed itself without far broader reform of state-run agriculture.
Miguel Barroz Lozano, 82, sits with his wife on the front porch of their farm house in rural Matanzas Province, Cuba, July 9, 2018.
Economists would expect farmers to welcome the shift towards private property after decades of strict government control left the island dependent on food imports and farmers unable to earn a decent living.
And though older Cubans are wary of change, younger farmers have indeed welcomed the recent reforms to recognize private property ownership, even if few expect huge dividends.
With 30 hectares of well-maintained guava trees, sweet potato plants and concrete pig pens, Alexei Gonzales has a deep desire to buy the farmland he currently rents from the state.
But a complex web of bureaucracy — be it currency controls, fuel shortages or a lack of private credit — mean Gonzales and six other farmers who spoke with the Thomson Reuters Foundation do not expect to reap big gains from owning their own land.
“Making it easier to buy land won’t really change much if I can’t get diesel,” said 41-year-old Gonzales, pointing to his idle Soviet-made tractor. “They (lawmakers) give lots of speeches but nothing changes… My whole life is working on the land, and I have nothing to show for it.”
On July 22, Cuba’s government voted in favor of a draft for a new constitution that includes the right to own private property. The reforms were presided over by Miguel Diaz-Canel, who became Cuba’s president in April, replacing brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, who had governed the island since 1959.
The changes are part of a broader shift as Cuba tries to woo foreign investment, boost growth and cut poverty, all while keeping political control in the hands of a single party.
Rich Soil, Slim Pickings
Despite rich soil and 20 percent of its population working in agriculture, Cuba imports more than 60 percent of its food, at an annual cost of about $2 billion.
Cubans, who on average earn about $30 a month, receive a monthly package of subsidized food from the state, including rice, beans, eggs and milk for young children.
To make up for shortfalls at state-run stores – which worsened after the collapse of its Soviet benefactor – Cubans were encouraged to grow urban gardens or cultivate small plots of land for personal consumption.
People buy food at a privately-licensed fruit and vegetable stall in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 1, 2012.
Today, Cubans can buy food from market stalls, but workers who earn the minimum government salary often cannot afford the bananas, plantain and pork sold in the private sector.
Prior to the constitutional changes approved by lawmakers last month, the state owned about 80 percent of Cuba’s farmland, leasing most of it to farmers and cooperatives.
The rest is owned by small farmers whose families received allotments from the government after Cuba’s 1959 revolution.
With sluggish economic growth, and renewed tensions with Washington hampering foreign investment, the government is eager to wean Cuba’s 11 people million off costly food imports.
The constitutional change allowing for private land ownership still needs to pass a referendum, to be held some time in coming months. The draft document will be submitted for public consultations and the final document, which could include changes, will then be put to a national referendum.
The reforms will help food production but private property rights alone will not give agricultural output a substantial boost, said Mario Gonzalez-Corzo, an economics professor at City University of New York, whose family own farms in Cuba.
Maibe Gimenez, 36 (L), picks flowers at a private farm in San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba, Sept. 26, 2017.
In other countries, farmers can use their land as collateral for loans to buy equipment, seeds or fertilizer.
“Private ownership does not mean you can use land as collateral: in Cuba, there is no such thing as a private bank,” Gonzalez-Corzo said, so the reforms will not make it easier for farmers to buy the fuel or fertilizer they crave.
Price controls on how much farmers get for their products and other strict rules compound the inefficiencies, he added.
“The government has extensive control over agriculture, which creates massive distortions.”
Fallow Fields
Yasmany Falcon Bacallao farms 26 hectares in Matanzas, Cuba’s second largest province and home to the tourist hotspot of Varadero.
Living the inefficiencies on a daily basis, he supports private property reforms, but is not optimistic they will change his daily reality in the fields.
Much of the land inherited from family members lies fallow; he cannot find workers willing to accept $20 per month to toil in the fields or enough diesel to run his farm machinery.
Bacallao sells most of his produce to a government agency, “but often they don’t even have boxes for the mangoes when they arrive, so I can’t sell anything,’ the 37-year-old said.
Cuba’s National Association of Small Farmers, a government-linked body responsible for agriculture, declined requests for interviews or additional information about the changes.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Cuba declined to comment on the proposed reforms, underlining the sensitivity of the issue in the socialist state.
Generational Shift
While young farmers tend to support greater private property rights, in principle at least, older Cubans are skeptical.
“I don’t want to see the big time selling of land,” said 82-year-old Miguel Barroz Lozano, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse he inherited in 1962.
“I was here before the revolution and it’s better for farmers now,” said the fruit grower, recounting how his father had toiled on a plantation owned by a rich, absentee owner.
Unease about possible exploitation has caused the government to move slowly with reform, said John Finn, a professor who studies Cuban agriculture at Christopher Newport University in the U.S. state of Virginia.
“Land reform was massively important for the ideology of the revolution,” Finn said. “They (officials) are trying to maintain the broad structures of a socialist economy, while harvesting the obvious power of entrepreneurship.”
CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Venezuelans struggled Monday to calculate prices of food and household goods as a new currency scheme aimed at taming runaway inflation went into effect.
Withdrawing cash from automated teller machines at a Mercantil bank branch in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 20, 2018
The new currency, known as the “sovereign bolivar,” is valued at one to 100,000 of the old bolivars, in effect chopping five zeros off of existing prices. The International Monetary Fund has calculated that inflation in the country will hit 1 million percent by year’s end.
Many residents went on a weekend shopping spree, stocking up on hard-to-find essentials before the new currency came into effect Monday morning. Many shops were closed Monday for a national holiday declared to ease the introduction of the new currency.
“People had full supermarket carts like I had not seen in years,” said Paola Martinez, a young professional who decided to buy groceries in one of the wealthiest areas of the capital before the new banknotes were introduced. Martinez said many shoppers were purchasing items such as cookware not normally part of their grocery lists.
A man shows the new five and ten Bolivar Soberano (Sovereign Bolivar) bills, after he withdrew them from an automated teller machine (ATM) at a Mercantil bank branch in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 20, 2018.
On the other side of the city in a populous municipal market, fish vendor Amaril Araya said weekend customers bought three times as much as on a regular weekend. She said he was not yet displaying prices in the new currency because her customers, especially the elderly, are very confused.
Juan Segovia, a vegetable seller in the municipal market, said people were making “nervous purchases” over the weekend.
The shopping splurge was complicated by problems with banking machines and credit cards, as financial institutions struggled to adjust. Despite starting preparations on Friday, many bank electronic platforms were still in maintenance on Monday.
President Nicolas Maduro first announced plans for the currency revaluation in mid-March, but the move was postponed twice before finally taking effect this week.
A customer shows the new five Bolivar Soberano (Sovereign Bolivar) bills, after he withdrew them from an automated teller machine at a Mercantil bank branch in Caracas, Venezuela August 20, 2018
Former President Hugo Chávez pushed through a similar revaluation in 2008, slashing eight zeros from banknote denominations. On that occasion, the change was announced almost a year in advance, and preparations were spread over six months.
Maduro also announced Friday a massive 3,000 percent increase in the minimum wage to take effect in September. Changes to the tax and fiscal system were also announced.
