Same procedure as last year

Just like last year, queues are these days part of everyday life on and along the Inter American Highway in Northern Nicaragua. One queue of landless coffee workers and another of vehicles.

By Christian Korsgaard

11. September 2002

Just like last year, queues are these days part of everyday life on and along the Inter American Highway in Northern Nicaragua. One queue is made up of landless coffee workers waiting along the highway for volunteer food donations. The other of vehicles, whose passage on the road is frequently blocked by the coffee workers, in an attempt to gain central government’s attention.

It does in fact, with a few exceptions, seem like “same procedure as last year” – a repetition of images, tears, fears and frustrations that make the spectator wonder if this is in fact 2002?

The stakeholders and problems are the same: A global overproduction of coffee maintains prices on the international marked so low that growing coffee in Nicaragua results in losses rather than gains. As a consequence, mayor coffee haciendas around the Matagalpa area have laid off massive numbers of landless and temporary workers, who have then gathered along the highway. For the past four months they have been waiting for the government to respond to their hopeless situation, but no fruitful dialogue has been established.

Crisis more severe

Even so, things aren’t quite the same this year. Several elements have changed, including the severity of the crisis. As a result of the crisis last year, many haciendas simply abandoned the coffee fields, which weeds and wildlife then took over. Local estimations are that this year’s coffee harvest could turn out to be an amazing 70 percent lower than last year. For a poor country like Nicaragua where coffee is not only part of the national pride and identity, but also the most important export crop, the economic and social consequences of such a drop are devastating.

This year, roadside camps emerged earlier in the North, and critical situations quickly became part of everyday life. As many as 15 children have died of malnutrition in the primitive camps, where access to water and sanitary installations are also scarce. Due to lack of food, defenses are generally low, and diarrhea, parasites and infections of all kinds flourish among both children and adults.

Fundamental changes needed

But just like the problem this year seems to be bigger, so does the Nicaraguan populations will to help the unfortunate coffee workers. Taking advantage of the generally strong nationalist sentiments during the month of September (Independence Day is September 14), several religious organizations and media have organized recollections of food, medicine and clothes for the “troubled brethren in the North”. So even though the workers along the roadside still claim that not enough help is arriving, the fact is that Nicaraguans not affected directly by the crisis, seem to have taken more conscience this year.

However, the type of help offered by ordinary people can be nothing but a vague attempt to ease the hunger in the camps. More fundamental solutions are needed if the same images are not to become frontpage news in 2003 as well. Unfortunately, the government’s strategy seems to be an attempt to stall the workers, maintain them alive and in the North away from the capital, until harvest resumes in November/December this year.

Better organization

The workers this year also seem to have learned from experiences in 2002, and their demands are expressed more directly and in writing: more jobs, better healthcare, access to education, housing and financial assistance to the owners of the haciendas, in order to make it worthwhile to start growing again. The government of Enrique Bolaños is at present facing a mayor political and legal task in trying to make ex–president Arnoldo Alemán face trial on charges of money laundering and electoral fraud. This task is evidently consuming almost all political interest in the country, leaving coffee workers very much on their own.

Camps have been spread out in the area North of Matagalpa for some months, but this week a mayor camp of some 2000 people were established just South of the city of Sébaco, an important gateway to the all of the Northern territories. Camps are maintained in the North, though these have now clearly become smaller as people have started moving South, towards the capital of Managua.

MS Central America’s partner organization UNAG Matagalpa is actively taking part in the organization and formulation of political demands of the workers, and a Danish development worker will on a more permanent basis feed these pages with information on life in the camps.

Christian Korsgaard, information worker, MS Central America