UPDATE FOR APRIL

April 2009 Letter

Greetings:

We’ve been busy here in Nicaragua the last month and a half which is why this update is late.  Figuring out the best way in which to survive the financial crisis is a challenge; its effect cannot be underestimated and it has put most aid organizations in a difficult position regarding continuing current programs and garnering funds for new initiatives.

Usually I don’t make a request for funds during newsletters but this month I’m making an exception:
Some sad and difficult news – Virgillio, a good friend, and one of 5 principal participants in the cane worker documentary we are making about the kidney failure epidemic, passed away on April 20.  He is the fifth and last of the first 5 men we interviewed to die.  He was 32, a father of 4.  We’re so small and we’re doing what we can to help this problem but at times it feels like poking a rabid tiger in the eye with a stick.  We really and truly need support; in reality, these men and their families have only us, as the Nicaraguan government has no money, and the company most likely responsible for the epidemic has ignored the situation and denied any responsibility.

It has been a tough couple of weeks as we also lost a legend, Rigoberto Sampson Granera of UNAN-Leon, the university in Nicaragua we work with.  He was the rector, a strong and solid man who was incredibly supportive of what we’re trying to achieve.  Without him our alliance with UNAN-Leon was impossible. We’re thankful for the time he gave us.  We’ve lost an incredible ally and a good friend to La Isla.  My heart and thoughts go out his son and the rest of the family.

We decided now is a good time to develop means to make ourselves more independent, and give us the ability to survive inevitable downturns by providing goods and services that could not only support administrative costs and be put toward program budgets, but also fulfill the goals of our stated mission.  The ultimate objective is to cover all of our administrative costs with these programs while also directly aiding the community and educating the public.

A very exciting bit of news is that we’ve found a way to subvert the steel grip the Pellas Group has on the media in Nicaragua. The Pellas Group are the owners of the sugar plantation where most of the sick men work and is the largest conglomerate in Central America, ironically based out of Nicaragua, its poorest country.  There has been a near complete media blackout on this issue because of the advertising revenue they’ve threatened to withhold should a TV channel, radio station, or print media choose to run a story.  Our subversion trick:  we have networked with CEPAD, a coalition of progressive churches that operates a radio station reaching over a million people covering nearly the entire western portion of the country.  They have offered us a weekly radio show to discuss the kidney failure epidemic and the related issues.  It’s an incredibly effective and inexpensive way to use a local institution to educate the local populace.

If you’re a Spanish speaker, check out a portion of the first broadcast here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm6WxBjLxH4&feature=channel_page

Below are descriptions of the self-sustainable programs we’re introducing and other news.  If you would like more information, please write me at laislafoundation@gmail.com.

An aside, through our ongoing film, The Affected: Beyond Republics we are now working with Amnesty International, this is a very exciting development.  Coordinating with such groups is key to alleviating the suffering experienced by far too many in the developing world.

Jam/Sorbet Program:
There is a growing organic movement in Nicaragua and we want to provide a job opportunity for the widows in the La Isla and Candelaria communities of Chichigalpa.  We’re going to purchase organic fruits from local growers and create jams and sorbets we’ll sell in the Leon area first and later expand hopefully to the region and then even for export to the USA.  If your church or civic group is interested in selling homemade tropical jams let us know and we’ll work on getting you a package to try.

Spanish School/English School/Hostel:
We are beginning a socially conscious Spanish school in Leon where we’ll not only offer top notch and customized Spanish class of 1-4 people but we’ll also teach the history of Nicaragua and how this fascinating country’s history is tied to the need for land and the costs of industrial agriculture.
We’ll also be offering a English school for locals at affordable prices and we invite volunteers who wish to get involved to come down and teach.  Room and board will be provided and it will be an experience you never forget.
For those that wish to aid the foundation via their talents or studies, teach English, learn Spanish or all of the above we now have room for those who wish to stay with us for very reasonable rates and even for free depending on what kind project you wish to bring to the table in Nicaragua.

Organic Garden/Urban Gardening
My home and our offices are located in a fairly large space in Leon.  We decided that having a garden of grass and flowers really wasn’t serving anyone and we wanted to increase our profile in Leon being that all of our projects are centered on the La Isla community in Chichigalpa.  So, working with the local university, which has a top-notch agricultural program, we’ve begun a community garden and are starting with 4 families who have an interest in urban gardening.  We’ll be providing underprivileged kids with fresh vegetables in the neighborhood, teaching people to grow their own and of course everything is organic.

Tourism
Imagine, intensive and fascinating history classes in Leon, Nicaragua’s most storied city, a home stay in the La Isla community with struggling but incredibly warm families and then off to the mountains near Esteli to see real alternatives to industrial agriculture in the form of cooperatives, locally run organic associations and more. Requisite incredible views, hikes, and the stories to go with them are part of the deal.  In a short time we’ll be offering trips of 6-8 people, 1-2 weeks. With our network and knowledge of Nicaragua we can assure you the most intimate and exceptional experience possible.

