By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Dec 16 2010 (IPS)

Costa Rica is one of the few countries in the world where in vitro fertilisation (IVF) is illegal. And the Vatican wants it to stay that way: Pope Benedict XVI himself recently urged the government not to pass a law that would make it legal.

But if IVF is not legalised soon, Costa Rica will be hauled before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

In 2000, the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court banned IVF in this Central American nation, ruling that the procedure violated the right to life of embryos that are not successfully implanted in a woman’s womb

A year after the court handed down its decision, 10 Costa Rican couples filed a legal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), arguing that the ban violated their right to form a family.

The IACHR issued a preliminary decision in August finding the ban to be a violation of basic human rights. It told the Costa Rican government that it must revise the country’s laws, to bring them into line with international conventions.

The Washington-based IACHR said the 2000 constitutional court ruling amounted to “arbitrary interference” and a restriction that is incompatible with article 17 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which recognises “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to raise a family”.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) human rights body set a Feb. 2 deadline for the government of conservative President Laura Chinchilla to make significant progress towards eliminating the ban on IVF. If it fails to do so, the case will be referred to the San José-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are binding and cannot be appealed.

The resurgence of the controversy in Costa Rica has coincided with the award of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Robert Edwards, the 85-year-old British scientist who pioneered IVF. He received the prize in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

The first “test tube” baby, Louise Brown, was born in Britain in July 1978.

To keep the case from going to the Inter-American Court, the government submitted a bill on IVF to the single-chamber legislature — which only its sponsors find satisfactory.

“We have been careful with the text and are optimistic that it will find the necessary support among the legislators,” Chinchilla’s chief of staff, Minister of the Presidency Marco Vargas, told IPS.

But Andrea Bianchi, one of the petitioners who brought the IACHR complaint, told IPS that the government “has not changed its position; (the bill) is just a way of gaining time.”

In its report, the IACHR also told the state to pay the petitioners reparations.

The bill establishes that every embryo must be used, “which poses a serious risk to both mother and child,” Germán Trejos, a lawyer representing the couples who filed the complaint, explained to IPS.

The consensus in the medical community is that no more than three embryos should be transferred to the uterus.

The requirement that all embryos be implanted effectively bans the storage of embryos for use in subsequent attempts, in case the first try does not work.

The bill would also require a special psychological test for couples wishing to undergo IVF.

The chair of the IACHR, Felipe González of Chile, said in November that if the Commission sees “insufficient or no will” on the part of the state to introduce a law, or if there are delays, the case will go to the Inter-American Court.

IVF is a costly treatment, and unless it is provided by the public health system, it is unaffordable to many couples, Trejos explained. In the United States, for example, the average cost of each attempt is 12,400 dollars.

“People tend to go to places closer to home, because it is an uncomfortable treatment, and you need the support of your family,” said Bianchi, who underwent the treatment in Colombia in 2001, where she became pregnant with twins.

“I was really lucky,” she said. “It cost me a total of 14,000 dollars, and it worked on the first try. But that’s not common; it normally takes more like four attempts.”

The treatment now costs around 4,500 dollars per try in Colombia and 2,800 dollars in neighbouring Panama.

IVF has become one of the reasons for medical tourism, a growing phenomenon in Latin America, in which Costa Rica is usually a destination rather than an exporter of patients.

In any case, Trejos does not believe the controversial bill will be approved by February. He pointed out that the draft law preceding the IVF bill “was just sent back to committee with 67 motions, which must be debated one by one. They won’t make it on time.”

If the original version of the bill is passed, it will run into resistance from the powerful Catholic Church, which is opposed to the legalisation of IVF, and from evangelical congregations.

“It is to be hoped that Costa Rica does not violate the rights of the unborn with laws that legitimise in vitro fertilisation or abortion,” Pope Benedict told the new Costa Rican ambassador to the Vatican on Dec. 3.

The government rebutted claims that the Pope’s message amounted to “meddling in internal affairs.”

Minister Vargas said “The Church has to look at these issues at a global, rather than national, level, which means that in this case its stance is not exclusive to Costa Rica, but applies to the whole world. We must respect that position.”

