cries@mtxinu.COM (09/02/89)
/* Written 6:09 pm Aug 30, 1989 by cries in ni:cries.regionews */
/* ---------- "C.Rica: Challenge to Politicians" ---------- */
COSTA RICA: A CHALLENGE TO THE POLITICIANS
(cries.regionews from Managua August 30, 1989
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The biggest protest ever during the three years of the Oscar
Arias administration began on August 21 with more than 20
organizations in the Atlantic province of El Limon waging a
general strike in order to pressure the government to meet a
list of 225 demands. Protest organizers agreed to call off
the strike on August 24 after the government agreed to sit
down with them and negotiate.
The strike in El Limon, immediately declared illegal by the
Labor Tribunal, was led by a coalition calling itself the
Permanent Council for the Study of and Solution to the
Problems of El Lim"n (CPESPEL) which brought together more
than 20 popular organizations. Their long list of demands
includes condonation of campesino debts and financing for
housing and fishing projects in the region. Salary demands
do not figure in the list. Inhabitants of El Limon feel that
the central government has long ignored the needs of their
region.
The strike on the Atlantic shut down the banana harvest,
port activity, and rail and highway transport. The
government was losing an estimated $700,000 a day in
potential revenues because of this labor stoppage in key
sectors of the nation's economy. Hundreds of Civil and Rural
Guards (Costa Rica's equivalent of an army) were mobilized
to remove the barricades that strikers set up and to try to
maintain order. The main health center in the municipality
of El Limon was shut down and fears of the spread of disease
arose due to the quantity of garbage that was left
uncollected in the streets.
The protest struck a chord of sympathy elsewhere in the
country with railworkers, dockworkers, and other
organizations expressing their moral, and active,
solidarity. Dockworkers in the Pacific ports of Puntarenas
and Calderas stopped their labors, a move which placed even
more economic pressure on the government and helped force it
to back down and agree to the idea of negotiating a
solution. Catholic Church leaders in El Limon acted as
intermediaries in order to arrange for talks to take place.
Negotiations will be held over 177 of the protesters'
demands. The government, which earlier had insisted that the
strike stop be called off before talks could begin, appears
to have managed to forestall a potential loss. This
government tactic was used last year against disgruntled
farmers and resulted in the popular movement losing steam
and their demands being only partially met or completely
shelved. Coming just six months before Costa Rica's general
elections, this protest movement could potentially affect
the development of the electoral campaign.
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