Both the sovereign bolivar and the new salary will be “anchored” to the petro, a controversial cryptocurrency pegged to the price of oil, which the government introduced earlier this year.
El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, speaks as China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi listens at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Aug. 21, 2018.
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan says it is breaking off diplomatic ties with El Salvador because the Central American country plans to defect to rival Beijing. The move is the latest blow to the self-ruled island that China has been trying to isolate on the global stage.
El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, speaks as China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi listens at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Aug. 21, 2018.
The break in ties means Taiwan is recognized as a sovereign nation by only 17 mainly small, developing countries. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced Tuesday that his government has established ties with El Salvador.
Earlier this year, the West African nation of Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic broke ties with Taiwan and resumed or established diplomatic relations with China.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Tuesday condemned what he called China’s campaign of luring away Taiwan’s allies with promises of vast financial aid and investment.
Taiwan is willing to consider cooperating with its allies in education, farming or even infrastructure initiatives, Wu said, but refuses to compete with China in buying diplomatic support. “It is irresponsible to engage in financial aid diplomacy or compete with China in cash, or even in providing illegal political money. My government is unwilling to and cannot do so.”
Some analysts say Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful Chinese leaders in decades, seems determined to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control during his time in office, which would place him in the history books alongside Mao Zedong.
The island’s 23 million residents are strongly in favor of maintaining their de facto independent status, but Xi has previously warned a Taiwanese envoy that the issue of unification cannot be put off indefinitely.
Wu urged the people of Taiwan to unite despite the pressure the island was facing diplomatically.
“I want to emphasize that China’s suppression of Taiwan has never stopped. We are a democratic and free country. This is a fact that the authoritarian regime cannot tolerate,” he said. “We in Taiwan will continue to move forward.”
What’s it like to be a Nicaraguan migrant in Costa Rica today? Contrary to the social media posts and comments that they come here to ‘pillage’, the sad reality is that most live on a few colones a day and without a roof over their head unless they are able to find work, a task that is becoming more and difficult by the day.
Fleeing repression and violence at home, Nicaraguan refugees now live the same fear in Costa Rica
Bryan Castillo, writing for the daily La Teja, a Nacion publication, took to La Merced park on Sunday, the same park that a day earlier became violent when a group of some 400 Costa Ricans descended on the public park in the center of San Jose, demanding the departure of Nicaraguans living in the country, according to them for the damage that this population has done in our territory.
Authorities immediately closed off the park on Saturday.
On Sunday, the park, for many years, dubbed “Nica park”, a source of culture and a meeting place for many Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica, remained closed and under police guard, fearing more violence. It was reopened this Monday morning.
Castillo writes he met up with Armando, a ‘pinolero’ (a colloquial term for a Nicaraguan) who preferred not to reveal his full name for fear of reprisals from Ticos (Costa Ricans) and the government of President Daniel Ortega.
Armando, 42 years old, says he arrived in Costa Rica on July 18, fleeing violence in his country. Like Armando, there are about 25,000 of his compatriots who arrived in Costa Rica since April, requesting refuge.
Armando says he is from the department of Carazo, about 95 kilometers from the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, a tourist town on the Pacific coast. Behind he left two daughters whom he did not communicate with much, but now must, to assure them, given the news of the violence, that he is Ok.
Armando and many of his fellow Nicaraguans are not a menace to Costa Rican society. They are here to work if they can find work. To earn enough to help out the family back home, to get them here, if possible, away from the repression of Daniel Ortega.
But that all changed on Saturday.
Armando, with only a few colones in his pocket and no place to live, is, like many other Nicaraguans, who came to Costa Rica seeking peace but in the last day has found a similar scenario to the one he saw every day in Nicaragua.
“We have to walk together, as you can see, we are five (two men and three women) because we are afraid of being attacked, we have been here for more than a month and we do not have where to sleep. All Nicaraguans at this moment are together, you will see us with other people and not alone because we do not want to be beaten,” he said.
“We have lived things that thank God you (the Costa Ricans) have not lived, we have lived wars, we have suffered from hunger and humiliations (stops and cries). We feel bad because we have to flee our country and we arrived here with the hope of working but some people do not want us,” he said.
“I offer an apology to all Costa Ricans for the Nicaraguans who have hurt here but we are not all like that, most of us are honest people who only want to feed our families.”
Following Saturday, many Nicaraguans hang out in groups for safety and to put together enough money to buy ‘galletas’ (cookies, soda crackers)
Surviving on ¢300 colones daily
Another reason for grouping is financial. Armando said that every day they survive on ¢300 colones, that is, with their contribution and that of the other 4 people with whom they walk, they put together ¢1,500.
“At this moment I have ¢50 colones (US 50 cents) but among us we can buy ‘galletas’ (cookies, soda crackers). After what happened (the aggressions of Saturday) other Nicaraguans who are better-off, give us something to eat, have also given us food in a shelter (in the Obras de Sor María Romero, 300 meters from KFC Paseo Colón) but we only eat once or twice a day that’s why we buy the cookies,” he said.
Carlos, who arrived last week, on Thursday, August 16, says he is living the same situation.
From Puerto Corinto, in Chinandego, the 44-year-old fled his country afraid because according to him, the Nicaraguan army was looking for him to kill him.
He was a ‘cruzrojista’ (red cross worker) and, according to his account, they mounted a persecution against him and fellow cruzrojistas after they attended a young man who was demonstrating against the government.
“Ortega took my family away from me, I have three daughters, twenty, eighteen and eight years old and a thirteen-year-old boy. Since I’m here I do not communicate directly with them (he does through neighbors) because I’m afraid that the police will check their phones and realize they talk to me, if that happens they can kill them and I do not want that to happen to them,” he commented.
He also survives with ‘three tejas’ a day, although sometimes he has more. For him, that is not the worst since the most complicated thing has been not having a place to sleep or take care of bodily needs.
“When I feel like going to the bathroom I go to a ‘cantina’ (small bar). I explain what I’m going through and they let me use it. I do not like to bother people with things like that but I have to do it because the body can not take it anymore,” he added.
Both Armando and Carlos said that sometimes they sleep in a shelter called El Pastor, which is 200 meters south of the Ministry of Health park and 300 meters east. A few blocks from La Merced park.
They mention that they only have 50 spots a night. The entrance is at 8 pm. and the departure at 5 am.
“It’s the only night in which we do not get cold in the wind or the rain, if we do not get a spot then we sleep on the sidewalk of the hospital (San Juan de Dios) or on the roof of the gas station (which is in front of the north side of La Merced park),” said Carlos.
According to the 2011 census, approximately 290,000 Nicaraguans live in the country, the majority of whom work in construction and domestic work.
During the embarrassing spectacle of this Saturday, the Fuerza Publica (police) arrested 44 people. By means of a tweet, the Office of the Prosecutor announced that it released 41 and that the remaining 3 were being held by the Fiscalia pending the resolution of their judicial situation.
Just for today, August 20, 2018, McDonald’s is offering its Classic Big Mac for only ¢350 colones (US$0.60) in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the birth of its most famous hamburger around the world.
¢350 (three hundred and fifty colones) is exactly what a Big Mac cost 50 years ago and the 50,000 customers who downloaded the coupon will be enjoying theirs.