But the group pushing for IVF to be legalised complained about the pressure exerted by the Pope. “The Church interferes excessively in life in Costa Rica,” Bianchi said.

“The bishops participate actively in politics,” Trejos added.

The lawyer said the Pope’s remarks were “complete nonsense” from a scientific point of view, and pointed out that “many Catholic theologians of great prestige take a different position.”

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Nov 18 2010 (IPS)

For many, Costa Rica embodies the notion of a country committed to taking care of its natural environment. But Costa Rican activists beg to differ, and have a list of the actions that contradict the country’s green “for-export” image.

A cloud forest in Costa Rica. Credit: Germán Miranda/IPS

The non-governmental World Wetland Network chastised Costa Rica in October with its Grey Globe award for the Neotropics region, citing its lack of protection for Playa Caletas, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.

The debate over Costa Rica’s ecological commitment began several years ago, when the government authorised, by decree, a concession for the Canada- based Infinito Gold to operate an open-pit gold mine in Crucitas, in the northern province of Alajuela.

The project is currently on hold as it awaits a resolution from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court about the legality of the authorising decree.

But the controversy remains very much alive. On Oct. 8, 14 people began a hunger strike outside the presidential palace to demand the decree’s annulment. The strike lasted until Nov. 4 when the last participant gave in to health problems.

Mining in the Crucitas area damages the habitat of the great green macaw (Ara ambigua), a colourful bird endangered by the logging of the almendro tree, which it favours for nesting. The zone is also part of an important corridor for migratory birds in Central America.

President Laura Chinchilla took office on May 8, and on that same day signed a decree suspending open-pit mining, but left the specific case of Crucitas in the hands of the courts. Her predecessor, Óscar Arias (1986-1990 and 2006- 2010) had declared the mining project one of “national interest.”

Another issue that calls Costa Rica’s green image into question is the pollution of water sources. The watershed of the Tárcoles River, which begins in the southern foothills of the Cordillera Central, crosses much of the San José metropolitan area and flows into the Pacific, is the most polluted river in Central America and one of the dirtiest in Latin America.

Just two percent of San José’s sewage water is treated before being returned to the rivers. One wastewater treatment plant now under construction is supposed to cover 25 percent of the population in 2015, though it will begin operating in 2011 at a lesser capacity.

The Costa Rican environmental paradox came to the fore at the latest conference of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in October in Nagoya, Japan.

There, in addition to the Grey Globe, the World Future Council gave this Central American country the Future Policy Award 2010 for its pioneering Biodiversity Law 7788, adopted in 1998.

Although the biodiversity law made important strides, it suffered cuts in the last two years when the national legislation had to be adjusted to the demands of the Free Trade Agreement involving Central America, Dominican Republic and the United States.

“We have gone from national sovereignty to intellectual property over our natural resources,” said Silvia Rodríguez, who served as coordinator in drafting the law and now is part of the Biodiversity Coordination Network.

Two decrees that modified Articles 78 and 80 of the law undermined its benefits. A clause of Article 78 had established that biological discoveries could not be patented, “such as those emerging directly from the traditional knowledge of indigenous or rural peoples,” explained Rodríguez.

And Article 80 “established proceedings for access to biological diversity, and created the National Commission for Biodiversity Management (CONAGEBIO) to oversee its use.”

With the cuts, if the intellectual property legislation is followed, the Commission cannot impose any reservations on the granting of patents.

Two injunctions have been filed in court against the decrees, and have been under consideration by the Constitutional Court for more than a year.

In any case, “it is a visionary law,” said CONAGEBIO’s executive director Marta Liliana Jiménez in an interview. She implemented the mandates of the Convention on Biological Diversity here more than a decade ago.

In drafting the law, “all sectors of society took part, from indigenous peoples to farmers to ecologists to academics,” said Jiménez.

Since it entered into force, there has been only one consultation — about a vaccine. And its original material turned out not to be native to Costa Rica.

“The original law got many things right,” admitted Rodríguez, and “was ahead of its time in introducing certificates of origin,” through which CONAGEBIO can ensure that bioprospecting companies are complying with requirements for operating in Costa Rica.

The Future Policy prize “was awarded for the old law,” said Rodríguez.

