The volcano that keeps on giving, the Turrialba, registered on Tuesday morning an eruption blowing steam and gas some 1,000 meters above the active crater.
The Turrialba at 1:20 pm Tuesday. Foto: Ovsicori
The Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica (Ovsicori) said the eruption occurred at 7:30 am and lasted all day.
The Ovsicori said they received reports of ash fall in higher elections of Goicoechea and Heredia.
Experts say this is normal for an active volcano like the Turrialba.
Not to be outdone, the Tenorio Volcano located between Cañas, Tilaran, Guatuso and Upala in Guanacaste, that had lava flows and phreatic eruptions hundreds of years ago, then entered a period of inactivity, until it was classified as a dormant volcano, has shown “high seismicity”.
Experts say this is could be a possible awakening of the volcano.
Meanwhile, the Poas volcano national park remains closed to visitors.
Costa Rica’s presidential election will be decided in a runoff on the first Sunday in April after no candidates secured the 40% of the popular vote to be declared a winner.
Fabricio Alvarado
In the April 1, Costa Ricans will have to decide between the top two vote-getters, Fabricio Alvarado of the Partido Restoracion Nacional (PRN) and the Carlos Alvarado — no relation — of the Partido Accion Cuidadana (PAC).
Carlos Alvarado
In the February 4 election, Fabricio Alvarado won 24.91%, while Carlos Alvarado 21.33%. Antonio Desanti Alvarez of the Partido Liberacion Nacional (PLN) placed third with 18.62%, the others: Rodolfo Pisa (PUSC) 16.02%; Juan Diego Castro (PIN) 9.52%; Rodolfo Hernandez (Republicano) 4.95%; Otto Guevara (Movimiento Libertario) 1.02%; the balance divided up between the 6 other candidates.
Desanti said he had been left blindsided by the quick rise of Fabricio Alvarado.
Absenteeism was 34%.
Source: TSE
While both Alavardos have a common background in music — Fabricio, a 43-year-old journalist with a prominent career as a preacher and Christian singer and Carlos, 37 years old, sang in a progressive rock band — their politics are very different. Fabricio is a right-wing opponent of same-sex marriage, while Carlos is considered a center-left supporter of same-sex marriage.
Fabricio said he would withdraw Costa Rica from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights should be elected. “People said, ‘This is the person that I want to defend us in the face of international impositions,’” he said.
The 2018 Presidential election was dominated by the issue of same-sex marriage after the international court ruling said Costa Rica should allow same-sex marriage.
For deeply Roman Catholic Costa Rica, the gay marriage ruling came as an “external shock” to the campaign, political analyst Francisco Barahona told The Associated Press.
His fellow students at the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) called him the cricket (el grillo). They awarded him this moniker because of his version of “The Fable of the Cricket and the Sea,” the famous Guatemalan song he delighted in singing as he made unrequested advances on the women at the university.
Perhaps, it was the nickname or maybe mere coincidence that his life followed the story.
The cricket as the story goes was renowned for his performances. He delighted crowds night after night with his moonlight chirping, offering a brief interlude to the haste and tragedy of daily life. The man too drew crowds who worshiped this idol who presented himself to them in all his golden glory.
The crowds, driven by the emotion of their music, urged them both – the cricket and the man – to seek glory – one to the sea and the other to the government. The familiar trap closed, the last temptation of Jesus in the desert, Satan offering rule over nations, taking both what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. It was the temptation that Jesus rejected, accepting his life of humility and sacrifice. But like the cricket, the man plunged ahead into the trap, assured of the glory he would find.
But the sea could not be so easily pleased like his audience at home. The cricket had to soothe it, fill it with visions and lies, misleading it with fear and false promises of love.
And like the cricket the man sang a siren song, seeking to enchant waves, movements of people raging against a strange shore. He showed his willingness to latch on to whatever passing fear or moment would rally the crowds to his side and trust in him as a messiah come to save them from breaking on the beach. Even though the breaking was inevitable, guaranteed by greater forces, they trusted and believed in him, and again he was accepted as an idol, worshipped blindly by the wave.
But neither the cricket nor the man loved the sea. They only wished to control it for their own glory. Without love, true love, the song was no more than a resounding gong, a clashing of cymbals. Sure it made noise, but it could not last. For in the end, when generations move on and what we have built is dust in the wind, what is left is love.
And those – like the cricket and like the man – who live a life of fear and hate, will have nothing.
Of course, their paths diverged. The cricket, unable to master the sea, returned home. The man fooled at least part of the sea, tamed it and controlled it, sending it to break on anyone different than himself.
But the story does not end there. Like Paul I have faith, hope and love. I have faith in the sea, in the people who can’t be fooled forever. I have hope for the future, a future that presents dignity and respect for all. I have love, love for my fellow citizens and for those who are vulnerable to the raging sea. And the most important of these is love.
Like all fables, this one has a moral: we should learn from the sea and the cricket’s end, ignoring the faint chirping, preferring instead to form our own wave, our own movement that leaves behind the cricket to sing his siren song to the void.
This year’s election asks us not to just choose candidates or parties, but to decide the very nature of the government we wish to serve us. We are faced with an existential crisis asking us to reinvent the meaning of our ever-changing society. It is no surprise that the vociferous debate has brought to the forefront competing views, has revealed the division in our country.
The questions facing us are clear.
Do we want Fabricio Alvarado’s theocratic rule with the beliefs and doctrines of the evangelical church becoming law, and pastors looked to for legal opinions? Do we want sermons delivered from the Casa Presidencial? Do we really want a government led by a narrow definition of not only religion but who deserves dignity and respect?
It is no surprise we are presented with this choice as marginalized groups push for equal rights, dignity, and respect. As all civil rights movements have done, the current push has revealed – not created – the undercurrent of bigotry in the country.
Perhaps we prefer Juan Diego Castro’s approach? A feeble course revealing him as too cowardly to withstand the trials of compromise and democratic discourse. Do we want to be ruled by a dictatorial president who has eliminated any checks on his power – both governmental (his attacks on both the assembly and the judiciary) and non-governmental (his attacks on the media and the very public he would rule)? Do we want a president who rules by decree like Maduro in Venezuela or Pinochet in Chile?
It is no surprise we are presented with this choice amidst a corruption scandal and legislative ennui. Costa Ricans rightfully disgusted with the dirty deals and the frigid pace of change have turned to Castro, a candidate who promises to fight corruption and act.
Desperate for change, the country has turned to these populist villains who seek to flip the table and scatter the cards and chips of the political game.
But you can’t fight corruption with a corrupt process, a process that threatens the rights and protections our forefathers fought wars and dictators to secure. (Have we really forgotten so easily the Civil War of 1948?) And you can’t run a democracy – a government that requires involving diverse voices and finding a compromise – on bigotry and hate.
Amid this chaos have come voices seeking to define democracy, all too many of which have relied on the common fallacy of democracy as the will of the majority. But too often the majority has run ramshackle over the minorities, enslaving them, stealing their land, and massacring them. You can’t have a democracy without individual and collective rights even if the majority wishes to destroy them.
A functioning democracy protects its most fragile citizens, the marginalized and forgotten, the downtrodden and hopeless. We have too often failed in this ideal with disastrous consequences, but we have never rejected it, knowing that to do so creates a tyranny of the majority as Adams, Madison, Burke and so many others claimed. And if we forget and reject these protections, we open ourselves to the frenzy of a mob, angered by what they don’t understand, stripping dignity and rights from anyone who doesn’t fit their narrow definition of a person.
As we head to the polls on Sunday, our choice is clear. Let us choose rights and protections. Let us choose democracy.
Arturo Fuente, known for its Dominican cigars, has announced plans for a new cigar factory in Estelí, Nicaragua. It is called “Gran Fabrica de Tabacos La Bella y La Bestia.”
On Jan 26th, Carlito Fuente surprised those in attendance at Puro Sabor 2018 when he announced that “Carlito’s Back!” in Nicaragua. Arturofuente.com
“I’m very grateful to Nicaragua and the people of Nicaragua. I’m back in Nicaragua. Carlito’s back,” said Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr. “This factory is just putting my heart, planting my flag here in Estelí.”
Fuente Jr. said the company opted for a colonial look, opposed to a factory that looks Cuban, as a tribute to Nicaragua. He credited Manny Iriarte of being able to sketch his vision.
It will be built on a property the family acquired many years ago. The plot of land is described as roughly two and a half times that of the property of the company’s main factory in the Dominican Republic. The company plans additional buildings, such as tobacco storage and packaging, on the land in the future.
This year marks 30 years since the company’s last Nicaraguan factory was burned down during the Nicaraguan Revolution. Carlos Fuente Sr. had opened a factory in Nicaragua in the 1970s following the Cuban Revolution. That factory employed 300 people and produced 18,000 cigars.
After the factory was burned in 1978 and the loss of the company’s factory in Honduras a year later, the company decided to go to the Dominican Republic, where its cigars have been produced since 1980.
Arturo Fuente Don Carlos Eye of the Shark, Cigar Aficionado’s 2017 Cigar of the Year.
The announcement was made at the company’s farms in Estelí, which have been functioning for a handful of years now.
Fuente is finishing construction of a new Dominican factory last year, the latest in a series of construction projects in both the Dominican Republic and its home in Tampa.
Felix Mesa will oversee the new operation when it opens.
“I think of my father so much because this is my father’s dream to come back,” said Fuente. “I’m coming here with my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears because of my colleagues, my family and friends.”