Raido CEPAD
So, how do you get the truth out about one of the largest epidemics in the western hemisphere when the most powerful company in the region doesn’t want it to be public knowledge and has the power to keep it out of the media due to their advertising dollars?  You get in touch with CEPAD, a network of progressive churches with the most powerful FM signal in Nicaragua.  It reaches millions and they’ve offered us an hour show 1 to 3 times a week so that victims of the disease, widows and others affected by the epidemic can share their stories and the reality on the ground with other Nicaraguans.  This radio time has a $400.00-600.00 a month cost and they’ve offered it to us for free!  They’ve decided that it’s the most pressing issue facing Nicaragua and they want to help by educating a populace that has been left in the dark.
CEPAD excerpt from radio show number 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm6WxBjLxH4&feature=channel_page

Psychology Program

With 12% of the men in La Isla in the terminal stages of kidney disease and thousands having died in the great municipality of Chichigalpa the psychological toll of this disease

Latrine

We fell short of our fund raising goal for this much needed program and have delayed it until the beginning of the next dry season, around mid-November.  I can’t express how important good, clean and effective waste management is to a community.  If anyone has interest in funding this project let me know, for not a lot of money we can provide latrines to well over 80 families and reduce disease and a host of other problems.

Ada Congregational

I spoke at my parent’s church and it was a wonderful experience.  I had the luck of speaking to a very progressive and informed audience.  I was very honored to speak at the peace and justice commission’s Peace Sunday and am so thankful for all the time they put into arranging such a thoughtful and relevant service.

Brigades

Saved the best for last.   The health ministry has specifically asked La Isla Foundation to help coordinate brigades of community volunteers who can educate sick workers and their families about what to do when someone has kidney disease, what treatments are available through the local health clinic and other sources.  These brigades will be incredible effective at unifying the communities and empowering them to take care of one another.  Baxter medical supply, a leading purveyor of dialysis equipment has agreed to help organize the brigades and with them, the city and the health ministry we plan on building a health clinic in heavily affected Candelaria neighborhood.   A prime goal is building confidence in the limited treatment options that exist until we can gain proper funding for a fully equipped dialysis clinic and the infrastructure to support it.

My Latest Speech

Cane Burning, this smoke then traveled to the school burning eyes, and sickening kids.

I am not a particularly religious person but I do believe that Churches can be used for powerful community organizing.  My parent’s church is fairly progressive and I was invited to speak there. It was an honor and I’m glad I could share our work with their congregation.  It’s amazing what happens when you express your ideas and demonstrate that it is possible to walk the walk and serve others.

To get an idea of how progressive my parent’s Church is you can check out the invitation to worship:

Leader: We gather together on this Peace and Justice Sunday as a a people of God didicated to eliminating the inequities between the rich and the poor of our world.

People: What Does God have to say about the poor in the Bible?

Leader:  Hear what Zechariah says: “This is what the Lord Almighty speaks, Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor”

People: We oppress the poor by our own complicity in an economy whose prosperity depends upon environmentally unsustainable production and exploitation of labor and resources in low income nations, as well as here in the United States.

I know.  When I read/heard this I found myself studying the program for a picture of Che Guevara.  After realizing there was none and hearing my invitation to speak I clambered up to the podium and gave the best speech of my short life, shaken, emptied and thrilled I returned to my pew.  Enormous support, some tears and people very happy to see someone walking that walk that we’re told to often is impossible to maintain.  Church maybe not for me week to week but it’s important to realize that faith and community can be incredibly powerful tools for social change and justice.

The Speech:

The Responsibility to Act

Actions and Words in Facilitating the Victories of the Working Poor in Latin America and at Home.

First, I’d like to thank the Peace and Justice committee for inviting me to speak here today.  It’s an honor to return to this church, this community, where I arrived for the first time, nearly two decades ago, as a rebellious boy raging against nothing but everything and to now stand as a rebellious man with a mission.  It’s a mission that has lain idle and for too long has needed undertaking by those with the energy, courage and ability to persevere. This mission deserves the energy and support of the people gathered here today. That mission is to improve the lives of the working poor in Latin America and at home who produce our food and our fuel.
I’d like to take a moment to address how I came to my current position before I share what it is we’re are doing at La Isla Foundation and what all of you can do about it:

I first arrived in Nicaragua, in the heart of Central America, on a film project I undertook with the help of my sister, Megan in March of  . During my time there I was confronted by experiences that left in me with a discomfort that would not recede.  This unrelenting discomfort stemmed from a simple, albeit inconvenient and ultimately undeniable reality.  That reality was laid out in front of me daily in Nicaragua.  It was unavoidable, it was in the city dump of Managua where children eke out survival by picking out lunch from refuse, the textile mills that abuse laborers, and industrial farming areas I passed through where pesticides contaminate the wells and bodies of those who live there.