*This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by Inter Press Service (IPS), CGIAR/Biodiversity International, International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), and the United Nations Environment Program/Convention on Biological Diversity (UNEP/CBD) — all members of COM+, the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Aug 9 2010 (IPS)

Human rights organisations and the gay community in Costa Rica have joined forces to try to block a referendum on a law for civil unions between partners of the same sex.

Credit:

The fate of the referendum is now in the hands of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court, which must rule on a legal challenge to the ballot, based on the principle that human rights cannot be subject to a vote.

Since 2006, the single-chamber Costa Rican parliament has been discussing a civil union bill that would recognise same-sex couples.

The referendum is being openly promoted by Observatorio Ciudadano, an organisation backed by the Catholic Church, in this overwhelmingly Catholic country. Human rights organisations accuse the Church leadership of religious interference in political affairs.

Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, who is close to the Church, called for a respectful debate “free of stigma or oversimplifications,” and hinted at her personal opposition to gay civil unions when she said it was “not a priority” issue.

Ombudswoman Ofelia Taitelbaum told IPS “we are completely against” holding the referendum. “It is about human rights, which cannot be left in the hands of a group of homophobic Catholics,” she said, adding that it would also be detrimental to a social minority whose rights must be defended.

The TSE fixed the referendum date to coincide with the municipal elections. This makes it likely that more than 30 percent of voters will vote, a requirement for the referendum result to be binding, lawyer Alexandra Loría, who is promoting the initiative, told IPS.

Opinion polls indicate, and social movements believe, that the outcome of the referendum is unlikely to put Costa Rica among those countries that have approved same-sex unions, given the pressure exerted by the Catholic Church and other churches, and the resistance of the conservative majority of the population to expanding gay rights.

Many of the signatures for the referendum were collected, in fact, at Catholic and Protestant places of worship.

Nine institutions formed the Costa Rican Coalition of Sexual Diversity Organisations and Groups (CONODIS), which is campaigning against the referendum, regarded by its members as an attempt to violate human rights.

Lawyer Esteban Quirós, a supporter of the CONODIS coalition, lodged an appeal with the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court on the grounds that a popular vote on the issue of gay rights would be in breach of the constitution, where these rights are guaranteed.

“I think they (the Supreme Court) will block it,” Quirós told IPS. Costa Rica has signed several international treaties that confirm that basic rights cannot be subjected to a referendum, he pointed out.

He cited, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

If the Supreme Court rules in favour of holding the referendum, Quirós plans to take the case to international courts, like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which happens to be based in San José.

Loría dismissed the idea that the debate involved human rights. “We believe in marriage and the family as established by the constitution. The name of the bill is irrelevant, it’s the content that matters,” she said, claiming that the words “civil union” had been used instead of “marriage” in order to avoid conflicts.

Ombudswoman Taitelbaum criticised the government’s silence on the issue, although in their personal capacity, both Health Minister María Luisa Ávila and Education Minister Leonardo Garnier have sided with the gay community.

In her view, there is a homophobic campaign in favour of holding the referendum which, if left uncontrolled, “will unleash a wave of violence against sexual minorities.”

“It is a matter of national security,” she said, calling for a public statement from the executive branch.

Meanwhile, gay organisations have a Plan B ready in case the referendum is ultimately held and the legalisation of same-sex unions is rejected, as expected.

They will present a “mega-motion” for the approval of another bill which would also recognise the legal status of same-sex couples, Abelardo Araya, president of Movimiento Diversidad (Diversity Movement), one of the most visible groups in the struggle for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) rights, told IPS.

The bill is a draft law on “sociedades de convivencia” (cohabitation partnerships), which enjoys even more support from lawmakers than the bill on civil unions for same-sex couples.

“If the referendum takes place, it will be a waste of resources, because the bill on civil unions it refers to will be superseded by the cohabitation bill,” Araya said. This tactic was possible because “the question put in the referendum is very specific.”

Voters are to be asked quite precisely whether they approve or disapprove of draft law 16390 (the law on civil unions), so even if the referendum is held and the ‘no’ vote prevails, it will not be an impediment for consideration of the cohabitation partnership bill.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSE, Aug 6 2010 (IPS)

With the elimination of certain taxes and the implementation of several green initiatives, Costa Rica is pressing forward in its aim to promote sustainable energy generation with a view to achieving “carbon neutrality” by 2021, the year this country will celebrate two centuries of independence.