He also said the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, the family’s foundation with the Newman family, will also come to Nicaragua.
Fuente Jr. told halfwheel construction would start “immediately,” though admitted there wasn’t an exact day for a groundbreaking ceremony.
The recent trend in expat living is the Gringo Bubble, creating an insulating layer of US culture. So many expats and foreign tourists never have a true Costa Rican experience. Living here for years, they might never eat at a Costa Rican restaurant or learn much Spanish beyond “pura vida” and other simple phrases.
Not that they should be judged too harshly. The parts of the country advertised and pushed on foreigners are pockets of US culture – a counterfeit Florida bringing the comforts of home.
The Costa Rican experience has become a dinner at Applebee’s after watching the latest US blockbuster, surrounded by other foreigners and served by friendly Costa Ricans hoping to practice their English. Economic imperialism has supplanted so much of what is Costa Rica with so much of what is the US.
The Gringo Bubble can be difficult to pop. Costa Ricans form tight-knit communities of friends and family early in life, lacking the need to form new friendships the way transient foreigners do. And foreigners themselves might fear speaking in Spanish, focusing on the mistakes they might commit, forgetting the friendships and experiences they might make. Others flee upon facing culture shock, taking refuge in the sanctuary of the malls and Tony Romas of Escazu.
But the shell can be cast off, broken through with a little effort and with a daily choice to try something out of that warm comfort zone. It means replacing a trip to the movies with a trip to a local theatre or even the festivals of independent Costa Rican films. It means looking for a small, locally owned restaurant or cafeteria instead of the foreign chain. It might mean occasionally leaving foreign friends at home, creating an expectation of meeting new people.
And anyone who embarks on this often frightening and always exhausting journey will be rewarded with a more fulfilling Costa Rican experience.
In the jungles of Costa Rica alternative communities have removed themselves from Western life attempting to create their paradise on earth. Ben Zand heads to meet some of these groups, and to search for a controversial cult leader called Nature Boy.
Nature Boy runs a group called Melanation and has convinced thousands of people online to follow his message. He’s even convinced people to give him money, and to give up everything they own to live with him in the tropics.
The ambassador in Holland, Sergio Ugalde (left), heard this Friday along with the Costa Rican agent in the International Court of Justice, Edgar Ugalde, the resolution on the border dispute with Nicaragua. Photo: Courtesy of the ICJ
The Hague – Costa Rica claimed victory over Nicaragua on Friday after the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) awarded Costa Rica disputed territory along the coastal border shared by the two Central American countries.
At The Hague Costa Rica’s ambassador, Sergio Ugalde (left), listened to this Friday along with the Costa Rican agent in the International Court of Justice, Edgar Ugalde, the resolution on the border dispute with Nicaragua. Photo: Courtesy of the ICJ
In a multi-pronged judgment, Nicaragua was ordered by the ICJ to remove a military base from a contested coastal area near the San Juan river, which the judges said violated Costa Rican sovereignty.
The court’s panel of 15 international judges also found that Costa Rica has sovereignty over the “whole northern part of Isla Portillos, including the coast,” but excluding Harbour Head Lagoon.
Costa Rica’s ambassador Sergio Ugalde said that the border determined by the ICJ is identical to the one that the country proposed from the beginning and “practically” the 37 oil blocks that Costa Rica claimed and that the government of Daniel Ortega put out to an international tender for their exploitation, remain on the Costa Rican side.
Isla Portillos, is also known as Isla Calero and Harbor Head in Nicaragua. The new rulings came more than two years after the ICJ found that Costa Rica had sovereignty over Isla Portillos, basing its ruling in part on an 1858 treaty.
Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solis called the decision “historic,” while Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez said it was very close to what the country had asked for.
In a separate case heard at the court earlier on Friday, Nicaragua was ordered to pay Costa Rica nearly $379,000 dollars – less than it had asked for – in reparations for environmental damage to parts of its wetlands at the mouth of the disputed San Juan river.
Costa Rica should be compensated by April 2 for damage caused, the cost of environmental restoration, expenses, and interest, the court said.
“The amount is not what we hoped for, but we accept fully and respectfully what the court decided,” Gonzalez said. “Nicaragua has a valuable opportunity to rebuild trust between the two countries and close the chapters that have distanced us in recent years.”
Nicaragua’s government called the environmental verdict a “major defeat for Costa Rica” in a statement. It did not comment on the other cases.
As part of the border settlement, the court drew a new maritime boundary between the states, who have had rival claims since 2002, when Nicaragua published maps detailing oil concessions. Some of those were in waters claimed by Costa Rica.
“Costa Rica has sovereignty over the whole of Isla Portillos up to the point at which the right bank of the San Juan River reaches the low-water mark of the coast of the Caribbean Sea,” judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.
The judge was referring to a strip of land on Costa Rica’s disputed northern border, where in 2010, Nicaragua sent soldiers to open an artificial waterway to divert water from the San Juan River that divides both countries to a nearby Nicaraguan lake, in what Costa Rica saw as a move to shorten its territory. Nicaragua said it was dredging a natural waterway
Costa Rica had filed the suit in 2014, asking the court to determine its borders with Nicaragua in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.
Friday’s judgments resulted from a string of disputes between the two Central American neighbors before the ICJ, set up in 1945 to rule on border and territorial disputes between nations.
FILE PHOTO: Nicaraguan protesters stake their claim to Isla Portillos, a restricted swath of land near Costa Rica and Nicaragua’s border, as a team of Costa Rican environment experts and representatives of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands inspect the area for environmental damage April 5, 2011. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate/File Photo
In December 2015, the ICJ reproached Managua for violating Costa Rica’s right to navigation in the waters and ordered the two countries to negotiate an amount of compensation.
But they failed to reach a deal and the issue trundled back to the ICJ so judges could set the compensation amount.
The two countries first held negotiations in 1976 to try to reach an agreement on their border which broadly follows the San Juan river, but talks dragged on. Costa Rica brought the case to the ICJ in 2014 saying it had “exhausted its diplomatic means” to resolve the row.
LESS than a year after electing a president, Ecuadoreans will vote on whether to bar a former one from returning to office. Seven questions will appear on the ballot in a referendum to be held on February 4th. The most important is whether to reinstate term limits for elected officials. If Ecuadoreans vote Yes, Rafael Correa, an authoritarian leftist who governed for ten years until 2017, will not be able to make the political comeback he is thought to be plotting.
The referendum is the result of a spectacular falling out between Mr Correa and his successor, Lenín Moreno, who narrowly won the presidential election in 2017. Mr Correa had expected his successor to carry on his programme of “21st-century socialism”. This amounted to spending lots of money on social programmes and infrastructure, and subjecting independent institutions like the press and the courts to control by the president.
Mr Moreno has disappointed him, in part because there is less money than there was during the oil bonanza that occurred during the early years of Mr Correa’s presidency. Mr Moreno unmuzzled the press and stopped meddling in the judiciary. The chief prosecutor, Carlos Baca, once a Correa loyalist, used his new freedom to charge Mr Moreno’s vice-president, Jorge Glas, with corruption. In December a court sentenced Mr Glas, who is widely regarded as Mr Correa’s man, to six years in jail for “illicit association” with Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm. He and an uncle were convicted of taking $14m in bribes from the company. The prosecution of corruption has helped make Mr Moreno popular. His approval rating in August was 77%, according to Cedatos, a pollster.
The referendum is in part Mr Moreno’s attempt to bury his predecessor politically. As president, Mr Correa at first introduced a two-term presidential limit, then persuaded congress to scrap it. He decided not to run for re-election in 2017, probably because the economy was weakening. Mr Moreno became the nominee of his party, Alianza PAIS. Mr Correa moved to Belgium, his wife’s home country.
Ecuadoreans will now be asked whether any elected official should be permitted to serve more than two terms. They will also vote on whether people convicted of corruption should be barred for life from holding public office.
Mr Moreno is also seeking the right to sack senior judges and prosecutors appointed by a supposedly independent board shortly before Mr Correa left office. The board was widely seen as beholden to the president, and the appointments looked like an attempt by him to keep control of the judiciary. Mr Baca, despite his recent show of independence, may be among those who lose their jobs if the question passes.
Some civil-liberties groups fear that Mr Moreno will use his new power simply to replace Mr Correa’s control over the judiciary with his own. His answer to that worry is that his power of appointment will last only 12 months. After that, members of the board in charge of appointing judges, prosecutors and other officials with judicial and regulatory powers will be elected by popular vote.
The referendum includes unrelated questions, too. There are a couple on environmental issues: whether to bar mining in cities and areas under environmental protection, and whether to expand the part of a national park that is off-limits to oil exploration.
A question sure to get a lot of Yes votes is whether the statute of limitations on sex crimes against children should be ended. Cases of sex abuse in schools have been in the headlines lately. Ecuadoreans will also vote on whether to abolish a windfall property tax that provoked middle-class protests in 2015.
Mr Correa, temporarily back from Belgium, is on a lorry tour of the country to encourage Ecuadoreans to vote No on all the referendum questions. In some towns people have pelted eggs at him. His bodyguards have pelted back. But nearly 30% of the electorate plans to vote against term limits. That is a higher level of support for No than in any of the other referendum questions. It suggests that Mr Correa still has significant support.
