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| WORLD.

- Regional states can learn
_ from Nicaragua’s expertise

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — A month after the un-

just and illegal economic embargo of Nicaraguan pro-
ducts by Washington started last May, the Sandinista
government decided, understandably, to try and find
alternative markets. Among the exports for which it
sought new buyers was bananas of which some five
million boxes were shipped overseas annually when
trading with the U.S. was permitted.
_ The new venture succeeded. Through its new banana
export institution, complete with a fleet of refrigerated
ships, the new revolutionary government in Managua
began to sell practically all of its export crop in Europe
and the United Kingdom. Orders for the succulent and
firm Nicaraguan fruit came in thick and fast into the
agency's European office in Ghent, Belgium.

Among those who eagerly sought out the Nicaraguan
fruit was the British consumer. For one thing, it was
cheaper — British wholesalers were buying the bananas
for £300 per metric tonne compared to the £472 for those
coming from other countries such as the Anglophone
Caribbean banana producing nation states.

The former British colonies in the Caribbean export- ©

ing bananas are St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent,

Dominica and Jamaica, which together exported about

| Winnie Mandela (centre) accused the Botha regime
of generating false rumors of the imminent release

__ of Nelson Mandela in a bid to bolster the failing
rand.

~e<~Protest apartheid pioy-—--—-— the. regional media was calling “a

From the
Caribbean

Norman
Faria

eight million boxes every year — mainly on the UK
market. 2

As the Nicaraguan fruit came on the British market,
there were of necessity problems of competition in the
anarchical market system. Prices began dropping for the
Caribbean fruit. Poor farmers, already impoverished by
the monopolistic control of distribution and even
production through the ownership of some banana
plantations by the British multinational corporation
Geest Industries, could have been put out of business.
Appeals were made by the Caribbean producers who are
grouped in the Windward Islands Banana Growers
Association (WINBAN) to the Banana Trade Advisory
Council in London to cut down on licenses issued to
Central America, including Nicaraguan bananas.

As in the past, the developing countries were clearly
pitted against each other. Lamentably, the four islands in
WINBAN are not members of the Union of Banana
Exporting Countries (UBEC) to which Nicaragua and
ne bulk of banana-producing countries world-wide be-
ong.

The main reason why Nicaraguan bananas are popu-
lar, in addition to being cheaper, is because of the
superior quality of the fruit. There are few blemishes and
the skin on the fruit is firm and healthy looking — unlike
WINBAN products.

In November, the Friends of Nicaragua, a solidarity
organization in Barbados, wrote the Chairman of the St.
Lucia based WINBAN urging the umbrella group to
approach the Nicaraguans with the view of settling what
a_war’” around,
the table. Among the possibilities, suggested the Friends
of Nicaragua, was the sharing by the Nicaraguan ag-
ronomists their vast technical know-how which Domi-
nican MP Roosevelt Douglas said was ‘‘at least a de-
cade”’ ahead of that existing in the Anglophone banana-
producing countries.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — NORMAN FARIA

Dominican MP Rosie Douglas (right) in discussion with
chairman of the Barbados-based Friends of Nicaragua
and Tribune correspondent Norman Faria shortly before
Douglas left for Managua. :

Douglas, who has just returned from Nicaragua after a
two-week, fact-finding visit there, told the Tribune that
invitations have already been sent out from Managua to

,WINBAN inviting them to Nicaragua to examine

production techniques in the Central American country.

““They grow bananas on flat land and through UBEC
based in Panama with whom I also had discussions.
Their research is at least a decade ahead of ours in the
Eastern Caribbean and they are able to produce a better
quality banana,”’ said Douglas in Barbados on his way
home.

He also criticized the Eugenia Charles government in
his homeland for not improving the lot of the country’s
banana farmers and the industry as a whole which has
seen its exports plummet from a high of 47,000 tonnes in
1978 to 32,000 tonnes in 1985. ‘‘Before people like
Eugenia Charles can accuse Nicaragua (of any wrong
doing) they first of all have to make the best land avail-
able for the cultivation of bananas here in the islands,”’
argued Douglas. In this regard, he noted that the large
plantations in the island only produced five per cent of
the crop while 90 per cent are grown on ‘‘very bad
conditions’’ by poor farmers.

