NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs articles from February 2004

NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs archives from February 2004

GUATEMALANS PAY MORE FOR SUGAR AS CAFTA REVISION SHOCKS PRODUCERS.
February 5, 2004... Guatemala is facing rising consumer prices and the prospect of a sugar war. The consumer price of sugar rose about 9% in December. The price continued to climb, leading newly inaugurated President Oscar Berger to recommend a complicated...

REGIONAL PRESIDENTS SIDESTEP CONSTITUTIONS TO MAKE WAR ON GANGS.
February 5, 2004... Central American presidents signed a treaty against youth gangs on Jan. 14, calling them a threat to regional security. Describing the gangs as "one of the elements that destabilize Central America," Oscar Santamaria, secretary general of the...

NICARAGUAN AGRICULTURAL HOPE HOSTAGE TO DOCTOR ATKINS.
February 12, 2004... Nicaragua will be picking the first harvest of some 200,000 orange trees that were planted in 1997-1998 about 20 km southeast of San Carlos along the Rio San Juan. The project, Frutales del San Juan, is to be the basis of a new agroindustry...

COSTA RICA CRACKS DOWN ON RESIDENT NICARAGUAN WORKERS.
February 12, 2004... Hundreds of Costa Rican police descended on a Nicaraguan community in the Costa Rican capital and arrested at least 192 people. At about 5:30 in the morning on Jan. 30, some 300 police burst into Ciudadela La Carpio in La Uruca, San Jose, a...

HAITI AT THE BRINK AGAIN.
February 12, 2004... The government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide appears on the verge of collapse as the violence of past months has, by journalistic convention, now become a full-scale insurrection. Opposition forces that began to appear in September and...

GUATEMALAN COURT'S LANDMARK DECISION LEAVES EX-PRESIDENT EXPOSED.
February 19, 2004... Guatemala's Corte de Constitucionalidad (CC), its highest court, handed down a decision Feb. 17 that effectively strips ex-President Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) and his vice president, Francisco Reyes, of immunity from prosecution. The...

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC BEARING BRUNT OF HAITI INSURRECTION.
February 19, 2004... Geographically speaking, there is another side to Haiti. It is the Dominican Republic, the other sovereign nation on the island of Hispaniola. Already feeling the heat of a Haiti at full boil, the Dominican Republic has begun to reinforce its...

GUATEMALA: RIGOBERTA MENCHU STEPS BEYOND TRADITION TO MOVE INDIGENOUS AGENDA.
February 19, 2004... Feb. 12 was a good day to be indigenous in Guatemala as the new government performed a pair of acts intended to symbolize a radical change in policy and behavior toward the country's majority, but historically beleaguered, population. ...

GUATEMALAN EX-PRESIDENT ALFONSO PORTILLO FLEES AS HIS CABINET FACES CHARGES.
February 26, 2004... Stripped of his mantle of immunity from prosecution (see NotiCen, 2004-02-19), Alfonso Portillo, erstwhile president of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004, has fled the country. His hasty exit coincides with revelations of scams and malfeasance...

COSTA RICA HOSTS CAIRNS GROUP MEETING TO END AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES.
February 26, 2004... The Cairns Group of agricultural countries held its XXVI Annual Ministerial Meetings in San Jose, Costa Rica, Feb. 23-25 to focus narrowly and deeply on what Costa Rican Ambassador to International Organizations Ronald Saborio called a...