On national television, Sunday night, President Carlos Alvarado, assured that the Government has allocated the necessary resources to guarantee a safe, orderly and registered migratory control.
In the message, the president called for peace, calm and to act prudently and sensibly, following the xenophobic demonstrations carried out by independent groups on Saturday in downtown San José against Nicaraguan migrants.
Alvarado said that since June, 37 institutions work in an ‘articulated manner’ to address the issue of migration and that people should not act out of fear.
Among the actions mentioned, the reinforcement of the police at the Peñas Blancas and Tablillas border crossings; migratory operations carried out on public roads (spot checks) and ‘cuarterias’ (room houses) and the optimization of services of the Dirección de Migración y Extranjería (DGME) – the immigration service.
“We have implemented an effective migration control to deport people with unwanted profiles,” he said.
He also said that the health condition of migrants is monitored and police intelligence to deal with human trafficking.
The president added that they will also seek to deepen actions in coordination with the Legislative Power, as well as local governments and churches.
He also announced a request for cooperation from international agencies such as the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union.
“I call for calm, for peace, to act with prudence, not to fall into provocations or calls to hatred. Let us inform ourselves correctly, each person plays a key role in the preservation of social peace that we as Costa Ricans have built for decades and enjoy today ” concluded the president’s message.
CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Uncertainty reigned in Venezuela Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro unveiled a major economic reform plan aimed at halting the spiraling hyperinflation that has thrown the oil-rich, cash-poor South American country into chaos.
People check prices of products in a street market in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 18, 2018. President Nicolas Maduro has unveiled a major economic reform plan that takes effect Monday.
Ahead of a major currency overhaul Monday, August 20, when Caracas will start issuing new banknotes after slashing five zeroes off the crippled bolivar, Maduro detailed other measures he hopes will pull Venezuela out of crisis.
Those measures include a massive minimum wage hike, the fifth so far this year.
But analysts say the radical overhaul could only serve to make matters worse.
“There will be a lot of confusion in the next few days, for consumers and the private sector,” said the director of the Ecoanalitica consultancy, Asdrubal Oliveros. “It’s a chaotic scenario.”
‘Pure lie’
The embattled Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, said the country needed to show “fiscal discipline” and stop the excessive money printing that has been regular practice in recent years.
The new currency, the sovereign bolivar — to distinguish from the current, and ironically named, strong bolivar — will be anchored to the country’s widely discredited cryptocurrency, the petro.
Each petro will be worth about $60, based on the price of a barrel of Venezuela’s oil. In the new currency, that will be 3,600 sovereign bolivars, signaling a massive devaluation.
In turn, the minimum wage will be fixed at half a petro (1,800 sovereign bolivars), starting Monday. That is about $28, more than 34 times the previous level of less than a dollar at the prevailing black market rate.
Maduro also said the country would have one fluctuating official exchange rate, also anchored to the petro, without saying what the starting level would be.
As it stands, the monthly minimum wage, devastated by inflation and the aggressive devaluation of the bolivar, is still not enough to buy a kilo of meat.
In the capital Caracas, residents were skeptical about the new measures.
“Everything will stay the same, prices will continue to rise,” 39-year-old Bruno Choy, who runs a street food stand, told AFP.
Angel Arias, a 67-year-old retiree, dubbed the new currency a “pure lie!”
1 million percent inflation
The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit a staggering 1 million percent this year in Venezuela, now in a fourth year of recession, hamstrung by shortages of basic goods and crippled by paralyzed public services.
Maduro blames the country’s financial woes on opposition plots and American sanctions, but admits that the government will “learn as we go along” when it comes to the currency redenomination.
His government pushed back Saturday against criticism of the economic reform plan.
“Don’t pay attention to naysayers,” Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said. “With oil income, with taxes and income from gasoline price hikes … we’ll be able to fund our program.”
Electronic transactions are set to be suspended from Sunday to facilitate the introduction of the new notes.
Economy in turmoil
Oil production accounts for 96 percent of Venezuela’s revenue, but that has slumped to a 30-year low of 1.4 million barrels a day, compared to its record high of 3.2 million 10 years ago.
The fiscal deficit is almost 20 percent of GDP while Venezuela struggles with an external debt of $150 billion.
Venezuela launched the petro in a bid for liquidity to try to circumvent US sanctions that have all but stamped out international financing.
But there’s a good reason the redenomination hasn’t generated renewed hope or investor confidence: Venezuela has done this before.
Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez stripped three zeroes off the bolivar in 2008, but that failed to prevent hyperinflation.
Also, Cryptocurrency rating site ICOindex.com has branded the petro a scam, and the U.S. has banned its nationals from trading in it.
The United States is sending a U.S. Navy hospital ship to Colombia to help treat some of the hundreds of thousands of people who have poured over the border fleeing violence in Venezuela.
Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Taryn Armington and Sonar Technician (Surface) Seaman Darian Joseph prepare to cast off mooring lines for the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters traveling with him to Washington from Bogata, Colombia, Friday that he would likely be sending the USNS Comfort based at Norfolk, Virginia.
Mattis said those he spoke with in Bogata were “embracing” and “enthusiastic” about the upcoming ship deployment, which he stressed was “absolutely a humanitarian mission.”
“We’re not sending soldiers, we’re sending doctors,” Mattis said, without providing details on when the ship would set sail.
Hospital ships are typically deployed to provide life-saving treatment and medical care and to relieve the pressure on national health systems.
The U.S. defense secretary said he was given specific input, such as where best to deploy the ship, during talks Friday with his defense counterpart and newly inaugurated Colombian President Ivan Duque.
“They (Colombian leadership) not only agreed in principle, they gave details of how we might best craft the cruise through the region,” Mattis said.
Chile, Argentina and Brazil — the other stops on his South America tour — also provided input on the hospital ship deployment, according to Mattis.
Aware of Venezuelan sensitivities, Mattis stressed the U.S. hospital ship would not go into Venezuela’s territorial waters.
A Venezuelan woman holds a girl at a health post for migrants in Cucuta, along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, July 16, 2018.
Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council, told VOA the situation in Venezuela has led to a migration crisis of global proportions “that is on track to potentially parallel or surpass the numbers that (have been) coming out of the Middle East.”
“If those migration numbers are not managed in an orderly, effective way, that has the potential to create greater instability in the countries to which migrants are going,” Marczak said.
As of June, an estimated 2.3 million people had fled Venezuela, mainly to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, according to the United Nations. U.N. officials reported at that time that more than half of those who fled were “suffering from malnourishment.”
The U.S. Navy has one other hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, which is based at San Diego, California.
USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy usually deploy for humanitarian missions with a diverse group of doctors on board hailing from multiple countries.
A lifelong Sandinista ideologue who fought in the final offensive against the Somoza dictatorship then headed the FSLN’s International Relations Department during the revolutionary government, Julio López Campos analyzes the challenges of today’s unarmed insurrection against the Ortega dictatorship.
Julio López Campos
I’ve known Daniel since we were both young. I was president of the Ramírez Goyena Institute’s student center and leader of the Maestro Gabriel High school, so among other things we hammered out an agreement together to organize an annual commemoration of the murder on July 23, 1959, of four university students by Somoza’s National Guard in León. Four…!