Following in the footsteps of countries like Finland, Norway and New Zealand, Costa Rica plans to fully offset its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions that cause global warming by planting forests and introducing improved mitigation technologies, among other initiatives.

Companies and individuals will be able to apply to the Costa Rican Certification Body to certify their emission reduction efforts.

While this Central American nation’s best bet in reducing GHGs is the expansion of its forested area, clean technologies will also be necessary if the country wants to become carbon neutral, said Orlando Chinchilla, director of the National University’s Forest Research and Services Institute, who added, however, that it will be no easy feat.

A Jun. 30 amendment to a tax exemption act (Law No. 7400) promotes the use of renewable energies by eliminating 13 percent of the tax burden previously levied on solar panels and solar-powered kitchens, refrigerators and heaters, as well as on devices that run on wind and hydroelectric power.

Complementing these efforts, and as part of the same Energy Plan implemented by the social democrat administration of Laura Chinchilla, the governmental Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) will provide incentives for companies and homes that install solar panels and biomass (organic waste) generation systems.

Users of such technology will be able to recover their investment in an estimated three to six years, through savings in their power bills calculated at about 200 dollars a year for an average family of four.

Household and company power systems will be connected to the ICE grid, enabling individual users to assign their excess power in exchange for discounts on their electricity bill.

This will be done through the installation of a two-way meter that will determine whether there is a surplus of power that can be sold or if generation capacity is insufficient to cover the user’s consumption and the ICE grid needs to supply additional power.

This will not only make homes more sustainable and self-sufficient in terms of their power needs, but will also reduce the country’s fossil fuel dependency, as the ICE will collect the excess energy and use it to cover the needs of other consumers.

According to government figures, 64 percent of all commercial users are supplied by energy from fossil fuels. The transportation sector accounts for a large part of that percentage.

But hydropower dams are the leading source of electricity in the country, accounting for 78 percent of electric power, and making Costa Rica the region’s leading producer of clean energy.

Geothermal power — obtained by tapping into underground steam from volcanic areas — is the country’s second most important renewable source of electricity, with thermal, wind and biomass lagging far behind.

The use of solar energy is still negligible, but the aim is for alternative power sources to expand significantly over the next decade.

“The final price of equipment and materials will drop 20 percent, not just 13 percent,” Rodrigo Salazar, general manager of Energy Solutions, a company that sells solar heaters, told IPS. This additional cut in costs will come from the elimination of the import tax on renewable energy equipment purchased by the sector’s companies.

Salazar believes the initiative will boost alternative energy equipment sales, which have been stagnant since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008.

In the government’s plans there is also room for another alternative source: bio-digesters. These are small plants that generate gas from cattle manure fermentation, and in addition to eliminating animal waste and generating energy, they produce bio-manure for use on crops.

Rural and low-income communities have benefited the most from certain pilot programmes that have been underway for a number of years. An estimated 1,400 bio-digesters have been installed in Costa Rica. Their low cost and the fact that they are easy to install and maintain make them an attractive alternative.

The village of Santa Fe, in Guatuso district, near the Nicaraguan border, has 10 bio-digesters, which were built four years ago at a cost of about 200 dollars each.

With that investment, users save 15 dollars a month in gas for cooking and heating water. “It’s innovative and environmentally-friendly,” because it curbs pollution, deforestation, and “gets rid of animal dung,” Xinia Montero, head of the Santa Fe Women’s Group, told IPS.

And it can also be considered a tourist attraction, as people “come from different countries to see how they work,” Montero said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSE, May 2 2010 (IPS)

The boom in construction projects on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica is threatening biodiversity and compromising the future of the country’s widely promoted ecological tourism, says a study by Costa Rican and U.S. scientists.

The study, compiled over a two-year period by the Centre for Responsible Travel (CREST) at Stanford University in California, examines the problems inherent in the Costa Rican tourism model, particularly the uncontrolled sprawl of holiday resorts and homes.

“The priority is to get rich, no matter who gets trampled on in the process,” Gady Amit, head of the environmental organisation Confraternidad Guanacasteca, told IPS.