I was repeatedly forced to reconcile the fact that the comparative material wealth that nearly all of us in the USA and Europe and a tiny minority in Latin America enjoy is predicated on the unthinkable exploitation of people who only wish to provide for their families.  Later that same year I returned with my film crew and as I followed my instincts and then leads I fell in love with the people I encountered, many of them struggling against unimaginable difficulties. Their stories reflect my deepest concerns and fears for the future of our world.

Now, I had a choice. I could swing wildly at all the injustice and structural violence in front of my eyes and accomplish little, probably nothing. I could blog and rage and hate and provide plenty of the ammunition for rebellious teenagers and college students to ruin perfectly good family dinners …or I could focus on one issue, undoubtedly a challenging one and try to be a representative for the voiceless.

Despite witnessing horrific conditions among coffee, banana and tobacco workers, including child labor, and despite attempts on my life, one group of sugar cane workers caught and held my attention through the gravity of the situation staring them and their families down.  People in this community were not merely ill due to their work or suffering from poverty; their men were dying of kidney failure by the thousands.  Men as young as 24 were being cut down, and boys as young as 16 were entering terminal stages of the disease.   Regrettably this continues. The source of this disease is thought to be caused by multiple factors, most strongly linked to aggressive pesticide use and the vicious mode of production in the 110 degree heat of the cane fields.If this seems hard to believe I empathize, I don’t think that I came to terms with the gravity of the situation or accepted its reality for some time.

The raging kidney failure epidemic as experienced by these sugar cane workers, in the company town of Chichigalpa in western Nicaragua provides the clearest example of the personal and social costs of agribusiness as usual.  Chronic Kidney Disease, CKD, has claimed between 2800-3500 lives in this municipality of 42,000 over the last 10 years.  Thousands more are sick. The victims are overwhelmingly cane workers. The number of affected in this municipality is at least 8 times the national average.  No one has successfully told this story involving one of the largest but most solvable epidemics in the Western Hemisphere.
Leading epidemiologists have referred to this disaster as a quote, ‘veiled genocide.’ It is a veiled genocide because the company who owns this sugar plantation and is most likely at least partly responsible for the disease due to its reckless pesticide use is the largest and most repressive in the region.  The Pellas Group. They are a monopoly that owns nearly every aspect of Central American life and certainly holds the power to silence the press in Nicaragua.  Thanks to the World Bank they now also produce ethanol and attained much of their land for bio-fuel production by duping local indigenous groups.  This fertile land that locals for generations have depended on for subsistence farming has now been appropriated through dubious means by their narrow interests for the production not of food in a hungry world, but for fuel.

La Isla, a community of about 400 families has taken the name The Isle of Widows, as there are now over 80 widows all due to CKD.  The social costs of this loss of life are incalculable as poor, single mothers struggle to provide for their families.  As if the difficulty of having to carry on with a terminal disease was not enough, the employer makes things even more dire for these workers by firing those who test positive for the illness, leaving them with little financial recourse.

This means their sons work the fields under subcontractors and die from the same disease. Through a system of murder and intimidation by private security, corrupt police, and by dangling offers of compensation in front of desperate families, the company maintains precarious control over a volatile situation. The social costs of this disease are massive and the call to serve the widows and their families resonates loudly here.

Just last week the last of the 5 men I selected as subjects for my film died.  His name was Virgillio, 34 years old, father of 4.  With little access to education, the proper medication and dialysis not being a viable option, many more men and families will meet the same fate unless we can establish the exact causes of this epidemic so we may prevent its spread.  The cost of establishing exact causality through epidemiological research is enormous and a significant block to our progress.

The La Isla community and the regional prevalence of CKD were the impetus for forming our organization, La Isla Foundation.  We simply felt that making a film wasn’t enough.  Though daunting, we feel bringing relief to this community and getting this company to change their mode of production is possible and thusly just the beginning of a wider mission to address the needs of agricultural workers throughout the Americas…both at home and abroad as we prove the success of our operations in the La Isla community.

My greatest hope is that the work that results from this love that I found for this community at the very least facilitates a discussion and empowers the right people to take action and help ensure my film team won’t be making another movie about this or similar problems in 10 years and that we at the foundation will be able to work ourselves completely out of a job.

Personally, my life and work have been threatened for this undertaking by the company that holds this community hostage, as have the lives of my team at La Isla Foundation, and both workers and families in the community.
Regardless of these not so idle threats the question for me and those I work with at La Isla and in the community never has been, “If I stop to help these people what will happen to me, to my life?” It was always and still is: “If I don’t stop and help these workers and families what will become of them?”

So, this begs the question- what do we do here at Ada Congregational and why should we care what happens thousands of miles south of Michigan, one of hardest hit places in the states due to the financial crisis? While many of us are affected personally by the economic slump or through family and friends, I think this is the greatest time to acknowledge and empathize with others who have suffered for decades; their situation is not temporary or new and it is in the face of a deliberate and unimaginable structural violence. What these people are enduring now will continue, while we move forward and get our lives, country and economy back on track.