We were struggling against a dictatorship that had killed four youths and called it a massacre. That same Daniel Ortega is not only now a dictator himself, but is responsible for the murder of dozens of students in the past two months. I have trouble getting my head around it.
Before April 18, we political analysts had a hard time convincing people this government was a dictatorship. People’s memory of a dictator is someone who kills people, throws them in prison, tortures them, drops bombs on urban neighborhoods… We had to try to explain that this only happens at the end, when the dictatorship sees its power threatened. We kept reminding them that in the first 11 years of the Somoza dictatorship, between 1937 and 1948, Somoza only had one student killed: Uriel Sotomayor.
Nicaragua’s current situation has no precedent
I’ve never seen such a complicated situation in Nicaragua, or one with so much uncertainty about the country’s present and future. Nor have I ever seen Nicaragua subjected to the kind of criminal violence Daniel is now imposing on us. Never. The level of criminality is even worse than under the Somocista dictatorship.
I would never have thought a government with Sandinista roots could be capable of ordering the murder of unarmed people just for protesting. We know about confrontations, about conflicts, about death, but ordering people killed in such a cowardly and monstrous way is unacceptable for those of us who defend Sandinista values.
The repression is so brutal it has nothing to do with left, right or center, but rather poses an ethical and moral challenge we can’t ignore. It’s one we must face with the determination to do what has to be done to resist and defeat this policy of terror. These crimes can be neither justified nor pardoned.
Organized people were what made our effort possible
Exactly 39 years ago, we were in the final offensive in the insurrectionary struggle against Somoza. In June days like these, we went into Managua’s eastern barrios. Our plan was to engage the National Guard for three days, which we estimated would be enough to give the main battlefronts a breather. But we were still there after 15 days, virtually out of food and, even more importantly, munitions.
But we had been able to resist for so long because the population was organized and prepared. That organized participation by the majority of the people, not weapons, was the crucial factor that made our effort possible.
With the people finally desperate, we organized a retreat from Managua to Masaya. At the time, we saw it was a necessary tactical defeat, but it turned into a strategic success.
I’m telling this story because if we see ourselves on the defensive at some moments in today’s effort against this new dictatorship, it doesn’t mean we’re defeated. It means we have to use our ingenuity to move to a counter-offensive and multiply the people’s organizational capacities.
This resistance didn’t come from where we expected it
We’ve suddenly found ourselves facing an enormous unexpected challenge. Organizing people during these 11 years of the new Ortega government was really hard; anything we did was repressed, beaten down. Before April 18 there were only a few small mobilizations around different specific problems, including territorial resistance against mining, defense of water, earlier pensioners’ demands… In the end, the only tenacious resistance didn’t come from where we thought it would; it came from the countryside, from what we call deep Nicaragua, from the peasant movement opposing the canal because they felt their lands threatened.
They have sustained their challenge to the Ortega government for the past four years, infecting us with hope that has nourished us over these years.
They were the first “autoconvocados” or self-organized group of any size and determination. They weren’t organized by the FSLN, as traditionally happens, or by any other party. They autonomously created a force that began struggling against all the negative consequences they envisaged from that anti-patriotic canal law.
Little by little they moved progressively beyond their own specific demands to more national ones, making the leap from defense of their land to the defense of sovereignty. One of the things I like most about them is that they don’t have much confidence in us Managuans, in politicians or political parties in general. They are self-organized and intend to keep it that way.
That movement is the precursor to what we’re experiencing today, giving us leadership of a national timber such as Francisca Ramírez. Their hope and strength, as well as their physical participation, are also present today in today’s unarmed insurrection in very concrete and important ways.
Without such organized people, there’s no way we’re going to be successful. In that regard, the rest of us have a long way to go to reach the heights of valor demonstrated by those peasants for years and by our heroic youth in these past couple of months.
Ortega is the product of his experiences
The Daniel Ortega we’re seeing today has crossed all the lines of human decency. It’s impossible to understand him and the phenomenal cynicism we’re seeing—including the irregular forces he has put together to terrorize and punish us—without recalling some of the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s and even before the revolutionary victory.
All of us, the FSLN and the revolution included, are responsible for what Daniel Ortega is today.
You don’t emerge triumphant from an insurrectionary war against the Somoza dictatorship that cost the lives of nearly 50,000 people, followed by a dirty war financed by the Reagan administration and supported by the very national sectors he tried to win over this time—particularly big business and the Church—at the cost of roughly the same number of lives without learning to play political hardball.
Daniel would never be who he is today without those experiences, without the pact he made with corrupt Liberal leader Arnoldo Alemán and the gringos’ blessing of that pact, the backing of international bankers and all those who turned a blind eye to the intimidation, corruption and electoral fraud over the years.
Nor can the phenomenon of Daniel Ortega be understood without considering our long history of authoritarian caudillismo and of the perks, patronage and patrimonialism that have prevailed in our political culture right up to today. That’s why the challenge isn’t only to get rid of him, but also to transform Nicaragua so these things are put behind us, so no one like Daniel Ortega will ever have the possibility of appearing again.
All of us, the FSLN and the revolution included, are responsible for what Daniel Ortega is today. At the same time, it’s unfair to label what we’re seeing today as Sandinismo, because Daniel Ortega is no example of what Sandinismo stands for; he’s a deformation of it.
Know thy enemy
If we’re going to organize ourselves better, we not only need to know our opposition, but also have to recognize its strengths, because we’ll only discover the best ways to respond by looking at the challenge from its most complex angles. If I talk first about Daniel’s strengths, it’s not to discourage anybody, but rather to encourage us to struggle with even more determination and organization.
And to do that, we need to be very clear about the difficulties and obstacles we need to surmount.
1. Political experience. Daniel Ortega has accumulated political experience unmatched by those in the Civic Alliance seated at the national dialogue table. When we think of the interlocutors we have compared to Daniel, we have to recognize that we’re in a relatively weak situation in the dialogue. Daniel’s delegation has accumulated discipline and a single top-down command, while we have an alliance of unlikely bedfellows recently created by circumstance, still in formation and lacking solid lines of transmission with the people they represent.
2. A compromised police force. Daniel has an almost exclusive monopoly of force, weapons and repression. He has the National Police upper echelons on his side until the bitter end as they have become so compromised by his policy of crimes and genocide. For now I see no possibilities of major fissures in this armed force.
Many grassroots police officers are demoralized because they feel this wasn’t what they signed up for. But those who have resisted are being repressed and jailed, making it very hard for others to cross over to the people’s side. If the civic insurrection consolidates, if all social sectors show more decision, I’m sure more of those police officers will defect.
We’re living a de facto state of siege 24/7, with no guarantees for anything or rights for anyone.
3. An irregular army. Daniel has gotten away with creating an irregular army (a.k.a. parapolice, paramilitary, mob and thugs) made up of drug traffickers, gang members, former Army and Police members, and criminals pulled out of the jails to impose terror on the population. The creation of this irregular force demonstrates the extreme gravity of Nicaragua’s situation.
