Corporate and Governmental Crime in Extremus: Illustrating Globalization
The late Norman Knudson of Louisiana explored the massive reefs off the Miskito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua in 1969. He said the reefs were teaming with lobster, but that it was too deep to dive repetitively. He claimed that he would not promote a lobster diving fishery because it would kill half the Indians on the Miskito Coast.
That was a very interesting comment. Apparently, lobster diving was not a job for trained white-skinned divers.
To some corporations, criminality is just a slippery part of business. To governments with resource ambitions, hindered by indigenous cultures, the accidental elimination of large numbers of men is a strong reason not to regulate an industry: it is the laissez-faire genocide of oppression politics. To me, injustice links to instability, frustrating the noble ambitions of a people while promoting the violent and base elements of their society.
To Red Lobster Restaurants and Albert Jackson, this was an opportunity for profit. In the early 70s they linked gluttony to resource with disposable labor. Albert Jackson built the first lobster processing plant on Roatan Island with, in the words of Red Lobsters Dick Munroe, more help than was usual from Red Lobster Restaurants.
It is ironic that the diving industry that would bring a plague of paralysis to the 150,000 Miskito Indian Nation, began on a sport divers island paradise.
My first contact with a Caribbean lobsterman chanced in 1986, in Sabine Pass, TX, where even seagulls hide from the sun. While waiting for a commercial diving job, I strolled toward the only motion on the docks.
The words, US Federal Marshall were on the yellow tape drooping around the 120 fishing vessel. Flailing his arms, the ship owner cursed his captain, That Belize bastard, who had smuggled cocaine aboard, entangling his ship with the law. The owner knew nothing of that low activity; a victim of bitter injustice.
An angry face, born north of the tropics, framed his eyes, green as the Caribbean shallows. I heeled leeward, glad that I was free from any smugglers fears, leaving that man to chew his fate.
My eye caught movement, followed by a splash. I turned to watch a dark man cut the dirty water at the bow of the impounded ship. Cooled, he laid hold of a 3/4 inch line hanging from the bow bit. Hand over wet hand, he climbed, foot-hooked the gunwale and swung aboard. I could not have made that climb with the sea afire and a gaff in my lip!
The green-eyed pirate pulled up alongside me.
What do ya think about my ******-indians? he grinned through foul breath, You can buy one for five or ten bucks a day. These monkeys will dive all day long at 100 feet and bring up 20 pounds of lobster.
I played along, I guess they die by the bucket, diving like that. You go through ******s pretty fast?
Theyll last a few weeks. In the end, they start bitching about a little paralysis. They drag their lame-assed mates up the beach and disappear into the bush; gone. I hire a new bunch. Theres hundreds of youngsters leaping for the Red Gold.
In 1994, I received this letter from Ambassador William T. Pryce, by way of Congressman Robert Livingston: Thank you for your letter of July 29, which I received on August 27, regarding Miskito Indian divers of Honduras. The serious issues raised by your constituent, Robert Izdepski, have been discussed in this embassys Human Rights Report and Trade Act report, both of which are submitted annually to the US Congress. Specifically, the reports state: Reliable reports indicate that as many as 50 deaths per year result from serious health and safety hazards facing Miskito Indian scuba divers employed in the lobster and conch harvesting off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. While we cannot confirm the other allegations made by Mr. Izdepski in his letter to you, much of his information appears credible
The Ambassadors letter did not mention the thousands of cases of Central Nervous System Decompression Disease, hundreds of which result in diver paralysis each year. Although the primary victims are not as cute as children are or as appealing as a single mother, the fathers lost are paramount to their families and result in the devastation of mother and child in a way permanent and degrading. The hunter/provider becomes the brain-damaged dependant in this physical world. Wives turn to prostitution; hungry children leave school. Along the Miskito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, 80% of the young males are fishery divers. A third of them are crippled or die within five years of entering the fishery.
This shadowy epidemic is global. I traced its outline with the late Professor Nietschmann, but this industrial disease eludes precise measurement. Never-the less, abundant reports indicate that improper diving is now the worlds leading cause of serious spinal cord injury.