This may not be the time to focus our efforts monetarily elsewhere, but it is a time to open our hearts and minds to better understand what others live with throughout their entire lives. And when the time is better for us, we may examine how we will help rectify what has been an endless suffering.

We as a church can bring our resources to bear to meet this challenge and reach out to other faith communities so that we may provide the tools that will create an all too rare victory for the working poor. With diligence, time and eventual success, we can take what we’ve learned, build upon it, and implement a successful strategy to achieve another success elsewhere.  There is unfortunately no shortage of abuses in this industry and far too many continue to happen within the borders of our own nation.
The current model of aid we are implementing at La Isla is one that works with existing local institutions in an effort to facilitate local solutions, with the goal of the eventual withdrawal of our operations once they can be taken over by locals. We are creating ways in which widows and youngsters can pursue other means of survival and also providing direct aid and education for the affected in the community with the cooperation of local government and private institutions.
This promise of sustainable relief cannot be achieved without financial and logistical support as well as bringing to bear the multiple talents and specialties from the people gathered here today.
The willful practices of contaminating the people and lands on which we rely for our for our sustenance and the fuel for our cars is fundamentally absurd: food is meant to nourish and fuel should ensure productivity, but in far too many cases the production of these crops destroys the health, and even outright kills those whom produce and consume them.  This process must come to an abrupt halt. I believe it can and should be stopped so that we can provide a better
future for those that follow us both here in the United States and in Latin America.  Clearly it is an undertaking that is necessary in the interest of justice but also in the interest of peace because a people can only be squeezed for so long before they lash out in anger.

Further this is an area of the world that carries the scars from one too many US interventions in the interests of private capital. This problem is a tiny reflection of a larger systemic failure to look out for those that work to provide us with our basic needs. JFK said it and MLK made it famous: Those Who Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible Make Violent Revolution Inevitable. This is a reality we must consider, for the seeds multinational interests have sown too often bear poisoned fruit. I believe that by working together and looking at what we and others may offer, it is possible to create the justice sorely lacking for these cane workers, learn a bit more about our fellow man and experience the empowerment of accepting the responsibility to act.

Important Banana Related Issue

This is a great story about Mancozeb, a chemical used in Ecuador to great harm by Dow, Dole and the usual suspects.  Terry is a great lawyer and you should check it out.

“Happy” Accidents

Hope everyone is well.  While I’ve been down in Nicaragua working with the La Isla Team, Steve and the HVX camera are up in Chicago which has turned out to be a unfortunate combination. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve run into two ‘happy accidents’. One regarding a young girl being exploited to pick tobacco leaves for expensive cigars while I was taking a weekend in the Esteli mountains. The owners of that tobacco farm are Cuban Americans. The other ‘happy accident’ happened when I was taking the same friend from that video out to the community we work in.

Unfortunately all I had with me on both occasions was my little point and shoot still camera that has some video capability. We got it principally as it’s water and dust proof(key features in Nica!!)…not for the image quality. Regardless, the content is powerful and you should take a look.

http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=nhlzlxlctsmn

The cane video plays first, the tobacco related video can be found in the upper left of the list on the right, a thumbnail of me in a very blue shirt lets you know you’re selecting the right one, that and the title.  It can also be found on an earlier post on this blog.

I guess we could run a small window in a theatrical release for this part or just use it for info sharing.  The gases from the cane burning were so freaking nasty at the school it was unreal.

J

Read Stories and Views Directly from Chichigalpa

Hear Directly from the La Isla Community

Trying to keep things to once a week, everyone is crazy busy or busy looking for work right now and we don’t want to be a bother to our supporters.

Here is a really cool piece of info!

http://theislandspeaks.wordpress.com/

That is the English translation of the blog of two community members from Chichigalpa/La Isla! It’s translated from Spanish by a Spanish speaker so it’s not completely perfect but this is empowering to both the community and the reader as you’re getting info from the ground directly from the affected people!!

We trained them on Gmail and the blog over the last couple months and now they’re all over it.

We’ll keep working on make the English better and better…but that would mean I’d have to work on my own grammar. Embarrassing and true as all of you know from my myriad typos.

Too many pots on the stove and we shoot these off sometimes so we can get to work! Mix that with the fact I think in Spanish sometimes now and we have some rather creative writing sometimes I must say. Thanks for understanding.

If you or your friends aren’t a member of the La Isla Group please join up. It’s key to our success.

Jason

Not to Ruin a Vacation but…

This is actually a email to my parents who I love very much. They just got back from a trip in Mexico and I’m sure had a lovely and as my dad said, ‘Sterile’ time.

That plane contributed global warming, everything is a balancing act, no?