“Without land reform, we (in the Caribbean) may as
well forget about bananas,’’ added Douglas about a fruit
which makes up the bulk of most of the agricultural
sector in the four WINBAN islands. Additionally, both
Douglas and such organizations as the Friends of Nica-
ragua are urging WINBAN to join UBEC and demand
that the U.S. lift the boycott of Nicaraguan exports.

Said Douglas: ‘‘The answer lies in cooperation with
Nicaragua rather than slander against our regional
neighbour.”

=. me

_ INTERNATIONAL FOCUS Tom Morris

How Reagan
_remembers Cuba

In his painfully long presi-
dency, Reagan has repeatedly
taxed weary listeners with the

depth of his stupidity.

But, just when you think
he’s hit bottom, out comes

another gem designed to test
your patience. It’s hard to
know whether to laugh or cry.

Speaking from Grenada, .

Feb. 20, Reagan thought long
and hard. He then said: ‘‘Let’s
show Castro and his gang how
freedom works ... In Cuba,
Castro has turned a once thriv-

Havana in Reagan’s day: a playground amidst poverty.

ing economy into a_ basket
case.’

Reagan’s advisers may not
have told him of the achieve-
ments of the Cuban revolution
in its 27 years. Or perhaps he
doesn’t care about education,
jobs, health care, indus-
trialization, decent housing
and hope where once there was
despair.

Reagan, who lives in the
past, recalls a Cuba run by its
local dictators and imported
mafia. He yearns for the ca-
sinos and whorehouses; the
Desi Arnazes and sugarcane
profits.

Havana in Reagan’s day was
a weekend retreat for rich ac-
tors and a tax haven for Ameri-
can gangsters. For Ron and the
boys it was wine, women and
song.

Who the hell cared about the
grinding poverty, the 12 year-
old prostitutes, hungry kids,
police torture centres or mass
illiteracy? After all, the city
looked great. from atop the
Havana Hilton and the waiters
smiled a lot.

-That’s. ‘‘Ronald Reagan’s

Cuba,’ his ‘“‘thriving econ-
omy’’. He wants Machado and
Batista back; he wants his
playground back.

The man is either stupid or
sick. Either way he’s dan-
gerous.

Five hours and
28 toilets later

Television viewers watching
Reagan’s Grenada trip may
have been impressed (shock-
ed, appalled, mystified?) when
thousands turned out to see
him during his five-hour visit.

Not so mystifying: Feb. 20
was declared a national holi-
day by the Blaize regime.
Buses ferried people free to
Queen’s Park in St. George’s
where Reagan, flanked by his
entourage of regional and local
hacks, spoke. Amazingly,
hundreds of little U.S. flags
appeared in the crowd, attest-

-ing to a news report that the

visit was ‘minutely orches-
trated’’. .
The garishness of it all was
enhanced by _ schoolchildren
singing new words to Woody

Guthrie’s ‘‘This land is your
land ...’’, taught to them days
earlier, which now said:
‘‘From California to the Spice
Island ...”

Two limousines, the presi-
den’s private drinking water
and 28 toilets accompanied
Reagan for the drop in. (I leave
it to you to imagine why he
needed 28 toilets for a five hour
Visit).

In addition, the circus
brought two bomb-sniffing
dogs. Here, there’s another
touch of irony added to the fact
that Reagan landed on the
same airstrip he had earlier
used as ‘proof’ of a ‘‘Soviet
threat’’.

Queen’s Park, where
Reagan spoke, was the site of a
1981 CIA-backed bomb attack
during a meeting at which the
leadership of the revolutionary
government was present. Two
young girls died, 97 others
were injured.

Certainly, among the crowd
greeting Reagan were the crim-
inals who planted that bomb,
freed from jail days after the
Marines landed.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 5, 1986 « 13