The growth of infrastructure for the tourism industry has caused irreversible damage to the northwestern province of Guanacaste, bathed by the Pacific ocean, and runs counter to the tenets of “green tourism”, a major attraction for visitors to Costa Rica.

The voracity of the construction boom is also threatening the Osa peninsula, on the south Pacific coast, one of the 25 most biodiverse places on the planet, home to 2.5 percent of the world’s species. “It’s a treasure trove of unusual biodiversity, one of very few such places remaining in the world,” said CREST advisory board member Margarita Penón.

The study titled “The Impact of Tourism Related Development along Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast” was presented in San José this month by CREST director William Durham and several of the researchers involved. It recommends “rethinking” the development of tourism and associated infrastructure, before it is too late.

But the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), a government body which oversees the sector, disagrees with some of the report’s assertions.

María Amalia Revelo, deputy manager and marketing director of ICT, told IPS that the model for developing domestic tourism has been based, for the last 15 years, “on small accommodation units, complemented with medium-sized hotels.”

The average is 17 rooms per hotel, “which indicates that the country’s tourism model has been sustained over time,” she said.

Revelo admitted that there are some big hotels on the Pacific coast, but said they are not the norm, and that “big does not necessarily mean bad.” In her view, the country has managed to balance both types of hotel.

But local environmentalists concur with CREST that the main problem is in the real estate sector, which is putting up large housing developments, golf courses and shopping centres on the coastline itself.

“The hotel sector at least provides jobs, whereas residential developments, once construction is finished, do not,” said Amit.

The study emphasises that excessive development will condemn the coastal area to landslides, pollution and damage to the mangrove, coral reef and forest ecosystems, as well as to shortages of drinking water in future.

In fact, some local towns are already having problems with water supply as a result of high levels of consumption by tourists and golf courses. The community of Sardinal in Guanacaste province is in open conflict with the central government over its water rights.

In other places, like Tamarindo, home purchases by residential holiday makers have displaced the local residents. “There are no people left, and hardly any businesses,” Amit said.

The reason is that prices of land, houses and services have soared beyond the reach of the pockets of most Costa Ricans.

On the Papagayo peninsula, one of the main tourism-real estate development poles in the country, land used to cost 100 dollars a hectare, but nowadays “that money would only buy you one square metre,” Amit said.

Furthermore, the overpopulation associated with unplanned development has dramatically increased coastal pollution.

“People are bathing in pure sh*t,” Amit said bluntly.

The beach at Tamarindo has had to be closed on several occasions because of the health risk posed by high counts of faecal bacteria. The huge hotel and residential complexes have no treatment facilities for their waste water – or if they do have treatment plants, they hardly use them in order to save on maintenance costs.

Meanwhile, in Osa “the threat is looming ever closer,” said Merlyn Oviedo, who owns a small hotel in Puerto Jiménez, a rare showcase of humid tropical ecosystems.

He said tourist agents on the peninsula feel that the natural habitats they depend on are endangered by a kind of development that is diametrically opposed to ecotourism.

New highways have been built linking the capital, San José, and the central Pacific region with Osa, in the extreme south of Puntarenas province. Easy access and a shorter journey will bring yet more tourists to this area, described as Costa Rica’s last wilderness frontier.

“We want this infrastructure, but it’s scary to think what it might bring,” said Oviedo, mentioning as a negative example a “huge highway” that comes to within three kilometres of his property.

Plans to convert the local airport in Osa into an international airport triggered alarm. CREST’s director emphatically recommended ditching the idea, because it would lead to “monstrous” and predatory development. “The threat would be enormous,” Oviedo agreed.

ICT’s Ravelo denied that the pattern seen in Guanacaste would be imitated at Osa, because the two ecosystems and what they have to offer are very different. The Osa peninsula has a variety of rainforests and wetlands, while in the north dry tropical landscapes predominate.

The study is critical of the lack of regulation and land use planning, and of the absence of coordination between the 35 bodies involved in granting permits for real estate development and tourism projects along the Pacific shoreline.