It got me thinking about those towns that most gringos and europoeans flock to.  The point of this post is that being reactionary and stupid about ultimately small disagreements as my parents are very supportive of the work we do at the film company and the foundation. but also that we do need to think about the reality of the majority of the world and our effect on it when we’re there.   So without further ado, my email to my folks:

Ok, the failed state comment in regards to Mexico was a joke.  Kind of.  It’s a reflection of just how messy things really are when we and rich Latinos can go enjoy a protected and fortified town like Puerto Vallarta.  Dad and Mom, do understand that tons of money and deals are made to keep it clean and safe, you’re not that out of the loop.  Powerful interests are at work to give you that illusion.

I need not explain further than this:  Young Jimmy Burdick (My parent’s minister’s son) was recently in Santa Marta Colombia on a cruise and probably had a clean, safe, possibly sterile and fun time.  Never mind the military check points that stretch for miles on all roads in or out of that city.  Every two miles max.  I’ve never seen anything like it because Israel, with its paltry death counts by comparison, is the only place on earth that approximates Colombia in terms of police state brutality.  Cruises have been going to Santa Marta for years.  20 miles down the road in Cienaga there are still murders of union leaders and organizers monthly and it was the center of the carnage both in 1928 under UFC/Chiquita and some of the worst corporate backed violence the world has ever witnessed between 97-2004.

I know because I’ve seen the mass graves that are city squares, with the skulls surely resting beneath, mouths still agape. I imagine that they’re screaming for some kind of recognition of what has passed under Uribe’s regime, maybe they’re trying to tell you their name in death, share some of the reality we’re too often protected from.  These are the vanished souls who like so many in latin america will ever be lost on the books between life and death as ‘disappeared’.

I’ve talked directly to the broken and maimed, seen shattered lives and psyches of the still paid to little, threatened and poisoned who somehow find the strength to speak out despite all it has cost them and their families.  One thing gives me hope, they are organizing and increasingly fearless, I was lucky to witness them in action and be welcomed in Colombia over December 6th last year.  They were beautiful people to see and meet.

Mexico is no different in many ways.  We need to think about these things.  The world is a time bomb right now.  Even my most centrist friends see that.  There is a class war coming and I think it behooves us to remember something JFK said and MLK later made more famous:  ‘Those that make peaceful revolution impossible (dole, chiquita, shell, Chevron, Dow, Monsanto and the gov’ts they buy) make violent revolution inevitable.’

Mine is a labor of hope and love, I’m not some martyr I do it because I can’t do anything else for a host of reasons.  I just wish I didn’t need to explain to people the depths and the subtleties at work when it comes to this kind of exploitation.  It has become so routine and obvious to me, it almost exhausts me to have to reframe every time the same formula is being repeated with slightly different variables.  The structural violence at work in Mexico and other appallingly violent places is sufficiently profound in that it means people will even defend and say they love their pathetic jobs and bosses because there is nothing else in their reality and they must eat, must send their children to school so that these children don’t become the 30 year old man at the crowded Managua, Bogota, San Jose, Guatemala City, Mexico City, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa etc intersection selling water who started selling it 25 years ago.  We as the priviledged rationalize it by saying things are cheaper where they live and they are happier with less. That is a lie and a sick, horrible and ultimately stupid  joke.

I’m not saying don’t go on vacation, I’m just saying be honest with yourselves about where you are and the system that is necessary to prop up a Puerta Vallarta or a Santa Marta.  Santa Marta is in the face of the banana and drug war and PV in the face of the drug war and more. The drug war is a institution so ill thought, ill conceived and faulty in terms of humanitarian or legal decency it caves my head in.  However, that very humanitarian disaster, the drug war, is also extremely profitable to the military/police and weapons complex as well as the US prison industrial complex.  1/31 Americans is in prison.  Get your head around that, in terms of money making it is genius and undending.  Most of those inmates are there through drug charges.

The peopel trafficing, growing and moving the poison into the noses of elite US hipsters, lawyers, doctors, judges etc aren’t the problem but they’re the ones whose heads roll down streets and whose fields are sprayed with chemicals while they work tirelessly to meet the demand we have set.  It’s really no diferent than the man working at the Zona Franca (free trade zone) or the plantation.  They suffer so that we can enjoy this finite existence.  Perhaps that’s the dirtiest trick many of us play collectively without realizing it: Many believe in a here after not because things are bad for us on the relative top of the world but because things can sometimes be so atrocious for those our system must exploit so that we may enjoy our lives. Some believe in a heaven so that those we directly and inadvertently oppress may get some reward for their toil and suffering.

I love you both you capitalist pig dogs,

Jason

For the Spanish Speakers! Para la gente que pueden leer espanol!

Muchas mujeres seran viudas pronto por la enfermedad, IRC. Foto de Anna Maria Berry-Jester

http://eujuanisla.blogspot.com/

Entonces, este blog es de dos personas de Chichigalpa con quien nos trabajamos. Ya uds. pueden aprender direcetamente de los ciudadanos de Chichigalpa sobre las consecuencias de la enferemedad, IRC, y el comportamiento del Grupo Pellas en Ingenio San Antonio.

