When you think of Free Trade Zones in Nicaragua, an image immediately comes to mind. Tin shed factories. Fleets of buses arriving early every morning. Long hours. Poor pay. Women workers. Garments shipped to the United States. Tax holidays. Harassment and union busting. They can be found in most of the country's major cities and towns, and the numbers are growing.  

But there is another type of Free Trade Zone (or Zona Franca, as it is known in Nicaragua), where the exploitation is just as great, but the glare of publicity is minimal. On Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast, forty minutes from Bluefields by boat, is Kukra Hill, exporting African Palm Oil. The company, who's parent is the Costa Rican Grupo Agroindustrial CB, gets tax breaks. The workers get next to nothing. Kukra's history is a microcosm of the turbulent Twentieth Century. The entire area, over 1,200 square kms, was originally owned by United Fruit. The plantation was eventually acquired by the Somoza family, and  run as a private farm. As well as bananas, sugar began to be grown and cattle raised. With the Revolution the Sandinistas carried out agrarian reform in the area. One thousand families acquired land, 200 of them forming a co-operative to grow African Palm. The Sandinista Government, together with the dutch aid agency HIVOS, invested in a state owned processing plant, able to produce 12 tons a day. They also opened a branch of BANADES, the National Bank for Development, and an office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, to give all farmers in the area technical advice. 

The support from the Bank was vital. African Palm takes up to five years from planting before farmers begin to reap any returns. By the late 80s the Co-op members were beginning to make a decent living. A new processing plant opened, able to take up to 30 tons, giving more hope for the future. Then in the 1990 elections the US backed UNO coalition  took power, and the sky fell in on the farmers.

Men with fat wallets from Nicaragua's Pacific Coast and beyond soon 

started appearing, offering to buy the land from the desperate farmers. One was linked to capital within the new Chomorro government. Another was a multi-national from Costa Rica, offering to buy the land at rock  bottom prices. Yet another, this time backed by capitalists from Chinandega, started acquiring the sugar plantations.

Soon the members of the Co-op were under pressure to sell their land.  The Cukra Development Corporation, by then owned by a Costa Rican  company, made them an offer which they refused. "We would rather die  than sell our land," they said. Then the processing plant, the Rio Lindo Escondido Industrial SA, owned by the same Costa Rican company, refused to take their palm. One year passed; two; by the third year some of the farmers were looking death in the face, so they were forced to sell.

The Costa Rican company, Grupo Agroindustrial CB (also known as the  Numar group), made a killing. They picked up land already planted with  African Palm from the Co-op members for between $40 and $85 a hectare.  The

neighbouring sugar plantation, owned by Nicaraguan capitalists, sold 

their land to the Costa Ricans for around $700 a hectare, the true value of the land. This legalised robbery was willingly overseen by the new Nicaraguan government, who closed down their Ministry office and choked off credit by closing down BANADES in Kukra.

Grupo Agroindustrial CB/Numar group has integrated the Kukra enterprise into its wider business. The company own Compania Palma Tica in Costa Rica, the biggest producer of vegetable oils in the country, which they bought from Chiquita Brands in 1995, when Chiquita started off-loading subsidaries in the middle of a profits crisis. By 2002 they had 20,000 hectares under African Palm, with the majority of their oil exported to Mexico or islands in the Caribbean. The company have recently received $20 million from the Central American Economy Integration Bank (BCIE), and benefits from tax breaks from the Nicaraguan government, because they

produce for export. The money trail doesn't stop there. Almost a quarter of Numar group shares are owned by Belize based BB Holdings Ltd, which also owns Belize Bank, the biggest in the country. 70 per cent of the shares of BB Holdings are owned by Michael Ashcroft, better known as Lord Ashcroft, multi-millionaire, former treasurer and current deputy  chair of the UK's Conservative Party, and its biggest donor.

Whilst capitalists from Central America and beyond benefit, the workers get little from working for the company. When they lost their land, campesinos were turned into day labourers. The Cukra Development Company, which takes care of the growing of African Palm, employs only 250 people directly. The rest, up to 2,000, are employed by local gang masters. The company sub-contracts individuals to carry out work on the plantations, who then hire workers on daily rates. The workers are thus exploited twice, by the company and by their local employer.

Many of the workers are inward migrants from the Pacific, who come to  the Caribbean Coast desperate to eke out a living. What they find is a life controlled by the company and gang-masters. They live in barracks, are fed and watered, and paid between C$40 and C$50 a day($2 - $2.50).  At the end of the month they often find they owe the Company, in a set up reminiscent of the notorious 'truck' shops in the iron and steel towns in 19th Century Britain. No wonder that most only stay for a short while, before moving on elsewhere.

Unionising has been hard, if not impossible for locals to carry out. In an attempt to reach the workers, local activists invited Sandinista National Assembly Deputies to speak to the workers, including Alba Palacio, who co-ordinates the Labour Commission in the NationalAssembly. Deputies can't be prevented from speaking to the workers, and will not suffer any consequences, unlike local trade unionists.

Despite the over-bearing presence of the company, alternatives still 

exist in Kukra. A development agency, Ayuda en Accion, runs a

Livelihoods programme aimed at the 1,200 families who live in the Kukra Hill district. Since 1999 three hundred families have had loans from a Savings and Loans scheme, and 100 have gone on to form a Credit co-op, which gained legal status this year.

There have also been efforts to help producers. 510 cattle farmers have formed an association, with cattle loans funded by the Spanish

government. A project targeting 60 families have donated three head of cow per family, and one bull for each three families, together with pasture improvement and fencing. This has been backed up by training for the farmers, and support for growing food for self-sufficiency – rice, corn and beans.

These actions mirror what happened all over Nicaragua during the

Revolution, small scale local solutions to localised development

problems. But for them to be truly effective they need, as also happened during the Revolution, the involvement of the State. Only in this way can it be ensured that all areas and all the population is reached, as is part of a wider development programme.

Should the FSLN return to power there is some hope. They have offered 

technical support for farmers, and credit aimed at the agricultural 

sector. They also insist they will introduce measures to set minimum 

standards for companies in the Zona Franca sector, and support

membership of trade unions. There is, however, one area where they have said they will not go. They have promised agrarian reform, but without the expropriation of existing land. It remains to be seen how they will answer the thirst for land from the people of Kukra Hill, who have seen international institutions, their national government and foreign companies all applaud the legalised theft which passes for the land market in Nicaragua.