Latin American governments rally around Mexico after embassy raid in Ecuador

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Latin American governments rally around Mexico after embassy raid in Ecuador

Alexandra Valencia
Updated Sat, April 6, 2024 at 6:53 PM EDT·4 min read

QUITO (Reuters) -Latin American governments, including regional heavyweight Brazil, rallied around Mexico on Saturday after its embassy in Ecuador was raided to arrest a controversial politician who had been granted asylum by Mexican authorities.

The late Friday night seizure of Jorge Glas, Ecuador's former vice president who had been convicted twice on graft charges, caused outrage in Mexico City, which suspended relations with Quito.

Glas, 54, who had a preventive arrest warrant out on another corruption case, had been holed up in the embassy in Quito since seeking political asylum in December, a request Mexico had granted earlier on Friday.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blasted the unusual diplomatic incursion and arrest as an "authoritarian" act as well as a breach of international law and Mexico's sovereignty.

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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/latin-american-governments-rally-around-160620252.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Well known in Ecuador, not so much in the U.S.!

Ecuador: Widespread Labor Abuse on Banana Plantations
Harmful Child Labor, Anti-Union Bias Plague Industry

Banana workers in Ecuador are the victims of serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today.
In its investigation, Human Rights Watch found that Ecuadorian children as young as eight work on banana plantations in hazardous conditions, while adult workers fear firing if they try to exercise their right to organize. Ecuador is the world’s largest banana exporter and the source of roughly one quarter of all bananas on the tables of U.S. and European consumers.

Banana-exporting corporations such as Ecuadorian-owned Noboa and Favorita, as well as Chiquita, Del Monte, and Dole fail to use their financial influence to insist that their supplier plantations respect workers’ rights, the report found. Dole leads the pack of foreign multinationals in sourcing from Ecuador, obtaining nearly one third of all its bananas from the country.

“The Ecuadorian bananas on your table may have been produced under appalling conditions,” said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. “Banana companies have a duty to uphold workers’ rights. Ecuador is obligated under international law to do so.”

The use of harmful child labor is widespread in Ecuador’s banana sector. Researchers for the Human Rights Watch report, Tainted Harvest: Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on Ecuador’s Banana Plantations, spoke with forty-five child laborers during their three-week long fact-finding mission in Ecuador. Forty-one of the children began working between the ages of eight and thirteen, most starting at ages ten or eleven. Their average workday lasted twelve hours, and fewer than 40 percent of the children were still in school by the time they turned fourteen.

In the course of their work, they were exposed to toxic pesticides, used sharp knives and machetes, hauled heavy loads of bananas, drank unsanitary water, and some were sexually harassed. Roughly 90 percent of the children told Human Rights Watch that they continued working while toxic fungicides were sprayed from airplanes flying overhead. For their efforts, the children earned an average of $3.50 per day, approximately 60 percent of the legal minimum wage for banana workers.

More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/24/ecuador-widespread-labor-abuse-banana-plantations

[Judi Lynn]

2. I forgot to mention that the current "President" of Ecuador is the son of Ecuador's wealthiest man and banana tycoon.

Daniel Noboa, the current short-term President from a special election, is the son of Álvaro Noboa, who ran unsuccessfully 5 times for the Presidency.
His dad is the one who has used child labor, and the cheapest possible labor to toil for him and his ill-gotten great wealth.