Cuban American’s Exploiting Young Children

This video was shot on our little digi cam point and shoot so the quality is marginal but the point is clear:

Go to this link directly to see the subtitled version if you need it on You Tube, for some reason it isn’t coming through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7puwBMMMOQ&cc_load_policy=1

In the video above  you’ll meet a 9 year old girl who picks tobacco for cigars. The majority of these companies are owned by Cuban Americans, US citizens, who deem it fit to exploit Nicaragua’s kids for their cancer rods.

I was in Esteli Nicaragua for a weekend off. This little girl was working. She works 6 days a week and earns 4 dollars a day for 8 hours.  They use the girls because their soft hands won’t damage the tobacco leaves used to wrap the cigars.  The tobacco is of course sprayed in pesticides and many of those can be absorbed through the unprotected skin of the young girls. There have been reports for years of children falling severely ill due to this work.

It’s beyond disgusting.  Many of these Nicaraguan tobacco farms are owned by wealthy US citizens of Cuban descent who then sell their cigars to mostly US citizens as we can’t import the higher quality, largely organic and child labor free cigars from Cuba due to the ongoing embargo.

When you think of the money being made on the poisoning of children and the fact that these kids must work to support their families and the demographic that most US cigar aficionados fall into it all becomes infuriating.

For all those that want to bring an end to this practice contact me at:

laislafoundation@gmail.com

These are US citizens breaking the local law in Nicaragua and who can be pressured by US consumers and activists to put a stop to their horrific practices.  There may well be an opportunity for a lawsuit as well.

I’ve been informed by locals, both activists and workers that all the companies  use child labor and are cuban-american owned, they include but are not limited to:

-Cubanica S.A.,
owner: Don Orlando Padron, the brand name of the Cigar is Padron, highly valued by cigar smokers.

-Latin Nicaragua
owner: Carlos Toraño’s

-Nicaragua American Tobacco, S.A.
owner: Juan “Triki” Bermejo, Jr.

-Tabacalera Perdomo
owner: Nick Perdomo, Jr.

-Dannemann/Plasencia
owner: Nestor Plasencia

-Esteli Cigar
owner: Henry “Don Kiki” Berger

I recommend that we find out all the details about these companies hiring practices.  First by asking them and then interviewing current and past workers to get the truth.

Colombia Letters

Here are two letters I wrote while in Colombia covering the death squads that ravaged the area at the behest of Chiquita and other companies.

If you’re unfamilliar with who the AUC are/were, then take a look here first before reading below.  It’s an ok overview but leaves a lot out.

Some disturbing reading but I urge you to read on.

From Santa Marta Colombia, Letter 1

Santa Marta, Colombia

Colombia is intense and intensely beautiful in every way imaginable. The mountains, coast and people all command attention. Cruise ships drop of holiday makers in Santa Marta through the week.  Last night, 40km down the road I talked to a woman who lost a forearm and both of her legs to a fragmentation grenade thrown by AUC paramilitaries. It killed her husband and left her daughter unable to cope. She is mute, deeply traumatized and without access to decent psych services is probably now cursed for life. When the paramilitaries realized they had hit the wrong house they came to the bleeding family and said: ‘Sorry’ we thought you were someone else.  Truth is the family farm was between a Chiquita and Dole plantation.  The second ‘accident’ was the shooting her surviving brother in front of the family 3  years later after they finally went to the authorities with their story.  The excuse was that he looked just like a FARC guerilla the AUC was hunting.  Only after shooting her brother in the mouth they said, “The guerilla had more teeth.”  Today I just filmed 2 enormous chiquita boats loading up w/ tons of bananas. But wait…chiquita doesn’t do business here, they said they stopped after they stopped paying death squads!

The depth of involvement and direct complicity by dirty unions, the colombian government, Drummond mining, the big three banana companies (Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte) and even coca-cola is mind boggling. Add to that complete negligence, bordering on complicity, by the US justice department and this might be the story of the decade. Even for those who aren’t bananacentric! The death count, the depravity and the fact that US executives made lists and asked for certain people to be eliminated puts this issue above and beyond comparable stories. The facts are all here from a variety of sources and one of the jailed AUC paramilitary leaders is spilling the beans. Most of his claims are looking to be easily verifiable. Never have lawyers felt so confident that they can win a case like this. Further he has assured the community that the AUC will work to ensure the safety of journalists, lawyers and others working to show the truth regarding the companies as he feels they hung him and a lot of the AUC leadership out to dry. Sometimes justice makes strange bedfellows.  Make no mistake, these men were willing and mad dog killers of the most brutal variety.

However, security doesn’t exist in Colombia and we aren’t fooling ourselves. We are sticking to well known sources of info and not poking around more than needed. What is known in the open in this case is proving quite sufficient and that is a rare occurrence that we’re thankful for given the locale. Chiquita and the rest are confirming our worst nightmares about corporate greed and power.