If Mr Moreno triumphs in the referendum vote, as expected, his celebration will be short. He will face immediate pressure to speed up re-democratisation and economic reform. His critics point out that his cabinet is still stuffed with officials left over from Mr Correa’s administration. They want Mr Moreno to follow up a successful referendum campaign by clearing some out and strengthening checks on presidential power.
The economy has emerged from a recession but that is only because the government is still spending money at an unsustainable rate. “Debt seems to have become Ecuador’s new oil,” commented Credit Suisse, a bank. Mr Moreno is under pressure to reduce the budget deficit, which reached 5.9% of GDP last year. But he is loth to cut spending sharply while the economy remains fragile. His campaign to undo correísmo is making progress. But Mr Correa’s economic legacy remains a burden.
QCostarica.com was not involved in the creation of the content. This article was originally published on The Economist. Read the original article.
The Economist – A “SLICE of Iowa misplaced on the Central American isthmus”, is how an American political scientist once characterised Costa Rica. He meant it as a compliment. Costa Rica is orderly, relatively rich, and has been a democracy since 1949.
Fabricio Alvarado
But Ticos, as Costa Ricans call themselves, are feeling disgruntled. Their sour mood is shaping elections to be held on February 4th. None of the five leading presidential candidates has the support of more than 20% of the electorate, according to the (unreliable) polls. Two are anti-establishment. For the first time in Costa Rica’s democratic history, such flame-throwers could win.
A ruling on January 9th by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights seems to oblige Costa Rica to let same-sex couples marry. That angered its conservative electorate (see article). But it is not the only cause of discontent. The unemployment rate is 9.4% and income inequality is rising. The murder rate—12.1 per 100,000 people last year—is low by regional standards but higher than it used to be. A scandal involving the import of Chinese cement by a businessman with ties to the president, Luis Guillermo Solís, has contributed to voters’ anger.
Ticos now look enviously upon the two countries that bracket Costa Rica: Panama, which is richer, and Nicaragua, which is safer. Life was better 30 years ago in some ways, admits Rodolfo Piza, the candidate of the Social Christian Unity Party, one of two parties that held the presidency until 2014 (he is in fifth place). “You could walk the streets without fear. There was more equality. There was less unemployment.”
Politics is not providing answers. The 57-seat legislature has nine parties, many of them dedicated to one issue. Its rules, written for a two-party system, allow one deputy to filibuster a law. It takes nearly three years on average for Costa Rica to pass one. That is slower than in any member of the OECD, a rich-country club that Costa Rica has applied to join.
Gridlock has weakened support for democracy. It dropped from 80% of the population in 1996 to 62% last year, according to Latinobarómetro, a pollster (though that is a slight recovery from its low in 2013).
For now, dissatisfaction is showing up as support for unconventional candidates. Fabricio Alvarado, a deputy who was a journalist and an Evangelical Christian crooner, jumped from 3% to around 20% in the polls after he made opposition to the gay-marriage opinion his main campaign issue. That makes him the front-runner. His supporters “want to give the finger to the system”, as well as to gay marriage, says a bewildered veteran politician. In fourth place is Juan Diego Castro, a Trumpian candidate who claims that “traditional” parties are buying addicts’ votes with drugs and cash. Mr Castro has zeroed in on real problems, such as expensive electricity, burdensome bureaucracy and corruption. But his answers are facile. His “very easy” solution to overcrowding in prisons is to force inmates to build more of them.
The strongest hope for avoiding a lurch towards looniness lies with Antonio Álvarez, the nominee of the Party of National Liberation, the other establishment party. He portrays himself as the heir of Óscar Arias, a president of the 1980s and early 2000s who won a Nobel peace prize for helping to end civil wars in other Central American countries. But voters are less impressed with such pedigrees than they would once have been. Mr Álvarez is running second in the polls, with the support of 10-15% of the electorate. Carlos Alvarado (no relation to Fabricio), a confidant of the current president, is just behind him.
The mainstream candidates have more to say than the outsiders about the most pressing problem, the budget deficit, which was 6% of GDP last year. Spending on government salaries, pushed up by pay rises and more hiring, consumes 48% of revenues, more than in any OECD country. The next president will have to cut back. Mr Álvarez promises to reform public salaries and to introduce a value-added tax.
If one of the establishment candidates makes it to the second round, he will probably beat either the pulpit-thumping Fabricio Alvarado or the Trumpesque Mr Castro. That is the best chance to keep Costa Rica Iowa-like.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Nicaragua to compensate Costa Rica for damage Nicaragua caused with unlawful construction work near the mouth of the San Juan River, in the court’s first foray into assessing costs for environmental damage.
File photo
Friday’s order by the United Nations’ principal judicial organ follows a December 2015 ruling that Nicaragua violated Costa Rica’s sovereignty by establishing a military camp and digging channels near the river, part of a long-running border dispute in the remote region on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.
The Judges said the clearing of hundreds of trees and almost 2 square miles of vegetation ”significantly impacted the site” at the mouth of the disputed San Juan river.
In total, Nicaragua was ordered to pay US$378.890 US dollars (¢216.7 million colones) for environmental damage and other costs incurred by Costa Rica, a lot less than the US$6.7 million Costa Rica had demanded.
Presiding Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf, reading the decision, said Costa Rica should be compensated for the damage caused, the cost of environmental restoration, expenses, and interest. The amount must be paid by April 2, after which interest begins to accrue.
Judges had already ruled that Nicaragua had to compensate its neighbor in 2015, but took two years to set an amount after the countries failed to agree on a sum.
File photo
The territorial dispute, mainly over the border line between the two countries, has been running since an 1858 treaty that attempted to map out their territory after their independence from Spain and Mexico.
The countries have a handful of claims and counter-claims before the Court, centering on the mouth of the San Juan river and the Isla Calero, also known as Isla Portillos and Harbor Head in Nicaragua, a virtually uninhabited area.
Costa Rica and Nicaragua are awaiting the Court’s decision of a separate case, about their shared maritime boundary, of the same area. The decision is expected later today, Friday.
Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister, Manuel Gonzalez, said Costa Rica “welcomes and respects the judgment of the International Court”.
“This must be one of the last chapters of that painful page of bilateral history, which should have ended with the historic ruling of the Court in 2015, where Costa Rica won with total forcefulness having ratified our sovereignty over Isla Portillos”, concluded González.
Insightcrime.org – President Donald Trump used his first State of the Union Address to blame the expansion and violence of the MS13 gang in the US on the “deadly loopholes” in the system dealing with unaccompanied children from El Salvador. But an upcoming groundbreaking investigation by InSight Crime and American University challenges this myth and goes deep into how one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Americas operates. Here’s a preview addressing this question of criminal migration:
On September 13, 2016, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas were walking along a quiet Brentwood street in Long Island, New York when MS13 members driving by spotted them. Cuevas had allegedly challenged one of them in the hallway of their school, and the MS13 had “green lit” her. Mickens had nothing to do with the altercation; she would become collateral damage of the gang’s haste to illustrate its dominance.
The MS13 members stopped their car, got out and beat the two girls to death. They dragged Mickens’ body and left it near a fence on the edge of a school. They left Cuevas body behind someone’s house near a cul-de-sac a few yards away. The two girls were beaten so badly, the police originally thought they had been hit by a car. The murders were part of a wave of MS13 homicides in Suffolk County, Long Island. Of 45 homicides in an 18-month span since the beginning of 2016, 17 were gang-related.
In March 2017, US prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York named 13 suspects in the case. Six of those suspects, authorities would later reveal, had come to the United States very recently without a parent or a guardian.
They were part of a wave of what are termed “unaccompanied alien children” or UACs. Between 2013 and 2016, over 210,000 UACs entered the United States, and many of them were placed in gang-ridden areas like Long Island.[1]
This article is the result of field work done for a multi-year research initiative evaluating the transnational criminal capacity of MS13 in the US and El Salvador by InSight Crime and American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies, with funding from the National Institute of Justice.
The number of UACs involved in this and other recent crimes in the United States has set off alarms. Many law enforcement experts consulted for this report give the impression that the gang is maneuvering like an army across borders at the behest of some all-powerful hierarchy.
They point towards murder cases like that of Cuevas and Mickens, regular communications between the gang’s leaders, gang members migrating to areas to establish or rebuild dormant cliques, upticks in criminal activities in areas where migration is occurring at a higher rate and where UACs have settled, and other circumstantial evidence that reinforces this theory.
“The brutal murders of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas … allegedly committed by these defendants, exemplify the depravity of a gang whose primary mission is murder,” stated United States Attorney for the Eastern District Robert L. Capers said when announcing the indictment. “As the MS13 continues its efforts to expand and entrench itself in our communities, both by sending gang members to illegally enter the United States from Central America, and by recruiting new members from our schools and neighborhoods, this office and the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force will continue our mission to dismantle the MS13 and free our neighborhoods from the terror they cause.”
The Trump administration has used the MS13 as a bogeyman to draw support for its policy of searching out and deporting more undocumented migrants. But the relationship of MS13 to migration is complex.
This conception of the problem has implications that are political.
The Trump administration has used the MS13 as a bogeyman to draw support for its policy of searching out and deporting more undocumented migrants. The UAC-gang connection is at the heart of the political rhetoric justifying this policy preference.
But the relationship of MS13 to migration is complex.
While there is clearly some communication, coordination and, in some instances, intent to commit criminal acts across borders, there is little to suggest that the migration of members and potential recruits is controlled in a top-down, coordinated fashion. And while there appears to be a disproportionate number of UAC’s involved in recent gang activities, they represent a tiny fraction of the total UAC population.
