Ecuador President Noboa Shuts Down Nation on Electricity Crisis
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The President of the Republic of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, speaks during a Spain-Ecuador business meeting in Madrid, Spain, on 25 Jan., 2024 .Carlos Lujan—Europa Press/Getty Images
BY STEPHAN KUEFFNER / BLOOMBERGAPRIL 17, 2024 10:42 PM EDT
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa ordered businesses and government offices to shut down Thursday and Friday amid a crippling lack of electrical power ahead of a key national referendum scheduled for Sunday.
Noboa blamed the unprecedented measure on drought, but also sabotage, without offering evidence. The energy crisis comes on the heels of a security crisis and a fiscal crisis that’s sent it seeking help from the International Monetary Fund.
“We’ve been hammered and hammered and hammered non-stop this week, they’ve tried to screw us with sabotage in the electric sector” to undermine support for his referendum, said Noboa, 36, in Atacames, a beach town hit hard by the surge in crime that’s made Ecuador one of Latin America’s most violent countries.
The market-friendly heir of a banana export fortune is asking voters in Sunday’s referendum to approve stronger use of the military as well as the extradition of Ecuadorian citizens to fight crime and to overturn constitutional bans on temporary work and international arbitration.
More:
https://time.com/6968360/ecuador-noboa-shutdown-electricity-crisis/
Daniel Noboa, President, and Álvaro Noboa, richest man in Ecuador and 5-time loser in Presidential elections.
Álvaro Noboa
Wikipedia, regarding father's human rights problems:
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Labour practices
Usleap once affirmed Noboa has opposed campaigns for workers' rights within his own companies, and Noboa Group workers have been illegally dismissed for joining trade unions.[19][20] In one 2002 incident striking workers at a Noboa subsidiary were attacked and–according to a Human Rights Watch report–several were shot by organized assailants.[21][22]
In 2002 the New York Times reported on working conditions in Álvaro Noboa's banana plantations in Ecuador. The article specifically mentioned the 3,000-acre (12 km2) plantation known as Los Álamos that employed about 1,300 people.[23] The workers of Los Álamos unionized in March 2002. Noboa's company responded by firing more than 120 of them. The article read: "When the workers occupied part of the hacienda, guards armed with shotguns, some wearing hoods, arrived at 2 a.m. on May 16, according to workers, and fired on some who had refused to move from the entrance gate, wounding two."
Noboa's Company, on the other hand, claims that the conflict was illegally initiated since the number of workers' with which the special committees were assembled never reached the number required by law, that is, a majority. They tried to fool authorities by having participants who were not workers. Both the workers' committee and the strike declaration were illegal.
It was said to the public and press that workers involved in this conflict were guilty of outrageous conduct at the farm, which motivated accusations brought forth before the authorities whereby the police had to intervene in order to safeguard company assets. The company told that conflict arose causing substantial losses due to unlawful stoppage of agricultural activity.[24]
Child labor
Noboa Group was also criticized in a HRW investigation into child labor practices in the banana industry.[25] In April 2002 Human Rights Watch released a report that "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."[26]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Noboa