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Date: Sun, 23 Aug 98 23:28:45 CDT
From: rich@pencil.math.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Organization: PACH
Subject: Centr-Am News 8/16-8/22/98
Article: 41718
To: undisclosed-recipients:;;@chumbly.math.missouri.edu
Message-ID: <bulk.13764.19980824121826@chumbly.math.missouri.edu>

/** reg.nicaragua: 48.0 **/
** Topic: Centr-Am News 8/16-8/22/98 **
** Written 5:54 PM Aug 22, 1998 by wnu in cdp:reg.nicaragua **
, Issue XXIII


Ortega Incurs Wrath of Sugar Cane Workers

Centr-Am News, issue XXIII, week of August 16 through August 22, 1998

Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Secretary General and former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega apparently incurred the wrath of sugar cane workers, not the result he expected when he approached them on August 18 to express his solidarity with their cause.

The workers have been protesting for over two years what they see is their having been robbed of shares in sugar processing plants during the privatization process. Ortega drove by the encampment of the sugar cane workers on his way to the National Assembly. He was greeted with shouts of "thief," shameless, and "'pinatero'" [a reference to the so-called pinata, when some members of the FSLN grabbed what property and goods they could as they left office after losing the 1990 elections]. The protesters accused Ortega, along with the government, of mishandling the privatization of the sugar processing plants, leaving them without their fair shares.

Ortega had gotten out of his car to talk with the protesters, but returned upon realizing he was not receiving a warm welcome. Later Ortega met with a group of sugar cane workers inside the National Assembly building and promised them he would ask President Arnoldo Aleman to compensate them for the shares in the plants they had a right to, but had not received. (El Nuevo Herald from La Tribuna (Managua), Miami, 8/20/98)


Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139 http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * wnu@igc.apc.org