Trinidad Boosts Sugarcane Farmer Subsidy

"Over my dead body will there be a revival of the sugarcane industry" in the oil-and gas-rich country, Manning said late Tuesday. "That would be like going back to slavery."

Trinidad last year announced plans to shut down its centuries-old sugar industry at the end of 2007, following big cuts in subsidies from the European Union.

The government closed its main sugar factory in 2003, giving 10,000 farmers a combined $105 million in compensation fees. Independent farmers were encouraged to keep producing sugar to meet Trinidad's export quota for Europe.

Voters in Trinidad will on Nov. 5 choose between Manning's Afro-Caribbean-dominated party, an opposition party led a former premier of East Indian descent, and a new group running as the country's first multiracial party.