We know that MS13 members migrate frequently. Every one of the gang members interviewed for this report had migrated, knew someone who had migrated or had members in their clique (gang faction) who had migrated. They also had family and friends outside of the gang who had migrated, increasing their own likelihood to migrate; and they lived in violent circumstances, which also increased their likelihood to migrate.[2]
Not surprisingly, then, migration is part of the MS13’s criminal economy. In parts of the United States, the gang has established reception points for migrants where they have kidnapped and extorted recently arrived migrants. In parts of Mexico, MS13 members act as lookouts and spies for other criminal organizations and corrupt officials that victimize migrants. They also steal from, rape and victimize migrants, while these people are in route and when they are in shelters.
The MS13 also is communicating regularly across borders. Technological advances and a proliferation of communication channels mean gang members can communicate in dozens of ways, from the most primitive — passing what are known as “kites,” or “huilas” — to the more sophisticated: exchanging encrypted messages via international texting services.
Gang experts interviewed for this report cited instances of gang leaders speaking across a wide expanse that included El Salvador, Los Angeles, Houston and parts of Maryland, among other areas.
At least one formal indictment against gang members in parts of the East Coast of the United States confirms that this communication is regular and has the specific intent to coordinate activities of the gang, although in this case there is no reference to migration or migration policy.
Nonetheless, in some cases, according to law enforcement experts, in intercepted messages gang members made specific references to the Obama administration’s openness to UACs.
Transnational communication is having a profound effect on the dynamics of the gang. To begin with, the MS13 is committing more transnational crimes. These include planning and executing murders, and moving illicit drugs, notwithstanding the small scale of these crimes.
The gang’s leaders, especially those in El Salvador, also seem to be using communication technology to exert increasing influence over their members. Through a combination of calls to action, motivational speeches, and direct and indirect threats, the leaders are establishing more command and control. The result has been an uptick in MS13-related violent incidents in many places in the United States that seem to have no other purpose other than to firmly establish this control.
MS13 leaders have sent members to other areas to commit crimes. As illustrated in several federal indictments in the United States, gang leaders have sent gang members from one state to another to commit murder. In numerous legal cases analyzed for this report, a gang member committed a crime, then fled across state or international borders whereupon he settled in the residence of another gang member or relied on gang support and/or contacts.
The MS13 has steadily spread to new areas. While the estimates of their overall numbers are static, MS13 members have actively sought to create new cliques in rural areas in El Salvador, as well as in mid-size and even small cities in parts of Long Island and California, among other areas.
This internal migration has coincided with a spike in the number of UACs arriving in the United States. Many of these UACs have settled in areas where the MS13 has a presence, and a significant number have been charged with crimes in or near the areas where they settled.
Law enforcement experts consulted by InSight Crime said they believed there was coordination — from the top down — to position these migrants. Some experts even said the migrants were “coached” by the leaders, so they could successfully get past immigration officials in the United States.
Most of these experts told InSight Crime that this was spurred by MS13 leaders in El Salvador, that it was designed to strengthen the gang in the United States, and that this is giving the Salvadoran leaders a greater stranglehold on the gang as a whole.
Little evidence supports these propositions, however. Gangs follow migration patterns of other migrants. The gang members are settling in areas where other migrants have settled. These areas are constantly expanding and therefore the MS13 is spreading within them. Central Americans, who form the core of the MS13, migrate in huge numbers. Just the Salvadoran diaspora represents 2.1 million people, about a fourth of the population of that entire Central American nation.
There is no evidence that gangs determine or finance international migration.
Gang members move for the same reasons that non-gang members move. These push-pull factors range from family and economic reasons to security and legal concerns. Gang members are just as susceptible to these pressures as their compatriots, and migrate for the same, complex variety of reasons that other migrants do.
There is no evidence that gangs determine or finance international migration. While gang experts pushed this idea of coordination and even “coaching,” InSight Crime has not encountered any evidence that gang leaders are making the final determination or financing this migration.
Indeed, migration is normally the domain of the family, an intimate, multi-party decision that has ripple effects across various generations, numerous academic studies show. And while the gang replaces this family in some respects, in others it remains an outsider. Migration appears to be one of those subjects. That is not to say that the gang is not an important resource when members are migrating. In many cases, gang members will stay permanently or temporarily with another gang member. Gang members also rely on the same fixers, or “coyotes,” to move them across unknown or dangerous areas. But when they are migrating, they draw from financial resources of their families, not the gang’s resources. This why the ultimate decision is the family’s decision.
InSight Crime has not found a secret pipeline that gets them through these treacherous places at the expense of the clique of the ranfla, or leadership. They are using the same infrastructure and facing the same risk as other migrants. They are also victims of crime when they migrate, and they will seek to hide their identity for reasons that can be nefarious and/or practical.
Communication between the diaspora and the home country has also always been strong. Cross-border connections exist because the gang was largely made up of migrants. They communicate to their families and friends. Some of these relatives and friends are or become part of the gang’s network, if not full-fledged members. Most do not, but that communication is a lifeline, so much so that it has taken on symbolic value both inside and outside of the gang.
The numbers “503,” the El Salvador country code, is sold on hats, T-shirts and other paraphernalia and denotes a sense of national pride as well as nostalgia for home. It has also become a gang calling card. Differentiating between the two — pride and nostalgia versus gang identity — has proven difficult for authorities and will continue to be.
In conclusion, gang members move to the areas where there are already large numbers of migrants, for the same reasons as their non-gang affiliated compatriots. They face the same risks and pay for the travel in the same way — by rounding up money from their loved ones.
In fact, the gang appears to be taking advantage of circumstances, rather than pro-actively creating the conditions they can exploit. In Suffolk County, for example, about a quarter of those authorities identified as gang members are UACs. These represent about 1 percent of all UACs who were placed in the area. But prosecutors say they make up about half of the suspects in recent murder cases.
[1] The Center for Latin American & Latino Studies drew from US government statistics to reach this tally. Asylum applications from El Salvador also spiked during this time period, reaching 11,742 in 2014, double the number in 2013, and triple the number in 2010.
[2] Data from interviews from 2013 show that 72 percent of Salvadoran nationals who applied for asylum cited social violence as the reason for their flight, and 63 percent specified gangs as the source of that violence.
See also: Pérez Sáinz, J. P. (2007). La persistencia de la miseria en Centroamérica una mirada desde la exclusión social. San José: FLACSO; Morales Gamboa, A. (2013, October). Centroamérica: los territorios de la migración y la exclusión en el nuevo siglo. Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica; Cantor, D. J. (2016). ‘As deadly as armed conflict? Gang violence and forced displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America’. Agenda Internacional, Año XXIII(34), 77-97.
*American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies is concluding a multi-year research initiative evaluating the transnational criminal capacity of MS13 in the US and El Salvador. For further information, go here. This project was supported by Award No. 2013-R2-CX-0048, by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.
QCostarica.com was not involved in the creation of the content. Article by Steven Dudley and Héctor Silva Ávalos was first published at Insightcrime.org. Read the original at insightcreime.org.
As Costa Ricans ponder their vote over the next couple of days before heading to the polls in Sunday’s presidential elections, this OZY encore article originally published March 12, 2015, may provide food for thought.
Let’s get this straight: Democratic transfers of state power are a relatively new phenomenon. And what often happened (and often does happen) absent democracy? The good old coup d’état.
It’s French for “strike at the state,” and the prototypical coup involves swaying the military and using it to push the head of state from their post. Then you get on the TV or the radio and tell everyone who’s boss. But many a coup perpetrator has used an alternate method, from getting help and weapons from a powerful backer to screwing with ballots to assassination.
Or, if your timing is right, you can simply walk to the capital and declare your intention — like Benito Mussolini did. On Oct. 22, 1922, the 39-year-old former journalist and leader of Italy’s 700,000-strong National Fascist Party, as a recently elected parliamentarian, decided to take a walk. To Rome. With his stated intent being nothing less than ruling Italy. Which, given the chaos of the time, following Italy’s disastrous World War I involvement fighting alongside those who they’d later fight against (Britain, France and Russia), made more than a little sense. Read more here.
But no one is more vulnerable to coups d’état than self-proclaimed heads of state. Back in 1967, Paddy Roy Bates, a former major in the British Army, declared himself king of the Principality of Sealand, six miles off the coast of Suffolk, England. For 10 years no one — not even Britain — challenged his rule, but in the late 1970s, a former business partner staged a coup d’état, taking Bates’ son (the prince) prisoner and holding him without food for four days before transporting him to the Netherlands. Germany sent a diplomat to negotiate the boy’s release — which Bates argued constituted de facto recognition — and the kingdom was restored. Read more here.
Yet, if Costa Rica is an example, the best way to protect against a coups d’état is to abolish the army — which is exactly what José Figueres Ferrer did in 1948. Demilitarization would usher in a whole new Costa Rica: “We uphold the idea of a new world in America,” he said, and from this distance, the decision seems visionary indeed. Unlike its neighbors in Central America, Costa Rica hasn’t suffered a coup d’état in more than 60 years. But here’s the catch: Figueres himself came to power after leading an armed insurrection and ruled by decree for 18 months. Yes, the man who did away with Costa Rica’s military was the leader of a junta. Read Costa Rica: We Don’t Need No Stinking Army here.
At the end of November 2017, the downward trend continued, adding up to almost 53 thousand new vehicles registered since January, 13.8% less than in the same period in 2016.