It’s absolutely unacceptable and no other country would permit it. Although Nicaragua’s Constitution means very little to this regime, it establishes that the country can only have two armed bodies: the Army and the Police. Yet this month we’ve been seeing an army of hooded men in the streets carrying weapons of war and threatening, jailing, killing and destroying…
We’re living a de facto state of siege 24/7, with no guarantees for anything or rights for anyone. Where are we supposed to go file charges if these hooded men stop, search and rob us? Who will defend us if they kill our brother or neighbor? Who will tell us why they burned our house, killed our child? Where do we go with any grievance whatever? And the situation in the barrios that have protested or resisted is one of total terror. Imagine living on a little street in one of these barrios where a couple hundred of these masked guys come along kicking down doors, shooting in the air, capturing people, killing…
Nothing like this policy of terror has ever happened in this country, and it’s on Daniel’s hands. He’s the one who has built this irregular army and imposed it on both society and the Police itself. We know how complex it is to put a body like this together and get it functioning all over the country. It doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t cheap. I’ll go so far as to say that if we can’t stop this band of hired guns that’s exercising uncontrolled violence all over the country we’ll all be condemned to suffer the worst subjugation of our history.
4. A regular Army doing nothing. Daniel has even imposed this strategy on the Army! There’s no justification for the Army Chiefs of Staff doing absolutely nothing to stop these caravans of hooded killers being driven around the streets of Managua and other cities in government vehicles. Without the army, so far nothing can stop this strategy of terror, and that is utterly unacceptable.
5. Crazies on his side. I recall an occasion in the early 1990s when Daniel ordered a particular action… The next day I asked him why he had chosen the person he had to do it. His answer was this: “You need to be crazy to do certain actions and only he could do what we asked.” I have no doubt whatsoever that those in charge of this irregular army have nothing to do with Sandinismo. They are madmen with criminal mentalities, people who get a kick out of this criminal policy.
6. Money. In addition to having the monopoly of force and repression, Daniel also has no lack of resources to finance this policy of death and terror, and all he has to do if he runs out is take some more out of the Central Bank to cover the expenses, as he has already done. His financial advantage is our disadvantage, as we don’t have money to better organize a grassroots resistance policy.
7. Control of the negotiations. Daniel Ortega has so far been willing to dialogue, but not to negotiate; he’s just buying time. He has strict control of what’s happening at the dialogue table and enjoys the total discipline of the people he chose for his delegation. They’re coordinated around a single top-down will and well-defined purpose. Again, his strength is our weakness; we don’t yet have everyone committed to a single-minded “everybody against the dictatorship” stance, because the Civic Alliance is laced through with petty and selfish private interests of all sorts.
8. Strong arguments for Washington. Daniel also has good negotiating points against US government pressure, since he knows the gringo agenda very well. I imagine his dialogue with US government representatives would go something like this: “If I go, what will fill the vacuum of power I leave behind? Who will guarantee stability for you here? Do you believe that kid Juan Sebastián Chamorro [economist, executive director of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Research] can guarantee it? Or old man Tünnermann [Carlos Tünnerman, ex-Sandinista militant, education minister, writer, ambassador and jurist, among other things]? [Both men are Civic Alliance representatives at the dialogue table].
You know very well that Nicaragua’s stability isn’t just in our interest, but also very much in yours! For one, an increase in the crisis and chaos here will trigger unstoppable migratory chaos. Moreover, a chaotic Nicaragua will have a huge ripple effect on Honduras and Guatemala, whose situations are already complicated. You’re very aware that I’ve erected a retaining wall against migration.
The Panamanians and Costa Ricans let the Cubans through, but I stopped them all at the southern border, and none have passed through here. You also know we’ve cooperated with you in the war on drugs as much as we possibly can. The same with money laundering: you know that whenever necessary you’ve enjoyed our full support, even though our financial institutions don’t have the capacity to control everything, but generally speaking we’ve complied. We’ve even let your troops come in to do their exercises and maneuvers…”
And so the dialogue would go on. “You reproach me because I’m a friend of Cuba. Obviously I am, because the Cubans have helped me since I was very young; they gave me shelter and gave us their solidarity. But we’re only friends of Cuba; we didn’t copy its model: we have a capitalist market economy, pluralism, elections… Remember that with your support we’ve received recognition for our macroeconomic stability policies from the Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Of course there are things I can’t control because we don’t have the means, but again generally speaking you’ve recognized what we’ve done. .”
My interpretation is that the gringos are sensitive to that discourse and would like to see this crisis have a “soft landing.”
9. A fearful business class. Another of Daniel’s strengths is that the business elite in the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) must be feeling the same panic as Washington about the creation of a power vacuum, an uncontrolled crisis in which there’s no “governability,” as they call it. And even though the business sector is at least nominally on our side in this struggle, Daniel’s strength is yet again our weakness as we can’t count on a business ally with enough backbone and patriotism to not waver.
I can understand their ambivalence. They’re coming from 11 happy years with Daniel Ortega in which they were able to do whatever they wanted in the economic terrain. They decided dozens of economic laws, and had all the facilities they could want on tax and other fiscal issues. Daniel was even more generous with them in that regard than Trump is with his wealthy allies. They also had investment stability, with zero strikes and a docile work force.
Every year the economy grew 4%, 4.5% and the banks’ profit rate was the highest in Central America. Foreign investors came in and had every possible privilege and no obstacles to increasing their earnings and freely repatriating all their profits. Having spent over a decade in that business heaven, it’s easy to see how a different Nicaragua is causing them uncertainty.
The most powerful business leaders, the ones who really decide things, don’t have a clear picture of the future, but we don’t have clarity about where we’re going at the moment either. The one thing I’m sure of is that there’s no chance of returning to that past model some dubbed “responsible populism.” I think we need to make a greater effort to truly win over at least a sector of the business class, convince them to shake off their fear and support the grassroots mobilization. We need to work even harder to consolidate a single voice with the greatest possible clout to impose itself over both the business people’s uncertainties and Daniel’s pretensions.
What are Daniel’s pretensions?
If we look at what’s happening in the country after over two months of resistance, we can see that Daniel is using his strengths in an effort to gradually restructure his base. At the beginning he couldn’t do anything; in fact his followers had to hide their little red & black flags to avoid being identified. A
s everybody from the barrios reported, even Sandinistas who had nothing to do with Daniel’s crimes felt fingered. Daniel’s first reaction was to create that irregular criminal army. Also, knowing perfectly well that the big landowners and other business leaders who had crossed to the other side of the dialogue table were cowards, he has more recently organized land takeovers so they can see what they’re losing by leaving him and supporting the people… Now, little by little, Daniel is re-establishing some of his base, although not everyone he had before April; he has lost some of them forever.
We mustn’t give him time to recuperate his forces, because if we don’t react quickly, we’ll face an even more complicated situation. The solution has to be now. We should never forget that even huge grassroots uprisings can also be defeated.
Let’s now look at some of our own strengths
Seeing the people’s strengths, I think we can win out even over all of Daniel’s. And I also think we can do it without using anything other than nonviolent struggle, which is the great challenge the people have set themselves.
1. Commitment to nonviolent struggle. The first and most important of our strengths that consistently catches my attention since April is the widespread determination of the majority of people to wage a nonviolent struggle against the most violent regime we’ve known in Nicaragua. It particularly surprises me given our history. First we won an armed revolutionary war, and now, 40 years later, our people have decided to win a new victory against another dictatorship, but this time without weapons. This can only be achieved by a people with a marvelous capacity to find its own path and agree on it in an absolutely fantastic way.