I’m left with this question: If we don’t act, if we aren’t enraged, what does that say about us? Many of us make up the workforce of similar companies, we are consumers, many are citizens that have more power by the virtue of where and when we were born than most people would dare dream about.  There is already a quiet brutality to the existing and not overtly violent power dynamics that run the world; why then must we tolerate such overt savagery on the part of corporations who can and should be held accountable by existing laws?

Apathy has no place in the world right now. Not when there is so much to be deeply and passionately involved with, to work for and against. We need to work hard to create the change needed to prepare a better world for those that come after us.

Hasta la victoria,

Agent Glaser

From Santa Marta Colombia, Letter 2.

W/out exaggeration, what has gone on here in Colombia near Santa Marta is w/ out question the worst thing any group of US companies have  engaged in. The death count is significant, over 4000 w/ at least 1300  killed directly because of banana company interests confirmed.   The mining, banana companies and even coca-cola claim they are paying ‘protection’ money to the AUC paramilitary group but apparently paying protection money also includes proffering hit lists w/ specific targets and  providing the AUC thugs w/ arms shipments.  When you consider the above, the typically horrific pay people receive, the standard massive use of restricted and illegal pesticides you realize that you are witness to a completely depraved situation.  The fight against these companies is hard enough when you aren’t being round up and massacred, your land forcibly appropriated, your union leadership butchered and replaced by AUC frontmen, and your daughters and wives raped.

Further, there are allegation that Dole wasn’t content with paying off the AUC and requesting favors.  Apparently they had their own private hit squad of Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles) and sometimes skipped the paramilitary step.  What makes it so striking is its directness, brutality and baseness.  Let’s face it, even though it’s illogical, for the human mind killing people through cancer and environmental contamination just doesn’t carry the same weight as death squads, massacres, and institutionalized rape.  While the difference between knowingly using a  chemical that causes cancer/death and a bullet is only temporal there is a set of rationalizations one can implement w/ the former that is less easy to do w/ the latter.  How the board members and executives of these companies are able to get up and put their pants on one leg at a time I don’t know.
Behind me, as I sit here at the bottom of the Carribean, are the tallest coastal mountains in the world.  From the sea they rocket up to 18,000 feet/5700 m in under 30 miles.  Up in those mountains the FARC and the ELN guerillas still operate, cast off bastard children who have replaced their parent’s leftism w/ narcoism.  But the paramilitaries a few thousand feet below in the middle of the range have exacted a similar toll from the workers at the Drummond owned coal mines.  Same horror stories: Displacement on a massive scale, murder, intimidation, the disappeared, the massacred.  Many of the men in the mines and banana farms were killed because they were ready to collect their measly pensions and the companies didn’t want to pay up.  In the case of the mining companies we have confirmed that an Alabaman executive ordered the murder of 3 union leaders in a 3 month period.  He had a list. Problems to be taken care of.  Human beings.

All this suffering and death for  bananas. For coal. For Coca-cola.

Then, I take a breath, and realize that the former administrations of both the USA and Britain did the same thing on a much larger level….for oil…at the behest not of the American/British people but of Chevron, BP, Haliburton, Lockheed Martin and Brown and Root.  Maybe only because of its scope do so many not realize/still don’t want to admit, address and take action against the fact  that this was the only reason for that war. The other argument?  Strategic dominance through ‘democracy’? The only reason for strategic dominance of that region is oil.

While it may be a positive that there are institutions that hold people accountable, eventually, sort of, for creating so much havoc my fundamental question is: Why do we still rationalize a system that makes these abuses so acceptable until caught? Even these punishments fall far short and fail to elicit a call for more prevention and regulation in the first place.

Exmpl:  1.  Who the hell wasn’t watching/intentionally turning a blind eye in Washingtion while this disaster was happening in Colombia while simultaneously pushing for a free trade agreement?  Colombia is the third or fourth largest recipient of US aid in the world depending on where you get your numbers.  Regardless,  shouldn’t we as a nation be paying attention to where that aid is going (funding paramilitaries) and what our companies are doing there (funding paramilitaries)? 2. Are most people ready to make even one iota of the sacrafice necessary in Europe and the USA to truly improve the lot for the rest of the world?  Not yet.  But I’d love to hear otherwise and push for a change of comprehension and understood responsibility.

Obama’s cabinet selections tell me he is not the messiah so many were hoping for.  Let’s face it, whether we like it or not those of us in Europe and the USA, regardless of our individual beliefs, are products of a judeo christian culture and were manipulated as such by a very brilliant campaign.  Well, I for one am not duped, not again, not now.  I’m going to do everything I can to hold the companies I can to the fire and make them bleed as much money as possible (As that is the only language they understand) and I’m going to get to a posistion in the coming years to make sure Obama and his ilk walk the walk and don’t suck the meaning out of a word we were promised: Change.