Figures from the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) show that in November 2017 3,556 new vehicles were registered, almost 50% less than the 6,899 units registered in the same period in 2016.
When looking at the figures accumulated in the first eleven months of the year, it can be seen that the reduction is almost 14% with respect to the same period in 2016, mainly explained by a 22% drop in the entry of new cars, and 24% in the inscription of panel vans. The number of pick up trucks registered also went down in the period in question, by almost 22%.
The Contraloria figures reveal for 2017, of the 52,969 new vehicles were registered, 20,213 were ‘regular’ automobiles and 2,241 (71 less than the previous year) classified as ‘luxury’. SUV’S accounted for 18,254 new vehicles registrations (155 more than in 2016).
Panama’s Association of Automobile Dealers (ADAP) said that the fall in sales is due to lower consumption levels caused by the economic slowdown of the country.
See the full statistics by the Controlaria (in Spanish).
Guatemalan businessmen claim that their operations are being affected by delays up to three years in the tax refunds, when the established periods are 30 to 60 days.
Last week, the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced the dismantling of a structure that facilitated refunds of the tax credits through means of illicit payments, operating both internally and externally in the Superintendency of Tax Administration.
The generalized delay continues to harm the majority of companies, whose operating costs are being affected, with the consequent deterioration in competitiveness.
The excessive delay in returning these credits diminishes companies’ capacity to operate. In regards to this, the president of the Commission of Clothing and Textile, Alejandro Ceballos told Prensalibre.com that “ … ‘they are holding on to capital and sooner or later utility bills come, debts accumulate and there is an overdraft that ends up affecting the payroll, suppliers and other commitments’.”
In the same vein, the executive director of the Association of Coffee Exporters, Jean Paul Brichaux, said that ” … ‘many exporting companies face capital problems because they can not count on having the resources within the corresponding times. With the emerging plan that was implemented last year, a break was provided for some, but not for all.”
Twelve cyclists, including the race winner, tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO during last month’s Vuelta a Costa Rica (Tour of Costa Rica) 2017 edition, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) said on Wednesday.
Vuelta a Costa Rica
The UCI confirmed Wednesday that the Costa Rica 2.2-category race, held from December18 to 27, 2017, saw 12 riders returned an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) in samples collected on 22 December 2017.
All 12 riders are Costa Rican. Juan Carlos Rojas Villalegas, Cesar Andres Rojas Villalegas, Jewinson Leandro Varela Zuniga, Vladimir Fernandez Torres, Jose Alexis Rodriquez Villalobos, Jason Huertas Araya, Jose Irias, Gabriel Eduardo Marin Sanchez, Melvin Mora Garita, Kevin Murillo Solano and Jordy Sandoval were notified of an AAF of CERA*. The rider Jeancarlo Padilla was notified of an AAF of EPO*.
The doping controls were carried out by the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation, an independent body in charge of overseeing the sport’s anti-doping strategy, with the assistance of Costa Rican sports authority, the Instituto Costarricense del Deporte y la Recreacion (ICODER).
The UCI statement said, “These intelligence-led doping controls were planned and carried out by the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF), the independent body in charge of defining and implementing the anti-doping strategy in cycling, with the assistance of the Federacion Costarricense de Ciclismo, the Comisión Nacional Antidopaje de Costa Rica and the Instituto Costarricense del Deporte y la Recreacion.”
The Vuelta A Costa Rica part of the UCI America Tour, which is one of six UCI Continental Circuits sponsored by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the sport’s international governing body.
Juan Carlos Rojas Villalegas, who won the 10-stage event, was among those notified.
Eleven of the 12 riders implicated returned positive tests for the third-generation blood booster EPO-CERA, while the other provided a sample with EPO.
The UCI said the riders have the opportunity to request and attend the analysis of the B sample and in accordance with UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the riders have been provisionally suspended until the adjudication of the matter.
“We were humbled and thrilled when we ranked #9 in the world in 2017, but to achieve a #2 ranking is beyond our wildest expectations,” said Tom Paul, Manager of Tulemar Bungalows and Villas. “We are extremely grateful to the guests who have come to our part of Costa Rica, for a lasting and treasured life experience. But we also recognize that without the hard work and support of our Tulemar team, entrusted with delivering a world class experience to those guests, this acknowledgement wouldn’t be a reality.”
We were humbled and thrilled … to achieve a #2 ranking is beyond our wildest expectations.” Tom Paul – Tulemar Bungalows and Villas.
TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice award winners were determined based on the millions of reviews and opinions collected in a single year from TripAdvisor travelers worldwide. In the 16th year of the awards, TripAdvisor has recognized 8,095 properties in 94 countries and eight regions worldwide. The hallmarks of Travelers’ Choice hotels winners are remarkable quality, service and value.
“We are indebted to TripAdvisor as a means by which our guests can reach out to one another and recommend Tulemar as a magnificent destination resort,” said Paul. “We have had over 2,500 reviews and our average rating is 5/5, so we can’t ask for better than that.”
Located in the gated Tulemar Gardens Condominiums, Costa Rica, Tulemar Bungalows and Villas has been earning global recognition as one of the world’s top resort hotels, recently voted #1 in the categories of Top Hotel – Costa Rica, and Top Hotel – Central America.
From Tulemar Resort Facebook page
“These generous recognitions speak volumes about the natural beauty of Costa Rica, the verdant beauty of Manuel Antonio, and the commitment and responsibility we at Tulemar take in being able to present this area to the world,” said Paul.
Tulemar Resort is set on 33-acres featuring a variety of standalone accommodations, nestled in a lush rainforest overlooking the beautiful Manuel Antonio coastline, 7 km south of the Pacific town of Quepos, in the province of Puntarenas.
Traditionally, Marimba players in Costa Rica have been men. Older men, with the traditional hat, playing out tunes in fairs, events and the streets of downtown San Jose.
On Wednesday, while strolling the ‘Bulevar’, I was caught by surprise as the “men” gave way to a new face of Marimba players: two young women. They were awesome, it stopped me in my tracks.
Here are the photos, in front of the Banco Nacional kiosk, diagonal to the Banco Central building, at Calle 2.
The National Prize for Culture Magón (Premio Nacional de Cultura Magón in Spanish) is the most important literary and cultural award given by the Government of Costa Rica. It recognizes a lifelong contribution to culture by a Costa Rican citizen. It was recently announced that the 2017 award would go to the controversial author, José León Sánchez.
José León Sánchez is best known for his monumental work, La Isla de los Hombres Solos (The Island of Lonely Men, The Lonely Men’s Island). It tells the story of life in the infamous penal colony on San Lucas Island in the Gulf of Nicoya.
Mr. León spent thirty years there as a prisoner. In an interview last year, he told me the book was neither a work of fiction nor a personal biography, but rather an intermingling of the stories of many of the men who served time there.
He was sent there—life without parole—for allegedly robbing the jewels of la Negrita, the Virgin of los Angeles, from the basilica in Cartago. During the robbery a guard was killed. He has long been known in Costa Rica—some continue to believe him guilty—as the Monster of the Basilica.
After 34 years in prison, he was found innocent by the courts and the Catholic Church has apologized to him for his wrongful incarceration.
He has written many other fine books and is especially well known for his groundbreaking work, Tenochtitlán, a novel about the conquest of the Aztecs from an Indigenous point of view. Lonely Men has recently been adapted into a very moving and well done play—performed at the National Theater and Teatro Expressivo. It was also made into a movie filmed in Mexico.
José León Sánchez is a literary giant and it is gratifying to see him finally recognized in his own country.
Mr. León lives in Heredia and, at ninety, is currently running for the Congress (Asamblea Legislativa).
See all books by Jose Leon Sanchez available on Amazon.
Offering “low-risk” investments in his company, which he claimed was giving high-interest loans to property owners in Costa Rica, Dermis Hernandez, 41, a 12 year Miami police officer, was arrested Monday after FBI agents learned he was suddenly flying to Costa Rica because of an “emergency.”
wsvn.com
Fearing his nonreturn, given his wife is a Costa Rican national, FBI agents cuffed Hernandez while he was boarding a flight at Fort Lauderdale to San Jose.
According to the FBI, Hernandez told potential investors the loan recipients used their properties in Costa Rica as collateral.
“Targeting active and retired cops, Hernandez and ‘co-conspirators’ showed phony paperwork showing the company had property rights to land in Costa Rica. In truth, Hernandez and his co-conspirators used the investor funds for personal enrichment and to pay the returns of other investors,” according to the criminal complaint by FBI Agent Sarah Halleran.
At least one victim paid out US$10,000 from his police retirement fund — with Hernandez instructing him how to withdraw the money. The victim believed he would be getting a 20% return on the investment per year. Another victim told agents he was promised a whopping 24% return on the investment, that led him to invest US$125,000, while only ever receiving US$17,000 back in interest payments.
Hernandez is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Miami police internal affairs and the FBI said Hernandez operated his Ponzi scheme between 2011 and 2015 through a company called DD&M Investments.
Prosecutors say Hernandez and others used most of the money for themselves and to pay returns of earlier investors in a classic Ponzi scheme.
“It was disgraceful behavior and we are working to quickly end his employment,” said Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina, speaking at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, adding that no other officers have been implicated.
(ACI Prensa) Archbishop Diego Padrón of Cumaná, former president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, denounced plans to advance presidential elections in the country by more than seven months.