I keep telling people how much trouble I have seeing that not one contact bomb has appeared in Monimbó, for example. It’s a more offensive instrument than the homemade mortars people are shooting off, and it’s not like they don’t have the elements to make them. They not only know how to make them but also how to use them. Still more stunning is that we haven’t seen people take out rifles, even though everyone in the countryside has their .38 or .22 pistol or their hunting shotgun. That determination to win without resorting to weapons requires a great deal of strength. It also requires an incalculable capacity for sacrifice, which is the people’s greatest strength. I think that tells us a lot about their potential for victory over a couple that has up to now imposed its will over us. No, they can’t defeat a people with this kind of determination.
2. Unanimity of grassroots will. This unanimous determination to keep the struggle civic is shared by an unusual array of sectors, from the peasant movement to university students, the peoples of the Caribbean Coast and urban and rural neighborhoods all over the country. This capacity to bring together the different wills of so many people is a great strength.
3. Daniel’s loss of the people. Just as some of Daniel’s strengths are our weaknesses, his weaknesses also count as our strengths, and the fact that he has lost the people is one of the latter. As one peasant told me, the people have “switched.” Until April, many supported the government—70%, according to some polls—but following April’s criminal massacres of young people that started all of this, the latest polls show 70% now rejecting it. Whatever happens, Daniel has lost those people’s backing forever.
4. Control of the streets. Daniel has not only lost public opinion, his hegemony over the people; he has also lost control of the streets. Until very recently, that would have seemed impossible, because we knew what would happen if we protested on any street corner. Yet suddenly, in a matter of days, half a million people were out in the streets telling the governing couple to leave.
5. An undefinable strength. This population also has some mystifying strengths that we haven’t managed to interpret intellectually. I’ve been talking to people related to the kids dug in at the National Autonomous University in Managua (UNAN) and they don’t want to leave. They’ve decided that come what may, they aren’t giving up their barricades; they’re in it to the end. We’re seeing that same thing in the people at the roadblocks. Defending a roadblock on a highway with weapons is one thing, but doing it unarmed against people who are out to kill you is something else. To stay at your post at the roadblock or in the trenches unarmed requires a fierce volition that’s hard to explain.
All these strengths were summed up in a placard in one of the mega-marches: Daniel has lost the people, and the people have lost their fear.
Strengths and weaknesses in the international camp
I worked in the international field for a long time, and I have to say that throughout these 11 years the Ortega regime has covered its trail very well. No one could have imagined that we had an authoritarian, corrupt regime in Nicaragua, much less that a criminal one was gestating. For over a decade there has been total ignorance—willful or otherwise—of what was happening here and those most ignorant were our friends on the left. International surveys showed Nicaragua as one of the happiest countries on the planet and the Nicaraguan government enjoying the most widespread support.
Most people abroad who are friends of Nicaragua, of Sandinismo and/or of the revolution were delighted at how well things were going here.
Now that we suddenly find ourselves facing this new reality, a great number of people simply don’t believe what’s happening here. It’s admittedly hard to believe even for us living it. Some are clinging to the nostalgia of what that revolution meant for them, OAS secretary general Luis Almagro among them. The government is playing to that ignorance and/or nostalgia through a propaganda campaign in the media it controls by denying responsibility for the deaths.
At the same time that it’s sending its irregular army out into the streets to kill, it variously insists that the killers are either vandals or US-financed rightwing coup plotters while the government only wants peace. It even at times denies it’s happening at all; with the government media news portraying a very different country than the one people see in the streets.
Our weakness in breaking through that ignorance about what’s truly happening here is due to the success with which the regime has operated for years, as if it were wearing an invisibility cloak. Nobody gave it a second look, nobody worried about what was happening here, and those few of us on the left who did speak out were dismissed by the government and its supporters as rightwing converts. I could see it in my communications with people who care about us, who love and value Nicaragua.
Even now it’s virtually impossible to persuade them that this government is a band of murderers, of corrupt criminals. It’s all too sudden for them to grasp and denounce it and support us. We need to be honest in admitting that not everyone is on our side against these criminals. We haven’t convinced all the international forces we need, although we have won many over, and that’s a growing strength. We have to make a much greater effort to line up all the international stars behind us.
How can we correctly negotiate.
Daniel Ortega’s surrender?
Ortega can’t undo what he has done; he can’t go back. But the issue is to correctly negotiate his surrender because the cost could be terribly high if we don’t. Knowing our people, it also needs to be said in all honesty that the potential risk of sliding into armed civil war is one of the permanent dangers we’re facing and must avoid at all cost.
So what could pressure Daniel Ortega?
Given his experience, the only thing he respects is the correlation of forces. And I’m not talking about what could be expressed at a negotiating table. He isn’t the least bit bothered by four or five gentlemen telling him “You have to go.” He’s only able to respect the force of mobilized masses, so if we can’t re-establish the correlation of forces demonstrated in late April and May, it’s going to be hard to force him to negotiate.
We need more mobilization in the streets, more roadblocks, more barricades, more neighborhood and community organization, an indefinite work stoppage… in short a greater accumulation of forces to break the policy of terror he has imposed on us. If we can’t put together a counteroffensive that reverses this apparently unfavorable, terror-based correlation, forcing him to stop, the situation will get more complicated for us. I repeat, great uprisings in history have also been defeated.
“Everyone against the dictatorship”
From the very first moments in late April, people very wisely said two things have to be done: the repression has to stop and this bastard has to go! They said it that simply and that directly from the outset, recognizing that the other problems wouldn’t be that hard to resolve afterward.
That’s from our side. From the other side, we have to understand that Daniel Ortega truly believes he can reverse the situation. Even more incredible to me is the criminal emphasis of the options he has chosen to try to do so. He will exhaust all measures of terror to try to turn the situation around and negotiate in more favorable conditions. That’s the intention I see behind the terrorist policy he has unleashed and is why I think the first thing we have to do is agree to halt that repressive force, not only for ethical humanitarian reasons, but also to modify the correlation of forces. It’s crucial that we do so.
It’s extremely urgent to generate massive unity to strengthen the grassroots struggles. The optimum situation we must reach is “everyone against the dictatorship.” We don’t need great masses to sit down and negotiate, but we do need them to change the correlation of forces, and we need to keep struggling, motivating each other and increasingly organizing to achieve the profound changes the country needs.
I want to conclude by saying I’m confident Ortega is finished. My dream isn’t of victory, but for it to come at the least possible cost. I’m also confident there will never be another regime like Ortega’s in Nicaragua and I see very little possibility that we’ll have an Ortega-style FSLN in the future.
At the same time, however, I want to think we Nicaraguans will be capable of recovering the best of our inheritance, the legacy of Carlos Fonseca headed by Sandino and all the values of that man who struggled for justice and deserved “not only to be heard but to be believed” because he wanted nothing for himself, not even “a plot to be buried in.”
Comando Creativo mural in Caracas. (Comando Creativo)
People in difficult circumstances often develop a culture of making the best of a bad situation. Their jokes are often revealing. A common form of humor on the streets of Venezuela today consists in talking about “the time when we were rich and didn’t know it.”
