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Costa Arm And A Leg
Heading into Nicaragua from the
Costa Rican tourist resorts, you
may be forgiven for thinking
that the people are good at
speaking foreign languages
because the majority of roadside
adverts selling sports cars,
land deals and financial
services are all in English.
Scantily clad women meanwhile,
flog booze and fags in Spanish.
This is an investor's paradise
where if you can't make it, at
least you can get pissed. "Costa
Rica is being sold as a
playground for rich North
Americans" says Pepe, a bar
worker from the Playa Coco
resort in the North of the
country, "none of the businesses
here belong to Costa Ricans.
We're all being pushed into the
countryside. Gringos practically
own the whole coast and we can't
afford to buy anything anymore."
In a recent publication on
poverty reduction, the World
Bank said that neoliberalism was
the best way to 'develop' poor
countries. Bank officials argued
that people could "move from the
vulnerability of grinding rural
poverty to better jobs, often in
towns or cities".
Leona disagrees. She's an
activist working with sweatshop
workers in Nicaragua. There's no
doubt, life in the countryside
is tough, "You've got to borrow
money from the bank to buy seeds
and this means mortgaging the
land. But the way things are at
the moment, with the droughts
and harvest failures, you can't
earn enough money to pay back
the loan and the bank takes your
land. People say: 'what's the
point of that?' and leave the
countryside for the city."
"But we live in a poor city, a
really poor city. We consume
more than we produce," says
Andrea, a charity worker,
"several years ago the city was
happy. Now its sad, very sad."
The only 'formal sector' work on
offer is in the local Maquila, a
sweatshop factory on the edge of
town. The Maquilas operate in
tax-free environments and in
Nicaragua are generally owned by
US, Taiwanese or Korean clothes
companies.
The high value stages of making
things like jeans such as design
and marketing take place in
Paris, London and New York.
Maquilas are here to contract
out the assembly stage. Being
able to force women to sew
thousands of t-shirts a day is
one benefit, but with 70%
unemployment, Nicaragua offers
an even bigger advantage for the
profit hungry men in suits: Low
wages. This is the world of
'just in time manufacturing'.
Business is booming and profits
are good.
"But the Maquilas are a
disaster", says Leona. And, if
workers want out, "you get no
compensation, they withhold your
wages and you can't get social
security". So what do they do,
asks SchNEWS? "Move to Costa
Rica!" replies Andrea. "If you
want to leave those infernos,
the only option is to emigrate."
Just before Christmas the Costa
Rican border town of Penas
Blańcas, heaves with Nicaraguans
returning to their families
after working in the plantations
and sweatshops and as domestic
servants in Costa Rica.
Although the local newspaper
says that record numbers are
crossing the border, many
workers are no longer returning
to their families. Juan, a
campesino from just over the
border in Nicaragua, earns less
than 50p a day and has a family
of nine to support, "I haven't
seen or heard from my two eldest
sons for over ten years." He
suspects they're too embarrassed
to admit they haven't made their
riches down south in Costa Rica.
And there are certainly riches
to be made! A Maquila
worker in Costa Rica can bring
home almost us$1.85 per hour,
that's over triple the 55 cents
per hour in Nicaragua.
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