This is one of those few times where I'd wish my blog had many, many readers, so that my words would carry away and get stored in many hearts and many minds. Words that I may type, that I may compose, but that do not "belong to me", but to the world. Today I run around and scream desperately to anyone willing to hear me, tears in my eyes. Today, after desperation has frayed my sanity, I fall on my knees, close my eyes and pray, begging God that the inmense darkness around this cyberplace is filled with eyes around the world, and that the message finds receptive hearts. I don't need You to comment, I need you to be aware. Please, be aware!
Among the blogs I follow there's one I follow carefully, Sin Pelos en la Lengua, (With no hairs on the Tongue, which is a Spanish saying for talking honestly and directly), dedicated originally to point out and write about the reality going behind the DR-CAFTA, and calling people, back then, to vote and manifest against it. Last year they finally said Good-bye to us all and closed the site. As a blesing, realizing that the DR-CAFTA isn't the only injustice going on, and there's so much more to point out, they came back filling us with article after article about the many abuses our Government, our President and his "court" commit against the population, as well as abuse witnessed elsewere.
Currently in Costa Rica many things are happening that shouldn't be happening. The Ombudsman was politically imposed, making use of the Parliamentarian Mayority controled by the President, mocking every regular and legal procedure to eliminate perfectly capable candidates in order to give the position to a politician who received it as "consolation prize" for not getting the presidency of the Parliament. A politician who, while taking a position where she must defend the population, promises to be "impartial" (she's a defensor, not a judge!!), and refuses to hear the people rejecting her (instead of inviting them to dialogue and giving them and herself the chance to prove her worth), telling to the media that "No manifestation, no person will deter her from her position, she won't resign, and she will do a magnificent job".
The fight of the population to stop the President's determination to give a large portion of protected areas (Las Crucitas) to a Canadian mining company to mine gold, still goes on, with a President fond of blackmailing the poor, holding up funds and aid for their agreeing into the fatal poisoning of the whole country. Over 200 dangerous, poorly paid jobs for our landscape, our protected areas (upon which there are SIGNED international agreements of protection), for the health of thepopulation, adults and children alike, and the poisoning with cianure of extensive water supplies that feed this valuable liquid to over the 40% of Costa Rica, and an uncharted (at least as far as I know) portion of Nicaragua. Our sister country, Nicaragua has officially sent complains to Costa Rica, demanding the stopping of the mining project, for it also threatens their resources.
Then, inspite of promising in 2006 to the ILO that Costa Rica will reinforce job conditions, and protect the workers rights to Unions, unions and unionists are being persecuted, and those workers who try to orginize into a union are either mobbed or immediately fired. Meanwhile people have no one to turn to when they are being abused at their jobs. Abusive contracts are being put in practice, ilegal practices are set up, and nobody can complain. Cleaning ladies at big companies go up to six months working without payment, and then fired without ever seeing a dime.
Yes, Costa Rica has a delightful, colorful array of abuse that actually makes you smile when someone complains about how awful it is in their country, because a politician happened to have an affair with his secretary. I am of the believe that you must help yourself, your country first and then go looking to help those abroad. "Start at Home", that's my motto. As so, I'm seeking to be actively involved in the movement to stop the Gold Mining in Costa Rica. The job is hard, but the worst thing we can do is abandon the ship.
However, reading among the entries of Sin Pelos en la Lengua, I came across this one about Honduras.
The situation in this country goes beyond the Coup d'Etat, which many countries rushed to ignore are such, and touches the most sensitive parts of it: it's population. In this entry, and subsequent entries you can read about a nation kidnapped, terrorized where death squads are a daily thing, where Opposition Media is shut down with bullets, journalists killed, tortured, kidnapped from a taxi and beaten into a quivering pulp. 70 year-old grandmothers thrown into a dark cell, insulted, yelled at, tortured for once being part of the Resistencia.
A De Facto Government that smiles at the world and pretends that "now everything is dandy" while they continue abusing the population. Ingrid Betancourt times 7,6 million. Public lands to be given to poor farmers to work are taken back and given to powerful Estate Owners. No, everything is not "dandy", the Coup D'Etat continues, under the nose of the world, where powerful countries arm up and swear war to terrorism, and yet at their doorstep allow a gory form of endogenous terrorism where the terrorist is the Government itself.
Things are not right and we shouldn't close our eyes and pretend it is. Please, be aware. I'm not asking for money or a signature in a petition list, or stop buying Honduran goods. I'm pleading you to be aware. What you do with this information is up to you, either you contact a local Aid Program, or investigate, or simply file it on your mind... is your choice, but whatever you do, please, do not forget.
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