However, tonight I saw some beautiful flashes of hope and met some extraordinary people.  I’ll send a email saturday bringing you that side.  This is a life changing and affirming trip…there is no going back now, that is certain. Liberty for the underclass.  It’s simple and worthy work.  Things are getting clearer and easier w/ each passing day.  Existential crisis are for those who have nothing worth dying or living for. This work, this journey that we (my coworkers and others) all have started is worth doing both for.  One certainly need not unnecessarily put him/herself in the lines of fire or in places caught between the fray.  I hazard though that once you commit to work like this that you will find it very hard to go back to an ordinary world.

Best to you all for the week, with love and support,

Jason

LA ISLA FOUNDATION UPDATE FOR JANUARY

All-

Hope everyone is well and they’re enjoying the idea of a new year despite the struggles our nation and the world face in the year ahead.  I personally believe that with communication and a focused agenda we can all do our part to lend our talents and means to the causes and issues most important to us.  Adversity can be scary on the front end but is often life defining. If seen through it can even be liberating.

Here is what we’re up to at La Isla Foundation this Month:

Latrine Program

The Latrine push this year is for lending a hand to improving the infrastructure of the La Isla community in Nicaragua.  As noted in the last update these latrines will minimize child hood diseases. Some of these can be life threatening but with proper waste disposal we’ll be able to mitigate the risk.  Further, this program has growth potential. After basic latrines are supplied we could move into latrines that contribute to organic fertilizer and even latrines that in combination with animal waste can create cooking gas.  Neat and even a little bit gross all at the same time!  I assure you, I’ve seen these gas sytems in use and they’re incredible and the users are very content not to have to pay for cooking gas which is expensive or to pay for or collect firewood for coal which is time consuming, leads to deforestation and can be expensive as well.  As with all of our programs community and local University involvement from the planning, pricing and implementation phases is key.  The local government will ideally be helping with a portion of the funding as well.

The program will bring 81 new Latrines and all of the labor and organizing is being done with the  full involvement of the community.  The entire cost of this program will be 6,500.00  We’re about 1/3 of the way to our funding goal and we hope that by getting the local government to donate and with some generous donations between now and the last week of March we’ll be able bring this much needed service.

School Supplies

A fully funded program goes into effect the first week of January.  For 600.00 and some great local donations on the part of the community and local vendors we’ve gotten school supplies for the top 50 students in the La Isla Community.  The basis for rating didn’t only include grades but also attendance and other factors.  We were going to supply the entire student body but community leaders stated that they wanted to encourage other students to work as hard as the top 50 students are working.  Next year we expect the number of top students will increase significantly!  We’re also entertaining a scholarship program to keep students in school.  A child  sponsorship that encourages sustainability and has direct positive benefits along with conditions that must be met by the student such as attendance.

Community Garden In Leon

We have a beautiful patio and garden area at our office in Leon.  Flowers are nice but food is better.  Taking a page out of the Food Not Lawns movement we’re turning our green space into a organic community garden.  It will be of great benefit for many reasons and serve multiple purposes.

1. It will raise our profile in the community our offices our located.

2. Our gardener, Don Felix, will be conducting organic gardening classes with children from the city’s poorest neighborhoods and those kids will be able to take some of the produce home they learn to grow and the knowledge it takes to grow it themselves in planters or garden spaces in their own homes.

3. The University will be using it as a seed and seedling bank so we can distribute food crops throughout the city and even to La Isla to those who want or need to grow some of their own.

4.  Eventually we’ll look at packaging and selling some of the produce in form of jams or other products we can sell at the market.

5.  Our staff will be eating better!

Site of our Future gardens:

Visiting Scholars

My friend Anna Maria Barry-Jester is now a student at Columbia University’s school for Public Health.  She spent three weeks this January conducting research and trying to ascertain what economic options are available to the widows of La Isla.  Her report is coming and she’s committed to working on the project throughout her academic career at Columbia!

Another friend from Germany is convincing the Max Planck institute to let her do her thesis on the effect the epidemic has had on the health of the children in La Isla.  She is in her last year at med school in Germany.

Sustainable Tourism and University Service Learning Trips

By using our collective University partnerships, knowledge of the eco treasures and agricultural nightmares of Nicaragua, and the fact that we know the coolest and most interesting places to stay and learn in the country we’re designing a way for the NGO to cover all of its administrative costs and educate the upcoming generation.  We’ll be offering weekend, week long and two week trips in three different regions of this beautifully diverse, historically rich and culturally powerful country.  All of the trips will include a home-stay with a family in La Isla so that the visitors meet the women we work with, understand what is at stake in terms of agricultural and land reform, and learn about the strength needed to overcome and survive under a business system that allows what has taken place in La Isla to occur in the first place.

We’ll keep you posted regarding this exciting program.

Prevalence Study Translation

The prevalence we did in conjunction with UNAN-Leon and UNA-Heredia in Costa Rica is key to our efforts to getting the large grant and foundation money we’ll need to conduct the research necessary to establish where this epidemic is coming from and how to best treat the victims of the disease.  It will be ready by the first week of February for English consumption!

If you’re interested in finding out more, contact me at laislafoundation@gmail.com