The report confirms that two different interests are increasingly at loggerheads in Costa Rica: the tourism sector, which brings in two billion dollars annually and welcomes two million visitors a year, and environmental conservation in a country of just over 51,000 square kilometres that harbours 4.5 percent of global biodiversity.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 15 2010 (IPS)

The rescue in a Costa Rican port of 36 Asians working as slaves in appalling conditions on two fishing boats once again highlighted the need to fight people trafficking in this Central American country.

Costa Rica is a transit point as well as a destination and point of origin for people caught up in trafficking rings, said Ana Hidalgo, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) regional counter-trafficking unit for Central America and Mexico.

The victims are not only taken to “traditional” destinations like Canada, the United States and Europe, but are also transported within Central America for the purposes of sexual exploitation, she told IPS.

The 36 Asians rescued by the police in the Pacific port of Puntarenas on Apr. 10 were subjected to labour exploitation on two fishing boats.

The 15 Vietnamese, 13 Indonesians, five Filipinos, two Taiwanese and one Chinese national said they were forced to work up to 20 hours a day, and were regularly flogged. They were underfed and had never been paid.

The four individuals arrested in connection with the case, from Taiwan and Costa Rica, are facing charges of human trafficking, which carries a penalty of between eight and 16 years in prison. Their release on bail after less than 48 hours in custody caused a public outcry in Costa Rica.

In the last few months, trafficking networks that send people to Europe, sometimes through Costa Rica, have also been uncovered in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Human trafficking generates an estimated 32 billion dollars a year in illicit profits, making it the world’s third most lucrative illegal activity after drugs and arms trafficking, according to the United Nations.

The U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines human trafficking as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 80 percent of the victims, mainly women and girls, are forced into prostitution. The remaining 20 percent, usually men and boys, face forced labour. Worldwide, around 20 percent of victims of human trafficking are minors.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that at least 2.4 million of an estimated 12.3 million victims of forced labour worldwide had also been subjected to human trafficking.

Police collusion with trafficking rings facilitates such crimes. “The worse enemy of organised crime is an honest police force,” Minister of Public Security Janina del Vecchio remarked to IPS.

For that reason, her work has focused on purging the police in Costa Rica, she said.

Drug trafficking organisations have “diversified their activities,” branching out into human trafficking, because similar routes and mechanisms are used for both, said the IOM’s Hidalgo.

The government of this country known as “the Switzerland of Central America” because of its strong democracy and relatively high standard of living has made efforts to get the situation under control.

In October, it created an office on trafficking in persons and promotion of human development, under the Ministry of Public Security.

Costa Rica also has a victim and witness protection and assistance law and programme. However, victims are rarely allowed to stay in the country.

Although “each time a victim of trafficking seeks asylum, the request is studied carefully,” very few applications are actually approved, due to the country’s lack of funds, del Vecchio said.

For her part, Hidalgo said the government’s policies “have been strengthened, but still fall short.”

Under Costa Rica’s new immigration law that went into effect on Mar. 1, migrant smugglers or “coyotes” face stiffer prison terms.

The aim is to convince immigrants, especially from neighbouring Nicaragua – this country’s main source of migrants – “that it is much easier to come in legally,” and enjoy the right to a minimum wage and social security coverage, del Vecchio said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 1 2010 (IPS)

Solutions to global warming based on the logic of the market are a threat to the rights and way of life of indigenous peoples, the Latin American Indigenous Forum on Climate Change concluded this week in Costa Rica.

Proposals from governments and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the Clean Development Mechanism and the UN-REDD Programme (United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), “are new forms of economic geopolitics” that endanger indigenous rights enshrined in treaties, says the final declaration of the forum, which ended Wednesday.

These proposals allow states and transnational corporations to promote dams, agrofuels, oil exploration, tree plantations and monoculture crops, that cause expropriation and destruction of indigenous peoples’ territories and the criminalisation, prosecution and even murder of native people, the document says.

The Forum, which opened Monday, included the Indigenous Council of Central America (CICA), the Meso-American Indigenous Council (CIMA), the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests, the Coordinating Body for the Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network (IWBN), the South American region of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women (ECMIA), the Intercultural Indigenous University (UII) and the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (IIWF).

