Word: esquivel
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Desperate situations sometimes inspire daring solutions. Faced with a projected budget deficit of $17 million but unwilling to raise taxes, Belize's Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel has settled on a scheme to sell bonds on the international market that will bear an unusual dividend: the right of the buyer to become a citizen of his poor but peaceful Central American country...
Although open to all, the offer is aimed at jittery Hong Kong residents who might want to flee the coming of Chinese rule in 1997. Esquivel has already appointed an honorary consul to process applications there. He predicts that Belize will sell about 400 bonds at $25,000 each this year. Half the money will go to buy bonds backed by U.S. securities, which will eventually repay the investment. The remaining $5 million will go directly into the national treasury...
Late last week, however, voters decided to replace their founding father. Price's People's United Party was swept out of office in favor of the United Democratic Party, which won 55% of the popular vote and 21 of the 28 seats in Parliament. U.D.P. Leader Manuel Esquivel, 44, the new Prime Minister, said he will "pursue good relations with the United States" and work for settlement of a territorial dispute with neighboring Guatemala, but his policies are not expected to differ much from those of his predecessor. So lopsided was the vote that Price lost...
...absurd, so disproportionate," lamented Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Mendez. "This seems like a chapter in a science-fiction novel." The junta had miscalculated international opposition to its invasion and grossly underestimated the risk of war. Its seizure of the Falkland Islands nonetheless remained popular at home. Activist Perez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Prize for his human rights crusade against the government, offered his support to the junta last week, as did an organized group of mothers of Argentines kid naped in a wave of police repression...
...Esquivel emulated last year's Peace Prize winner, India's Mother Teresa, by declaring that he was accepting only on behalf of "the people of Latin America, particularly the most poor, the most humble, the Indians, peasants and workers." Asked whether his award would affect the way in which his country is ruled, he replied: "I don't know." Others were less pessimistic. "It will restrain those who brutalize, and end indifference," said José Westerkamp, a fellow Argentine civil rights activist. Added Robert Cox, the British-born former editor of the Buenos Aires Herald...