Dr. Maurice Cross, an expert in Hyperbaric Medicine, estimates 20,000 aquarium fish divers in the Philippine Islands. One hundred percent of them have central nervous system damages with symptoms ranging from dizziness through organic brain damage and quadriplegia. The societal impacts of this are comparable to war. A paralyzed 17-year-old boy said it all, Me dolor es completeo, My pain is complete.
Dr. David Youngblood, renowned in commercial diving and hyperbarics, indicates a huge diver/fisherman population in Brazil. Then there is sponge diving, pearl diving, the sea urchin industry, scallop diving, gold dredging, the diving gypsies of Thailand, live fish hunters, conch divers
on and on.
Diving fisheries share factors. Access to scuba technologies in the early 70s led to a boom for developing coastal villages. In an unhealthy global synchronicity, shallow reefs were fished out, leading to deeper areas of industrial diving focus. With each foot of depth, the universal lack of diving education, safety equipment and maintenance insured injuries. Any certified diver will tell you that proper training and equipment are vital (In 1991, Nietschmann received $10,000 from Red Lobster Restaurants for diver training
about $1.25 per diver) for survival.
Ignorant of diving physics, the men universally attribute paralysis to demonic manifestations. Tales of the mermaid, water devils and sea witches spring up in each culture, encouraged by industrial interests that want to hide the true demons: Greed, Racism and Exploitation.
Indigenous communities benefit little when trading natural resources to corporations for wheelchairs. I quote from:
THE LOBSTER FISHERY OF THE HONDURAN AND NICARAGUAN MOSKITIA:
A study of the resource, its sustainable exploitation and the problems of the Miskito divers working in the fishery by Arcadis Euroconsult Arnhem Netherlands For THE WORLD BANK September 1999:
The poor working conditions of the divers and the high accident rate is also a potential problem in international markets. A few years ago, pressure about this in the USA caused considerable embarrassment for major importer "Red Lobster". It was defused by Red Lobster guaranteeing that they would only buy trapped product, but is widely known in the industry that this requirement is regularly flouted. Red Lobster executives have been quoted in the press as saying they know that all their product comes from trap boats because the processing plant manager assures them of the fact.
This kind of slippery talk epitomizes corporate ethical problems. The Director of Red Lobster Corporate Communications, Wendy Spinduso, recently introduced the new history of Red Lobster to Robert Izdepski (Reporter for Golden Gourmet) at a very memorable Grand Opening in Times Square: Red Lobster has never supported diving. This rewrite contradicts History (as well as written statements by Red Lobster), but it may simply be that the new Share the Love theme does not rhyme with barbarous exploitation.
Industrial/political interests have covered-up the abuse. In this poor light, relief agencies do not see this fragmented disease, nor do they know how to cope with this seemingly complex killer. In this void, Sub Ocean Safety has grown by default. Hyperbaric Medical Science added to commercial diving and mixed with political savvy has produced concrete accomplishments. We have cut this Gordian knot.
1. SOS established three decompression chambers in Honduras and Nicaragua. Thousands of divers walk because of these chambers.
2. SOS has educated both consuming and producing nations about the Human Rights abuses and Free Trade issues (National Geographic Channel, Reuters Reports, SF Chronicle, Mens Journal, La Prensa, Esta Semana, Miami Herald, speaking engagements, etc.).
3. Pressure on Red Lobster Restaurants may convince them to Share the Love with exploited fourth world cultures (Boycott; send query letters to Red Lobster
1-800-Lobster).
4. The price of Caribbean Spiny Lobster is artificially low because of the income generated by the cocaine trafficking of the lobster fleet.
5. The realization that this is a Free Trade, Human Rights and crime issue, not a diving problem, will tend toward its resolution.
We would like to share our scientific knowledge and partner or consult with others to address the vast problems of Global diving fisheries in this hidden arena of Cultural Survival.
www.suboceansafety.org
Join us,
Robert Izdepski
President,
Sub Ocean Safety
