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Support for CRF victims’ struggle grows
Boycott against Flor de Caña rum
Attacks against ANAIRC
reveal that
the company is losing
its calm
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Alan Obando Angúlo |
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Mónica Baltodano |
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Carmen Ríos |
The
threats made against the Nicaraguan Association of People Affected by
Chronic Renal Failure (ANAIRC) and its leaders seem to be
backfiring, having the opposite effect than that intended by the people
who have orchestrated a defamation campaign against this organization of
former sugarcane workers.
To
counteract these outrageous attacks, various organizations and
individuals inside and outside the country have taken an interest in the
cause and have publicly demonstrated their support for ANAIRC’s
struggle by visiting the protest campsite or expressing their solidarity
in national and international media.
One of
the focal points of the strategy against ANAIRC is to try to
generate confusion among the population and the sugarcane workers
themselves, making them believe that the goal of ANAIRC is to
close down Ingenio San Antonio and the facilities of Compañía
Licorera de Nicaragua S.A. (CLNSA).
In the
more than ten letters sent by ANAIRC to Mr. Carlos Pellas,
president of the Pellas Group, it is more than evident that the
only demand made by the former sugarcane workers and the widows of this
organization is that a negotiation table be set up to work towards an
agreement regarding the compensations for the health damages suffered by
the victims.
“For more than 40 days now
we’ve been demanding that Mr. Carlos Pellas listen to our demands and
honor our right to be compensated as former Ingenio San Antonio workers
affected by CRF”
–said Alan Obando Angulo, a member of ANAIRC’s Governing
Committee, speaking in front of the Pellas Building, where the former
sugarcane workers gather every morning to protest.
“We
also want to be clear that we have never said that we wanted Ingenio
San Antonio and Licorera to close down. That is not our
demand, because the only thing we want is to be compensated. Now -Obando
continued- two individuals from the company’s white unions
(employer-controlled unions), which have always played along with
Ingenio San Antonio, have come here to insult and even threaten our
people, but we’re not going to back down, because we are men and women
of convictions.”
Our
struggle is a peaceful struggle. You won’t see us raising sticks or
stones or weapons of any kind. We will only raise our voices, until our
demands are answered. Six of our members died last week and another
three are critical. The company can’t go on ignoring our demands,” the
ANAIRC leader concluded.
Support grows
Groups
of students of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN
Managua) have expressed their solidarity with the CRF victims
that are protesting in Managua, while another group of young people
opened a page on Facebook to pressure Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd. (NSEL),
a Pellas Group company, launching a boycott campaign against the
famous Flor de Caña rum that is quickly spreading to several
countries.
Another
expression of support came from congresswoman Mónica Baltodano,
who visited the ANAIRC campsite last week with members of her
party, the Movimiento por el Rescate del Sandinismo.
“We’re
here to learn why they are protesting and to commit our support to this
and all other struggles that seek to defend the rights of those excluded
by capitalism, as we fight to change the system by uniting all
marginalized sectors,” Baltodano said.
A major
concern voiced by the congresswoman when she spoke with
Sirel was the silence
of the mass media, its failure to report on the protest of the former
sugarcane workers of ANAIRC. “It’s a struggle that is not covered
by the media because it affects the interests of the Pellas Group,
and the media doesn’t want to risk losing their advertising accounts.
These are the methods employed by large corporations and we have to
break the wall of silence imposed by the Pellas Group,” she said.
With
regards to the incidents of violence and threats against ANAIRC
leaders perpetrated by Ingenio San Antonio’s white unions,
Baltodano said that such incidents could be a response to “the
boycott campaign launched by a group of young people against the Flor
de Caña rum, because that is something that hits the company hard
and makes it react violently. The communication issued against ANAIRC
president Carmen Ríos is a really foul move, and it most
certainly has financial backing from somewhere, most possibly the (Pellas)
family itself. It’s typical of the powerful to use poor and disadvantage
sectors of the population to confront any groups that are fighting for
their rights.”
“As
congresswoman –Baltodano added– I commit my support and promise
to participate in the meeting that ANAIRC will hold with other
members of congress, to ask my colleagues to support the victims, so
that they can make themselves heard by Mr. Pellas, to appeal to
his humanity and make him see how these people are suffering, how his
company has hurt them with its policy of exploitation and massive
application of agrotoxic chemicals,” she concluded.
Baltodano
also
called for greater State intervention to find a rapid solution to this
very difficult situation that the former sugarcane workers and widows
are going through.
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