Archbishop Diego Patron of Cumana, Venezuela. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
“In any country in the world, democracy operates with clarity, with transparency. Instead, [this] is a midnight ambush,” the archbishop told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, Jan 24.
The country’s National Constituent Assembly issued a decree on Jan. 23 to move up the elections that are usually held in December to no later than April 30, a measure that was “approved by acclamation” according to Delcy Rodriguez, the president of the assembly.
The Archbishop of Cumaná said that “as a Venezuelan, it is my opinion that moving up the date for elections has no legal basis.”
He added that the National Constituent Assembly “is very discredited because it is fraudulent in its origin and how it is run.”
Venezuela is currently in the midst of a severe economic crisis, with hyperinflation and chronic shortages of food and medicine.
The country’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while the items are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates. The International Monetary Fund has forecasted an inflation rate of 2,300 percent in Venezuela in 2018.
Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is due to run for re-election this year, as his term ends in 2019.
Last July, contested elections led to the formation of a National Constituent Assembly, which has superseded the authority of the National Assembly, Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature.
Mass protests against the Constituent Assembly were held, in which more than 120 people were killed by security forces.
Following the decree from the National Constituent Assembly, President Maduro asked the Board of Elections to set the closest day possible for voting, saying, “We’re going to get this over with as soon as possible.”
Maduro also said that the elections will be held with or without the opposition.
According to the BBC, it is unknown whether any opposition candidate will run since the main leaders, Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez, have been disqualified from running for office.
Capriles was banned from running for office for 15 years by the Comptroller General’s Office for alleged irregularities in the state of Miranda where he was governor, the Associated Press reported last April.
In September 2015, El Confidencial news reported that Lopez was sentenced to 14 years in military prison for allegedly inciting violence at an anti-government demonstration the previous year.
Moving up the date of the election has been rejected by the Venezuelan opposition and the “Lima Group,” a coalition which is comprised of representatives from 14 countries of the Americas.
Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz read a statement on the matter emphasizing that “this decision makes it impossible to hold democratic, transparent and credible presidential elections.”
The text of the statement was approved by delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Santa Lucía.
“We demand that the presidential elections be held with enough time to properly prepare for participation by all Venezuelan political actors and with all the corresponding guarantees,” the text adds.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Bricklayer Gerardo Alonso Ríos Mairena was sentenced on Tuesday morning to 216 years in prison, responsible for the murder of five university students on January 19, 2017, in Liberia, Guanacaste.
Wearing a blue t-shirt, Gerardo Alonso Ríos Mairena, sat calmly during the verdict and reading of the sentence Tuesday morning in Liberia. Photo José Cordero
The sentence was handed down by the Trial Court of Liberia (Tribunal de Juicio de Liberia), in a packed courtroom of more than 50 people, mostly relatives, and friends of the victims.
The criminal trial against Rios, 34, charged with five counts of ” homicidio calificado” (qualified homicide), and attempted murder and an offense of sexual abuse against the lone survivor of the attack.
Rios, as during his trial, was calm while listening to the verdict and punishment imposed on him.
Although the total years add up to 216, Rios will only serve 50 years, the maximum penalty allowed under Costa Rican legislation.
The three-member Court was made up of Guillermo Arce Arias (president), Andrea Rodríguez Sandí and Kathy Abarca Serrano.
The Liberia courtroom was packed. Photo José Cordero
“There is no doubt in this Court that you were the person who was there and the only person who carried out the act (…) A single blood trace was found, yours Gerardo (Ríos Mairena). You alone committed the homicides and the abuse against Ingrid (Méndez),” Guillermo Arce Arias said.
The Court ruled out the claim by Rios that he was not in Liberia that day, as alleged by the defense. “It is not true that you were not in Liberia at that time, but they also place you in the area where you have radio bases,” the judge said, referring to the evidence of cellular tower pings of his cellular phone.
In addition to time in prison, Rios was ordered to pay ¢20 million colones to the mother of Ariel Antonio Vargas Condega, one of the victims and assume the cost of the trial of ¢3.8 million colones.
Rios will remain in custody for the next six months while the sentence follows the procedure of appeal period.
Outgoing President Luis Guillermo Solis promised change in 2014. Did we get it?
If Costa Rica, the land of plenty and of nothing much is truly the backyard of the U.S., then this election for President does not leave us much to be optimistic about.
Outgoing President Luis Guillermo Solis, poses next to a figure of himself, campaigned in 2014, like those before him and the current pack of candidates, on the promise to root out corruption. Have you felt it yet?
These are the same old pundits, born to make a living off politics, with the exception of one: Juan, Diego Castro who has been presented as CR’s answer to Donald Trump.
It is a sad state of mind when 40% of eligible people do not support a candidate and almost the same percentage who really are not going to vote.
Why?
For years, a decade or more, these same candidates have promised the same thing: No Corruption, government transparency, improve the infrastructure, reduce poverty and crime.
Nothing new and pretty much the eco of Donald Trump when running for office. Except we have yet to read “Costa Rica First”.
Over the years I have not heard much “nationalism” except during the “football” (soccer) season. Like our neighbor to the south, Panama, we have we lost our identity to catchphrases about democracy, no standing military: all is “Pura Vida”?
In reality, we are a country, a standalone nation whose sovereignty has been sold to the devil with extraordinary international government debt, crime and hi-unemployment for young people who find it impossible to purchase a home, live paycheck to paycheck?
The candidates all sound good on paper, but the truth is that the talk reflects three decades of little, if any social achievement.
We are as divided from America, Europe and I suppose that puts us in the first world. We strike for the right of taxis, we strike for health care but never for a more livable and affordable Costa Rica. Our strikes for people’s rights and that is a Friday or Monday to assure a long weekend.
Costa Ricans go to the polls on Sunday, February 4, 2018.
Harold Rivas, the now former Nicaraguan ambassador to Costa Rica, a post he held for the last 11 years
The government of Daniel Ortega has dismissed Harold Rivas Reyes from his position as Nicaragua’s Ambassador to Costa Rica. The decision was communicated to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry last Saturday and effectived immediately.
Harold Rivas, the now former Nicaraguan ambassador to Costa Rica, a post he held for the last 11 years
The “note” by Nicaragua’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not mention the reason for the decision.
“The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity, headed by comrade-commander José Daniel Ortega Saavedra, President of the Republic of Nicaragua, has decided to terminate the functions of Comrade Harold Fernando Rivas Reyes, as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the Republic of Nicaragua before the government of the Republic of Costa Rica,” the note said.
Rivas has been at the head of the Nicaraguan embassy in San Jose for the last 11 years, appointed in February 2007.
According to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry, the Ortega government indicated “it will soon be sending communications for the procedure of approval of a new ambassador.” It did not name names.
Harold Rivas is the brother of the Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua (CSE), Roberto Rivas Reyes, who has a record of assets in Costa Rica and is investigated by the Attorney General’s Office for an apparent crime of legitimizing capital (money laundering).
Harold Rivas’ sudden dismissal may be tied to the December 21, 2017, sanctions by the United States Treasury Department of Roberto Rivas, which accused him of committing electoral fraud and of amassing considerable wealth in his country, also tied to reports by Costa Rica’s Instituto Costarricense Sobre Drogas (ICD) – Institute on Drugs – of alleged criminal acts committed by Roberto Rivas in Costa Rica.
In the photo, Roberto Rivas (center), President of the Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua, in Managua, November 5, 2017. Roberto is the brother of Harold Rivas, the dismissed Nicarguan ambassador to Costa Rica . LA PRENSA/Uriel Molina
Roberto Rivas was also included in a list of people accused of human rights violations and corrupt acts by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department.
According to the press release issued by OFAC a little over a month ago, the assets of the Nicaraguan magistrate in the United States were blocked.
The U.S. Treasury Department specified the reasons why it sanctioned Roberto Rivas:
“As president of the Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua, with a government salary reported at $ 60,000 per year, Roberto José Rivas Reyes has been accused in the press of accumulating a considerable personal wealth, which includes multiple properties, private planes, luxury vehicles and a yacht Rivas has been described by a comptroller general of Nicaragua as “above the law”, and investigations into his corruption have been blocked by Nicaraguan government officials, and he has also perpetrated electoral fraud that undermines the electoral institutions of Nicaragua.”
In Costa Rica, Roberto Rivas is president of the company Chibilu del Oeste S.A. which owns “a plot of land with a house under construction” in the Villa Real, in Santa Ana.
According to the Public Registry, the property measures 1,514 square meters and has a fiscal value of ¢111 million colones (about US$193,000).
In 2009, La Nacion reported that the same corporation registered four other houses in the same development, where three of Roberto Rivas’ children resided and two of the Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega.
The four residences measured 2,441 square meters (26,000 square feet).
That same year, in addition, the Costa Rican government questioned Roberto Rivas for having in San Jose two luxury vehicles that were exempt from taxes, with a diplomatic license plate of the Nicaraguan Embassy, even though he was not a member of the diplomatic delegation.
In addition, the senior Nicaraguan official is a frequent visitor to Costa Rica, in the last two years he has recorded some 60 entries/departures from the country.
An early morning bomb attack outside a police station in Colombia’s coastal city of Barranquilla killed at least five police officers and wounded 42 on Saturday, authorities said.
Relatives and friends of victims of the bomb attack at a San Jose district police station outside a hospital, in Barranquilla, Colombia. | Photo: Reuters
The attack targeted the officers as they gathered in the San Jose neighborhood to receive their orders for the day in what police denounced as an “act of barbarity,” Reuters reports.
