A Cuba news roundup

The Miami Herald reports that the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base is being used as a training ground for a possible humanitarian-relief crisis “inspired by the tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who overwhelmed this base in the 1990s: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/11/3228062/guantanamo-is-used-for-mass-migration.html

The Huffington Post has a piece by dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez on her country’s famous cigars, now out of reach for most Cubans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/a-box-of-cigars-cost-a-ye_b_2659579.html

The Global Post has a report by Reuters on Cuban plans to expand its largest oil refinery against a background of uncertainty over joint Cuba-Venezuela projects:  http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/130210/amid-uncertainties-cuba-seeks-funding-refinery-expansion

The Toronto Star on Canadians abandoned by Cuban spouses soon after their sponsored arrival in Canada: http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2013/02/07/from_cuba_yet_another_broken_heart.html

Berkeleyside, a news site covering Berkeley, California, reports on a sister city program with a town in eastern Cuba and a clean water project: http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/02/08/berkeley-aims-to-help-sister-city-in-cuba-with-clean-water-plan/

Some readings on inequality and social unrest

Patricio Navia is a Chilean political scientist at New York University and a prolific columnist and author.   He has a piece on the openDemocracy web site analyzing the background on the student protests and recent general strike in Chile, which he says is far from being a South American version of the Arab spring:

“The student movement is less about opposition to the market-friendly economic model than about inclusion within it, and expanding the range and structure of opportunities it affords. The protesters seek to improve the model with a host of measures: more protection for consumers, more rights for citizens and a more level playing-field so that the middle class can realistically aspire to upward social mobility.”http://www.opendemocracy.net/patricio-navia/chile-protest-for-%E2%80%9Cpromised-land%E2%80%9D

On the issue of consumer protection in Chile, read the interview with the director of Chile’s National Consumer Service, Juan Antonio Peribonio, in the most recent issue of Chilean-American Chamber of Commerce Magazine. According to Peribonio, Chile stands out in Latin American for its defense of consumers, but his agency is underfunded and hopes that a bill before congress will provide the tools needed to oversee the country’s financial sector: http://www.businesschile.cl/en/news/juan-antonio-peribonio/protecting-chilean-consumers

And for a look at inequitable hiring practices in the Chilean job market, the Santiago Times has an excellent article on the ways potential employers grill job applicants on their families, religious observances and political views.  Although the country’s labor law prohibits such discriminatory practices, they appear to be widespread.  The article quotes one job seeker, a woman with a degree in business engineering who recently interviewed at several major Chilean companies:

“In Chile it is common to avoid hiring women with children,” she said. “In all the interviews I’ve gone to, I’ve been asked if I want more children, if my son goes to kindergarten and if he gets sick easily. I was also told I was not suitable for a position that required occasional travel because it was ‘not compatible with my role as a mother.’”http://www.santiagotimes.cl/opinion/special-reports/22443-minorities-under-chiles-glass-ceiling

 

Human cargo

Peruvian migrants in Santiago

The Centro de Investigacion Periodistica (CIPER) has published a report based on Wikileaks documents on human trafficking to and from Chile http://ciperchile.cl/2011/03/23/la-preocupacion-de-ee-uu-por-el-trafico-de-personas-en-chile/. The site has links to the U.S. Embassy cables, which state that “Chile is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and labor trafficking” and that while the government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for eliminating this activity, “it is making significant efforts to do so.”  These “significant efforts” include increased training for law enforcement and judicial officials and the fact that Chile hosted an Iberian-American summit on the issue in 2009.  Chile holds the rank of a Tier 2 country, with Tier 1 being those countries in full compliance.  Then there is Tier 2 Watch List of countries trying to combat human trafficking but faced with increasing numbers of victims.  Tier 3 refers to countries which fail to make any real effort at improvement.

Much of the same material can be found in the U.S. State Department’s 2010 Trafficking in Persons report, which states that “Women and girls from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay and other Latin American countries, in addition to China, are lured to Chile with fraudulent job offers and subsequently coerced into prostitution or involuntary domestic servitude. Foreign victims of labor trafficking, primarily from Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and China, have been identified in Chile’s mining and agricultural sectors. There are also reports that children are recruited against their will as drug mules along the borders with Bolivia and Peru. Some Chinese nationals are consensually smuggled through Chilean routes to Latin American countries and the United States some fall victim to human trafficking.”

http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/