Comando Creativo mural in Caracas. (Comando Creativo)
This is usually said with a kind of nostalgia, faced with something one can’t afford. The gist of this joke is that we had things good in the past under Hugo Chávez and foolishly took it for granted, but now…
As is often the case with nostalgic comments, this joke plays on a misperception – an anachronistic perspective – about what Chavismo was and what it really stood for. For the fact is that rather than being rich or better off what the Bolivarian Process really offered people in its best moment was dignity.
But that was known: people were quite conscious of it! So the joke about once “having been rich” only works because it touches upon and reenacts the now widespread tendency to trade material well-being for dignity as an ideal and reinterpret the Chavista past accordingly.
Another question that turns on the complex relation of the present to the past is how to fix the grave problems that Chavismo faces today: how to connect the movement with its more revolutionary recent past. Like the situation of Sandinismo in Nicaragua, present-day Chavismo seems like a sphinx posing a question for intellectuals. How far can you bend the stick of “progressivism” to the right before it loses its original character?
Of course, just as with the original Greek sphinx’s riddle, the correct answer to this one points back to the very subject to whom it is posed. That is because the intellectuals who have accompanied these processes – with our attitudes, limits and inclinations – are not separable from the way they have developed. We have played a role, even if largely a passive one, in the movements’ current derive.
Hence, in a dialectical way, we are called upon to interrogate, not just on an abstract level but also on a concrete one, how there could be a real rectification of the movements in which we participate. How did we get here? And how could we get back to the once revolutionary condition in which ideals such as dignity mattered more than mere material goods – that is, when we were much more left-leaning and dignified and did know it?
How Revolutionaries Can Intervene in “Reality”
The first question is a methodological one. Many people on the Left think that the way to go about making a revolutionary transformation is that, first, you or your group sets about conceiving the main points of its program. Then you try to persuade people to subscribe to these points, forming an ever-expanding movement. It’s as simple and straightforward as that.
But this is actually a false (essentially Enlightenment-informed) view of things. In part, its falsity lies in suggesting that thought is something merely subjective and internal. Thought is seen as a complex process which happens inside the head (perhaps as a set of neural processes or brain states), and then it is shared to become “intersubjective.” Conversely, in this view the outward world is understood to be something merely objective and thought-free: it is the lifeless order of things.
It should be pointed out that reformism – most often expressed in social democracy – always sees the situation in these terms. The reformist perspective locates objective conditions on the one side – plain old facts and stuff – and subjectivity on the other, but it does not consider how a subject’s intervention into the existing order of things might set things rolling…
Now Walter Benjamin, who was a great critic of reformism, saw things from a different perspective. In “Convolute K” of the Passagenwerk, there is a reflection that is key to Benjamin’s whole work and completely belies the view of him as an individualistic homme de lettres. Following some reflections on psychoanalysis, dreaming and sleep, Benjamin writes “much that is external to the individual is internal to the collective.” What this means is that the collective’s (“internal”) ideas, dreams, and projects are to be found in the individual’s (“external”) world – in its architecture, for example.
That, of course, is why Benjamin had the apparently Quixotic idea of finding the “subjective” impulse and motivation for the contemporary revolution in the phantasmagoric world and collective dreams expressed in the Paris arcades. Some of this certainly appears to be a bit utopian and far-fetched, but the idea of finding the revolutionary impulse outside of oneself as a material force is much less utopian (almost by definition if one is thinking about socialism!) than wagering on a project which begins inside of one’s head.
Looking for the Ghost of One’s Great Grandfather
Now if we jump to Latin America and the case of the young Hugo Chávez, we see that he thought along similar lines as Benjamin. He, too, felt that the collective revolutionary dream was to be found in the external world. That is why the young Chávez, before he became a public figure, tried to locate the impulse to the Venezuelan revolution by hunting down the footprints of “Maisanta” (Pedro Pérez Delgado), an early twentieth-century guerrillero who happened to be his great-grandfather.
In the 1970s, the young Chávez set out with binoculars and a map and began to look for traces of this nearly forgotten embodiment of popular resistance in the frontier area between Colombia and Venezuela. He even ended up spending a few days in a Colombian jail for it, having crossed the border in uniform with some grenades in his jeep! (Chávez said he “didn’t have a clear methodological framework, but there was something that pushed me and impelled me to [investigate Maisanta].”)
There is much more that could be said about the subversive conception of thought embodied in both Chávez’s and Benjamin’s projects. If we had more space here we could invoke the great Soviet philosopher Evald Ilyenkov’s work, which constantly combated the neurophysiological conception of thought and argued that ideality exists in “historically and socially established representations.” For now, however, we may go straight to Marx’s words from 1843, to the effect that “a material force must be overthrown by a material force… It is not enough for thought to strive for realization, reality must itself strive toward thought.”
These lines of Marx are famous, but too often the mention of arms in this same passage (“the criticism of arms,” etc.) has led readers away from the main point, which is that reality and matter must strive toward thought, if we are to have a revolution. A presupposition to Marx’s claim here is that there must exist potential thought – potential revolutionary thought – in the material and real environment. That is what both Benjamin and Chávez believed. If for Benjamin, revolutionary potential was to be found in the memory-labyrinth of the arcades, for Chávez it was in the living tradition of Maisanta and later Bolivar and others of the so‐called Tree with the Three Roots. That was the reality, the material force, which was striving toward thought.
It is in the engagement with such forces that revolutionary politics lies. There is no revolution to be found – and the history of reformism demonstrates this very clearly – in reality as something merely objective, on the one hand, or in thought as a merely subjective phenomenon, on the other. Revolutionary politics is to be found when we discover and incite an element of objective reality striving toward thought. It might be called “Bolivar” in Venezuela, just as it could have to do with the Parisian built environment in another context.
The Multi-Layered Present of Chavismo
Now, this methodological perspective has an important bearing on the post-Chávez present in Venezuela too. Today, technocratic sectors of the Bolivarian Process believe that the way out of our crisis – “la salida” – is simply to conceive what is needed and do it! In the worst version of this approach, even anti-Chavistas like Carlos Vargas (who oversaw the Petro cryptocurrency project) are seen as having something to teach us. Bright young people from either camp should join hands! We should just think about what needs to be done and go from there! Similarly, the socialdemocratic tendency shows an excessive focus on questions of macroeconomic policy, which are surely important but neither the starting point nor the framework for recovering the revolutionary character of the Bolivarian process.
Both are versions of (the Enlightenment) idea of dividing the world into what is given (objective) and what needs to be done (subjective). They are not revolutionary at all. By contrast, most of the serious and engaged Left in Venezuela understands that the success of the project depends on finding a revolutionary possibility that is latent in actually-existing Chavismo and activating it. This would be a suppressed tendency pointing toward a different-possible-future-for-Chavismo than the actual one. Where could one find this missed possibility: this other road that was not pursued at an important historical bifurcation?
Now, many people understand that Chavism was always a mixed affair, incorporating different layers or tendencies. The movement was clearly drawn in two or more directions, often at the same time. This complex dynamic is seen most clearly in the way that, after 2007, a bureaucratic involution in vast sectors of Chavismo was accompanied by theoretical developments pointing in the opposite direction: toward a substantive democracy. Beginning around 2010, Chávez himself speculated very rigorously about communal forms that would implement a democratic control of the production process. Yet, although this tendency came alive in some small and isolated experiments, it was never the dominant one in the movement.