A reward of 50 million pesos (about US$18,000) was offered for information leading to the perpetrators.
“We think it could be retaliation by these groups who have recently been greatly impacted,” metropolitan police commander Brigadier General Mariano de la Cruz Botero said in comments broadcast by Caracol Radio, referring to crime gangs active in the port city.
Botero said one person had been arrested in connection with the bombing, and that police suspect others were involved. The person in custody could be the individual who placed and then triggered the device, he said.
President Juan Manuel Santos sent his condolences to the families of those killed and injured, and said on Twitter that the government would not rest until those responsible were brought to justice. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto also tweeted his condolences.
Colombia has myriad crime gangs, some which operate across large swaths of rural territory and others in major cities. Many are involved in the production and trafficking of cocaine, largely to the United States and Europe, as well as extortion and other crimes.
"We diversify the offer so that the little ones stay connected at the start of classes without the need to use a cell phone, this gives them greater security," commented Carolina Sánchez, spokesperson for Claro. Esteban Monge / The Republic
With the start of the new school year next week, many parents are concerned about their child’s security.
“We are diversifying ouroffer so that the little ones can stay connected at the start of classes without the need to use a cell phone, this gives them greater security,” commented Carolina Sánchez, spokesperson for Claro. Esteban Monge / La Republica
Although the latest regulations presented by the Ministerio de Educación Pública (MEP) – Ministry of Public Education, does not prohibit smartphones in the classroom, some parents prefer not to burden their children with this responsibility due to security issues.
Faced with this situation, Claro, in conjunction with Alcatel and Toch Mobile have come together offering parents a technological alternative that allows parents to maintain communications with their children without using a smartphone.
The solution is a special watch for minors that receives and makes calls and messages, and also includes a special security system.
Unlike a cell phone, the device can only communicate with ten preestablished contacts, which are determined by an administrator who can monitor communications from a special app.
Both the administrator and the trusted contacts must install the TCL Move app to communicate directly with the user.
Although the watch works with a cellular line, from the device the child can only call and receive contact numbers chosen by the person in charge.
“It is a cell phone inside a watch, it has two buttons and from there the user can establish communication without risking receiving calls from strangers or accessing inappropriate content, it is an option for the little ones to keep in touch” explained Carolina Sanchez, Claro spokesperson.
In addition, the watch incorporates a geolocation system (GPS) so that trusted numbers know from the application where the child is located.
The parents can establish in the app security zones that include the school, the house of a family member or areas visited by the child, and in case the child leaves the perimeter that in the application was determined as safe, the administrator will receive the alert that the child is not in the point.
From the same application the person in charge can also activate the SOS button and in case of being in danger, the child can press it and automatically the watch makes the call to the security contacts until a response is obtained.
The 2018 public school year in Costa Rica commences on Tuesday, February 8 and ends December 13, with two major breaks in the school calendar: Semana Santa (March 15 to April 1) and mid-year vacations (July 2 to July 13).
"The company is expanding, in Nicaragua the company is giving us good results and we have conversations with other markets," confirmed Jaime Palermo, director of Telecommunications at ICE. Esteban Monge / The Republic
“The company (ICE) is expanding, in Nicaragua it is giving us good results and we are in conversations with other markets,” confirmed Jaime Palermo, director of Telecommunications at ICE. Esteban Monge / La Republica
Costa Rica’s state-owned telecom operator, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), is finalizing plans to become a major telecommunications player throughout Central America and a rival to market leaders Claro (Mexico’s America Movil) and Movistar (Spain’s Telefonica), reports La Republica.
According to the telecoms director Jaime Palermo, ICE has already reached an agreement with Nicaragua’s Enatrel to launch the ‘Te-Comunica’ brand and is working with other state-owned companies including Hondutel in Honduras, while maintaining the exploration work in Guatemala and Panama, as well as taking advantage of the offer to compete in a larger market such as Mexico where Telcel, AT & T, Movistar and a significant number of mobile virtual operators work.
Other potential new markets include El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico, said the report.
ICE’s cellular telecom operates under the Kölbi brand.
Claro and Movistar dominate the regional market, from Mexico to Panama.
The news follows ICE’s recent deal to tap into Telia Carrier’s global fiber backbone to meet growing demand for broadband services.
Costa Rica has come a long way, commercially speaking. I remember when Multiplaza was but a twinkle in an entrepreneur’s eye. Finally, a mall! What can I say? I am from New Jersey, not France.
I need all my shopping venues to be concentrated in one place so I don’t have to drive all over San Jose, finding the right store and, even more valuable, a legal parking spot.
I am not going to lazily saunter along, say, Faubourg St. Honore street, looking for just the right knickknack for Colette’s upcoming soiree. Of course, Colette’s friend probably doesn’t have to drive but can just nip into the Metro and in two heartbeats, voila! She’s there.
One of our current presidential candidates thinks Costa Rica, too, can have a subway, and I have to applaud his optimism. When even the trains—all three of them—crash monthly into a hapless Honda, because we can’t manage to put up those little train barriers, and not too long ago two trains actually crashed into each other (how? Was one of the conductors literally sleeping on the job? Checking his twitter account?) I am not holding my breath about getting a subway here, unless it comes between two slices of French bread.
But at least we have our malls and supermarkets.
At least we can get the things we need.
Well, sometimes.
Having become a vegan, I often think, why should I have all the fun? Why should I be the only one to chomp into inedible, cardboard foodstuffs? After all, I want my family to be healthy, too. Share the love, I say. So I look up vegan recipes on the internet, find things that sound scrumptious (Zucchini Noodles with Nutritional Yeast “Parmesan”, Tofu-Stuffed Eggplant) and start to copy down enthusiastically all the ingredients, until I am stumped by an ingredient that I have never heard of. Mirin? Broccoli Rabe? And if I actually have heard of it, my local Mas Por Menos, and even that Mecca of gastronomic delights, the Automercado, still haven’t. Shallots, you say? Parsnips? Old Bay Seasoning? Miso paste? (The white, not the brown one. Oh, in that case, OK.)
(Of course, we get our revenge when we mention in passing to our friends up north how the sapotes are now in season here, and how scrumptious the jocotes are. Trying to tease them with my tales of pickled pejivaye, I look it up in my trusty Google Translate, only to find it rendered as “peach pit.” Wha? Now that’s a moniker that sets the taste buds drooling.)
But it’s not all about food. My son asked for some Nintendo game thing this holiday season, and I looked it up and it costs $79. So I thought, why not? He’s been getting good grades. I couldn’t find it new online, and didn’t want to risk a used one, when he informed me that I could get it here in Costa Rica. (He’s so helpful.) Then he further enlightened me that here, it costs c109,000. That’s almost $200! Almost three times as much as in the States! In fact, many items cost double and even triple what you would pay in the US: books, magazines, cars. The list is long.
At first I balked at my son’s request, but then he offered to pay half out of his summer job earnings, so I thought, well, at least he’s making an effort. Thus I moseyed on over to the store, ready to plop down the equivalent of 200 smackeroos for this piece of plastic and wires and whatnot, when the manager regretfully informed me that it had sold out. In all the stores. In pretty much the entire country. Even when you are willing to pay highway robbery, you can’t! I guess everyone else’s kid got good grades too.
Yes, Costa Rica has come a long way, but not far enough, it seems. So my boy had to be content with coal in his stocking. Or actually worse: clothing.
In line with last week’s revision from stable to negative for Costa Rica’s economy outlook for sovereign debt, Fitch Ratings has also downgraded the outlook for the debt of state banks and two private banks.
From a statement issued by Fitch Rating on January 24, 2018:
Fitch Ratings-Monterrey/San Salvador-24 January 2018: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) of various Costa Rican banks and revised the Rating Outlook to Negative from Stable. Fitch has also affirmed the Viability Ratings (VRs) of these banks, except for Banco de Costa Rica, which remains on Negative Watch on certain issuer-specific concerns. Fitch’s rating action follows the revision of Costa Rica’s sovereign Rating Outlook to Negative from Stable on Jan. 18, 2018. (See “Fitch Revises Costa Rica’s Outlook to Negative; Affirms Ratings at ‘BB'” at www.fitchratings.com).
The Rating Outlooks on the following banks’ IDRs have been revised to Negative from Stable:
The IDRs of BNCR and BCR are aligned with the sovereign due to their 100% government ownership and explicit sovereign guarantees. The Outlook revision of BPDC reflects the sovereign’s high level of influence over its credit profile and operating environment. BAC San Jose and Davivienda CR’s IDRs are rated above the sovereign rating based on the potential support they could receive from their parents, both rated ‘BBB’/Stable. Their Foreign Currency IDRs are capped by the Costa Rican country ceiling while their Local Currency IDRs maintain the usual maximum uplift of two notches above the sovereign rating. The Negative Outlook on these two banks’ IDRs reflects Fitch’s expectations that they would follow any potential sovereign downgrade, to maintain their relativity unchanged.
The Negative Outlook indicates that the IDRs of these banks would be downgraded in the event of a Costa Rican sovereign downgrade. Conversely, a revision of the sovereign’s IDR Outlook to Stable would likely prompt a similar action on the banks’ IDR Outlooks.
