Foreign Perspectives

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Kyle over at immigration orange always has thought provoking articles and one of the most thought provoking that he has had recently was his piece on the support of terrorists in Colombia by Chiquita Brands.

Chiquita didn’t just decide to support terrorists for the sake of killing people, it justified paying $1.7 million by considering it as protection money for its employees. Does that make it right though? Well, no, it doesn’t but it’s only one high profile example of people making decisions that are expedient at the time.

However, that’s the least of the problems that such support causes. Although the public perception of their aims might be different, terrorist organisations often co-operate with one another and some of that money from Chiquita no doubt found its way back to fund killing of people in Northern Ireland. Would Chiquita be quite so happy if some of their money is found to have been used to fund terrorism in America too?

The fundamental problem is that a number of products that everyone buys are produced in countries where peace is something that might come in the future and the reality of the present day is violence from one or more groups within the country. Doing business in a country like that does entail problems and there is no short-term way around that.

Unfortunately the short-term alternatives aren’t great either. Chiquita and others pulling out of Colombia doesn’t make the problem go away as others will take over the plantations and those bananas will still be sold internationally. In fact, if that wasn’t the case the impact on the Colombian economy could be catastrophic which wouldn’t be good for the cause of peace either: as seems very clear with the recent experiences in Northern Ireland, a strong economy makes the incentive for terrorism dry up very quickly.

We can’t know for sure what Chiquita’s money was used for but $1.7 million is an awful lot of money that would have been much better spent in the cause of peace.

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To a lot of people around the world Melbourne is synonomous with Neighbours as that’s where Ramsay Street (which is the real-life street of Pinoak Court and not on a movie-set as you might think) but there’s a lot more to see in and around the city than that of course.

The city itself is quite compact so in terms of Melbourne accommodation you can pretty much choose anywhere and not be too far out of the action. However, to avoid the need for a car it’s best to pick a hotel near the centre of Melbourne and a great spot is near the lovely Flinders Street station.

The free city circle tram is an excellent way to get yourself oriented and takes in the majority of the city centre attractions along its route. Among these perhaps the best is the Old Melbourne Gaol but don’t miss Captain Cooks cottage (transported from England and reconstructed) nor the botanical gardens.

Slightly further afield make a point of spending an evening in accommodation at St Kilda where you can see the fairy penguins (also seen at Philip Island).

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I’m sure that it’s been there for ages but I just noticed that the playground in the ground of the Stormont Estate had been dedicated to the memory of Mo Mowlam.Mo was one of the many politicians who have fallen by the wayside along the path to peace in Northern Ireland. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1997 to 1999 it was she who presided over the Good Friday Agreement which is essentially the basis that has established peace although, as can only be expected, it did take quite a while after the signing of that agreement way back in 1998 before various pieces of the puzzle fell into place and a few years after that before people in NI and elsewhere finally got around to accepting that peace had apparently arrived.

Popularity: 16% [?]