With Chávez’s death the aspiration to substantive democracy was definitely pushed to the background. As a result of the power struggle among the surviving leadership and the local ramifications of the global economic crisis, the communal project became subaltern. This is what leaves Venezuela’s revolutionary left – the one that realizes that the revolution depends on reality striving towards thought – with the urgent task of figuring out how to activate this latent revolutionary reality that was passed over by the dominant, bureaucratic tendency.
What Is Left of the Left?
The profound crisis of the twenty-first-century Latin American political processes, in which Venezuela has played a key role, has led some analysts to doubt if there is a Left anymore in certain contexts or to declare the end of a cycle of “progressive” governments. In fact, a whole body of writing and opinion has rapidly emerged that speculates, in a strange but surely symptomatic manner, about the end of the “progressive” cycle.
This kind of thesis is obviously problematic because of its hastiness, but it also needs refinement to either substantiate or refute its claims. What do we mean by “Left” in the political sense? If we argue, following Norberto Bobbio, that the essential feature of the Left is that it defends equality and add that the socialist left defends substantive equality, then the thesis of the Left’s disappearance relates directly to the situation described above. The socialist left tendency – the one seeking substantive equality through communal and collective control of production – is now repressed but latent in the Bolivarian process. It has not exactly disappeared.
That is to say, if the thesis of the Left’s disappearance or Götterdämmerung is not to be simply defeatist, then it must abandon the idea that the given order of things consists only of the dominant tendency (“disappearance” or “twilight”) without any latent revolutionary striving toward thought. That is to say, one must read the situation in Venezuela against the grain to discover the revolutionary counter-tendency,
In today’s Venezuela, important sectors of the Left are aware of this complex dynamic. The series of “Chávez Radical” videos, produced by Tatuy TV, points in this direction as do the now quite visible struggles between comunero Chavismo and the bureaucratic variety in such places as El Maizal commune and in the recent Admirable Campesino March. In the struggle of these groups, the revolutionary reencounter between the subject and object is proposed in the most concrete and meaningful terms through the comuneros’ reappropriation of their labor conditions.
The task for the revolutionary Left in Venezuela today is to find those hidden possibilities that allow a re-encounter with this latent aspect of Chavismo and make our “tiger’s leap into that which has gone before.” The worst we could do is try to make a fresh beginning and hope for a tabula rasa. For the imagined tabula rasa is the terrain in which the existing forces will always dominate. Revolutionary politics, by contrast, depends on the interpenetration of the subjective with the objective and defends what István Mészáros has described as the “historical urgency of an active, radical intervention of social consciousness in the ongoing struggles.”
The views expressed by by Chris Gilbert in this article are the author’s own.
A seller offers handkerchiefs reading in Spanish "Church and state — Separate issues" in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 18, 2018. People formed lines Saturday as part of a nationwide movement in the homeland of Pope Francis to renounce their religious affiliation.
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — Hundreds of people gathered in Buenos Aires Saturday to oppose the influence of religion on Argentine politics and encourage people to quit the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of a Senate vote not to legalize some abortions.
A seller offers handkerchiefs reading in Spanish “Church and state — Separate issues” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 18, 2018. People formed lines Saturday as part of a nationwide movement in the homeland of Pope Francis to renounce their religious affiliation.
The event, called “Collective Apostasy,” centered on a signature drive for Argentines wanting to renounce their affiliation to the church through a form that will later be given to the Episcopal Conference in the homeland of Pope Francis.
People formed long lines in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities, and organizers hoped thousands would officially register their desire that the church not interfere in Argentine politics and that their names be eliminated from its registries.
“We are receiving the apostasies of all the people who want to renounce their ties to the Catholic Church,” said one of the organizers, Maria Jose Albaya.
The movement is led by the Argentine Coalition for a Secular State and its backers often wear orange scarves.
A woman fills out a form to renounce her religious affiliation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 18, 2018. People renounced their religion nationwide after a bill to legalize elective abortions in the first 14 months of pregnancy was rejected by senators in recent weeks.
“Obtaining the vote for women, the divorce law, marriage equality, the gender identity law, the assisted human fertilization law, the law of integral sexual education, the dignified death law were all done fighting clerical power, which seeks to have total dominion over our minds and bodies,” the event’s manifesto published on social media said.
Saturday’s event follows the rejection by the Senate in early August of a bill that would have legalized abortion in the first 14 weeks, a vote that was seen as being swayed by the Catholic church.
About two-thirds of Argentina’s 43 million residents define themselves as Catholic, but there is rising discontent with the church amid sex abuse scandals and the historic defeat of the vote to legalize abortion.
The Argentine Episcopal Conference and the Archbishopric of Buenos Aires did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Police officers patrol a street in the working-class neighborhood of Caimbe on Boa Vista's west side where most Venezuelan immigrants live, Roraima state, Brazil November 18, 2017.
BRASILIA — Angry residents of a Brazilian border town, Pacaraima, ran riot and drove out Venezuelan immigrants on Saturday after a local restaurant owner was stabbed and beaten, residents and government officials said.
Police officers patrol a street in the working-class neighborhood of Caimbe on Boa Vista’s west side where most Venezuelan immigrants live, Roraima state, Brazil November 18, 2017.
The demonstrations forced hundreds of Venezuelans to flee back across the frontier on foot and residents set fire to the belongings they left behind and to tires to block the only road crossing between the two countries, video images released by the state of Roraima government showed.
The outburst of anger was sparked by the robbery and severe beating of a resident in his home on Friday night, Roraima state security secretary Giuliana Castro said by telephone.
After crossing back into their country, Venezuelans attacked a group of 30 Brazilians who were shopping across the border and who had to be taken to a shelter, Castro said.
Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for information.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have poured over the border into Roraima state over the last few years, fleeing economic and political turmoil in their country. The influx has overwhelmed the state’s social services and brought a rise in crime, prostitution and disease, as well as incidents of xenophobia, Brazilian government officials say.
A Pacaraima resident who asked to be identified only as Ismael said by telephone that four Venezuelans allegedly entered the restaurant owner’s home, tied him and his wife up and stabbed and beat the man severely before robbing his house.
“The people here are up in arms. They are burning the belonging of Venezuelans who were camped out here,” Ismael said.
He said police were looking for the four men.
“Out, out, out, go back to Venezuela,” demonstrators shouted at the Venezuelans as they rushed passed the border post carrying what they could, video images distributed by the Roraima government showed.
The four Venezuelan suspects stole $5,800 from the restaurant owner, identified only as Raimundo. He suffered head injuries and was taken to hospital unconscious but was reported to be out of danger, Castro said.
Brazilian army soldiers stationed at Pacaraima to help maintain order asked Venezuelan immigrants to return across the border for their own safety, Castro said.
Venezuela’s economy has been in steep decline and there are periodic waves of protests against the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro argues that he is the victim of a Washington-led “economic war” designed to sabotage his administration through sanctions and price-gouging.
“The only people responsible for this tragedy are Maduro and his gang,” tweeted Venezuelan opposition politician Ismael Garcia about the flare-up in Brazil.
The Roraima government has declared the immigration influx a social crisis and asked Brazil’s federal government to close the border, which it will not do for humanitarian reasons.