As stated in Fitch’s rating criteria, banks are rarely rated above the sovereign rating given the high influence of the operating environment over banks’ performance. As such, a downgrade of Costa Rica’s sovereign rating will very likely trigger a downgrade of the banks’ VRs included in this review. VRs do not have Outlooks, but Fitch has updated its view on the operating environment faced by the banking sector to negative. In Fitch’s view, further deterioration of the operating environment may result in pressures on the financial profile for banks in Costa Rica, which is a relevant factor that underpins the VRs of those banks.
"Criança viada", by Bia Leite, attracted a wave of moralistic attacks on the grounds that it promotes pedophilia. But the author explains that it is a denouncement of violence against children, humiliated as "queers" (viada) if they do not behave as required by the dominant machista culture. Credit: Courtesy of QueerMuseu
RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) – It is not yet an official policy because censorship is not openly accepted by the current authorities, but de facto vetoes on artistic expressions are increasing due to moralistic pressures in Brazil.
“Criança viada”, by Bia Leite, attracted a wave of moralistic attacks on the grounds that it promotes pedophilia. But the author explains that it is a denouncement of violence against children, humiliated as “queers” (viada) if they do not behave as required by the dominant machista culture. Credit: Courtesy of QueerMuseu
The offensive affects the artistic world in general, not just the shows or exhibitions that have been directly canceled in recent months.
“This affects all our work, because it dissuades us from fear of reactions and the sponsors will now think ten thousand times before supporting a work of art,” said Nadia Bambirra, an actress, theater director and acting coach.
This exacerbates the problems facing the cultural sector, at a time that is already fraught with difficulties due to declining public funds and an economic crisis causing a decrease in spectators and audience as well as in private financial support, she told IPS.
The exhibition, made up of 264 paintings, drawings, sculptures and other works by 85 Brazilian artists, was inaugurated on Aug.15 and was scheduled to close on Oct. 8 in Porto Alegre, capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.
A campaign on the social networks was driven mainly by the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), which takes radical positions against social rights, such as housing, even though they are enshrined in the constitution, while supporting extreme right candidates in politics.
The Santander Bank decided to cancel the show at its cultural centre because “it was considered offensive by some people and groups” who thought it was “disrespectful toward symbols and beliefs,” according to the bank’s “message to clients” to explain the measure.
Protests by artists, intellectuals and sexual diversity movements accused the Spanish bank of exercising censorship, by yielding to accusations against some works that have already been well-known for decades.
But the protests failed to prevent the exhibition from also being canceled in Rio de Janeiro, where it was set to open in October.
Mayor Marcelo Crivella, bishop of an evangelical Christian church, banned its exhibition at the Museum of Art, a municipal institution that partners with a private foundation, in response to the accusations aimed at the QueerMuseu in Porto Alegre.
“No more censorship!” protested filmmakers and actors at the Festival do Rio, an international film festival held Oct. 5-15. The mobilisation of artistic and cultural media failed to reverse the decision or, so far, to attain a new venue for the exhibition.
The work of art “Crossing Jesus Christ with the goddess Shiva”, by Fernando Baril, aroused the ire of people who considered it blasphemous and disrespectful to religions, while the artist explained that it was a mixture of religious figures and objects that represent Western consumerism. Credit: Courtesy of QueerMuseu
The moralistic outbreak was fueled in the southern metropolis of São Paulo, where the Museum of Modern Art inaugurated its 35th Panorama of Brazilian Art with a performance by a naked artist.
A video showing a girl touching the hand and leg of a man who was lying down triggered a flood of protests, and allegations of pornography and pedophilia.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating whether there was a violation of Brazil’s Statute on Children and Adolescents by those who disseminated the video, exposing the girl and her mother who took her to the presentation allegedly inappropriate for children.
Actions of intolerance against freedom of artistic expression have proliferated in Brazil this year.
Dancer Maikon Kempinski was arrested for a few hours on Jul. 15 by the police in São Paulo for presenting a performance in which he removed his clothes. Two months later, a play was banned by the judicial authorities in Jundiaí, 60 kilometers from São Paulo, because Jesus Christ was played by a transsexual actress.
The theatre group was able to perform in nearby cities in the following days, drawing a large audience and intense applause, which shows that censorship is from isolated groups. But in late October the play was again banned in Salvador, capital of the northeastern state of Bahía.
The Rio de Janeiro city government, imbued with the evangelical bias of its mayor, continues to obstruct cultural activities, taking care not to fall into widespread, official bans.
“My boyfriend had his painting censored in the ‘short circuit’ visual arts exhibit on sexual diversity,” which could not be held on the scheduled dates in October, said Bruna Belém, a dancer and body arts researcher who is earning a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Art Studies.
The city government secretariat of culture prevented the exhibition in a municipal cultural centre, alleging
Besides, “eight works disappeared and were only returned two weeks later,” Belém told IPS, referring to suspicions of sabotage of the “October for Diversity” programme, which also included plays that were suspended.
“Scenes from the Interior II”, painted 23 years ago by Adriana Varejão, one of Brazil’s most respected and award-winning artists, only now drew accusations of inciting zoophilia by critics who only divulged the part containing two people with a goat. The artist explained that she mixed different sexual practices associated withBrazil’s colonisation and slavery. Credit: Courtesy of QueerMuseu
“The manipulative capacity” of the government, in this case the municipal government, “has been turned against freedom of expression,” lamented the dancer and activist. “The first ones attacked were the artists who work with their body, performances, photographic displays, theatre, dance,” she said.
To illustrate, she mentioned her dance instructor, who presented a performance that includes nudity in an event after the closure in the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Art. The audience was limited to their peers, excluding the outside spectators they had hoped to reach.
These subterfuges show that the current conservative authorities, especially in the municipalities of Brazil’s largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, do not dare to directly ban artistic expressions after three decades of re-democratisation of the country, affirming freedom of expression.
“There is resistance,” Belém said.
In light of the “moral patrol”, the tendency is to limit the arts to musical shows and innocuous works of art, abandoning uncomfortable avant-garde pieces of art, Bambirra fears. “But in the midst of that neo-Nazi wave, something surprising, transformative, can emerge in the search for new spaces,” she said hopefully to IPS.
With the current government, headed by Michel Temer as president since May 2016, “the conservative wave was consolidated and extended to all institutions, especially the National Congress and sectors of the Judicial branch,” according to Eric Nepomuceno, a writer and former Secretary of Exchange and Special Projects of the Ministry of Culture.
Temer belongs to the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement party, but is considered a conservative in religious, social and gender issues. The 77-year-old politician is surviving corruption scandals with just three percent popular support, according to the latest polls.
His government depends on the parliamentary support of right-wing parties and specific alliances, such as that of ruralists (landowners) and evangelists who demand conservative measures and laws, such as flexibilisation of labour and environmental regulations, as well as the fight against slave-like labour.
To the episodes of censorship and extremist movements such as the MBL is added “Temer’s government’s contempt for culture, a kind of revenge on the fact that almost all artists and intellectuals reject him,” Nepomuceno told IPS.
“So, what lies ahead is devastating, rather than worrying,” because “the world is facing a surge of conservatism, and Latin America is not immune to that phenomenon, as seen in Argentina and Brazil, which are confirming the return of winds that seemed to have faded in the past,” he concluded.
QCostarica.com was not involved in the creation of the content. This article was originally published on Ipsenews.net. Read the original article.
Luis Antonio Sobrado, president of the TSE, made a call on Sunday night for Costa Ricans to 'honor democracy'
Though Wednesday is the cut off date for politicking, giving Costa Ricans a few days to ponder without propaganda their decision for Sunday, February 4. However, a number of candidates closed their campaigns (though not officially) on Sunday, with public events and the television cameras rolling.
Luis Antonio Sobrado, president of the TSE, made a call on Sunday night for Costa Ricans to ‘honor democracy’
The Wednesday deadline is not only for the politicians and political parties to stop campaigning, it is also for pollsters who can, on that day, publish their last numbers.
And while this 2018 Presidential campaign has been rather dull, only in the last couple of days has it heated up, as polls indicate no real front-runner, not even the Partido Liberacion Nacional (PLN) candidate, Antonio Alvarez Desanti, who had been thought of a shoe-in.
The polls indicate the largest number of voters are the undecided.
Though no one is predicting a runaway winner, political experts do agree on the strong possibility of a run-off election. In Costa Rica, the popular vote wins the day. But there is a caveat, the next president is not only the candidate with the most votes but the candidate with the most votes of 40% of all votes.
That is to say, if the elections have been held yesterday, Sunday, according to the polls, no one candidate would have reached the required 40% to win. The same result is expected next Sunday.
What could change all that is voter apathy.
For its part, the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones de Costa Rica (TSE) – the Elections Tribunal – is urging a vote to “honor democracy and freedom and fulfill the responsibility they have as citizens.”
The TSE is calling for citizens to inform themselves and go to the polls on February 4.
“Vote with the dignity of those who know themselves free and with the maturity of those who know they are responsible. (…) The government that will assume in May we will have built it among all, both those who will vote and those who abstain, we will be jointly responsible for what occurs. We will all receive the effects of the decision that we as a society adopt at the polls next Sunday,” said Luis Antonio Sobrado, president of the TSE, in a message broadcast on national television Sunday night.
One of the presidential candidates’ slogan says it best, “voter por algo” (vote for something).
On Sunday, February 4, the polling stations will be open from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. In addition, Costa Ricans overseas, in 42 countries where Costa Rican has a consulate, the polls are open from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Voters who don’t know where they are registered to vote, they can call the number 1020 or visit the TSE website.