Indigenous people and their organisations are putting forward holistic solutions that respect the rights of human beings and of Mother Earth, and that are not limited to Western scientific knowledge but include traditional wisdom, indigenous practices and innovations that have contributed to efforts to preserve ecosystems and biodiversity, the Forum declaration says.

There are some 400 different native groups in Latin America, totalling about 45 million people.

“We discussed indigenous peoples’ strategies and positions with respect to climate change,” the general coordinator of the Guatemala-based Sotz’il – Centre for Maya Research and Development, Ramiro Batzin, told IPS.

Governments talk to each other without taking civil society into account, but indigenous people must be listened to, because they are the most affected by global warming, he said.

Climate change is due to “a model of development that has forced indigenous people into extreme poverty,” he said.

The worst harm they are suffering is lack of food, because of drought and floods, and the loss of their cultural identity.

The UN-REDD Programme provides for rich countries to pay for maintaining tropical forests in the developing world, in compensation for their carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

The native peoples say that the great majority of places being proposed by governments and some NGOs to participate in the REDD programme are located in indigenous territories.

This shows that these territories are well preserved, but it is urgent to defend guarantees contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly territorial rights and the right to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent, the forum declaration says.

“States do not want to acknowledge this; their approach is based purely on the bottom line,” said Batzin.

People here pinned their hopes on the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, to be hosted this month by the Bolivian government. The meeting is conceived as an alternative approach to the solutions explored to date by the international community.

Official climate negotiations will be resumed at the next United Nations conference in Mexico in November, after the failure of the Copenhagen meeting last December.

“The failure was to expect an outcome from such a meeting. In the midst of an economic crisis, industrialised countries do not want to sacrifice production,” Pascal Girot, Mesoamerica and Caribbean coordinator for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told IPS.

The present model “is exterminating Mother Nature,” said Batzin, who criticised the governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala for not protesting against the documents that emerged from Copenhagen, which he said were “not very democratic and lacked transparency.”

Costa Rica, for instance, is planning to be a carbon neutral country by 2021, and to sell greenhouse gas emissions mitigation mechanisms to industrialised countries.

“It’s a licence to pollute. It may be a solution for Costa Rica, taking a very utilitarian view. But it’s the principle that the polluter pays, and that is all we have at the moment,” said Girot.

Mechanisms like the REDD programme must guarantee the long term survival of the world’s large forests. But to achieve that in Central America is very difficult, because of the pressures on forested areas, and because “investors want guarantees that the mechanisms will be measurable,” Girot said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Mar 25 2010 (IPS)

With the spring rains and hurricane season just around the corner in Haiti, some 600,000 people are still living in camps, many in areas prone to flooding. And plans to provide solutions for the survivors of the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake are moving forward slowly.

Experts from Central America and the Caribbean met Monday through Thursday in the Costa Rican capital at the multi-hazard early warning system workshop, to discuss how to reduce impacts of extreme weather and water events in the region. A special session was held on implementing early warning systems in Haiti.

The head of Haiti’s meteorological service, Ronald Semelfort, said he could only hope that this year’s hurricane season is mild.

An estimated one million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which had a death toll of at least 230,000.

The 218,000 people living in makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince, which was hit hardest by the quake, are the most vulnerable, according to the United Nations.

Many of the camps in the capital are in areas at risk of flooding. The central and municipal governments are working together in search of places to relocate the survivors, but finding large suitable spaces at short notice is no easy task.

Canada, France and Britain, along with Haiti’s civil protection agency, are working to rebuild the national meteorological network, which collapsed in the quake, in order to provide early warning capability in case of storms and hurricanes.

“The most important thing is making the systems operational, to warn the local population,” Jean-Noel Degrace, regional director of France’s meteorological service, Météo-France, told IPS.

“Preparedness must be achieved, no matter what the cost,” said Degrace, who is based in Martinique. The problem is that the first stage, the ability to predict storms and issue watches and warnings, might not be completed until May, while the rains are set to begin in late April.

The United States, meanwhile, is setting up an Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN), a “simple, autonomous, reliable and rapid system that can supply information to the civil defence authorities,” Abdoulaye Harou, acting director of Canada’s meteorological service, remarked to IPS.

EMWIN and the meteorological system will act independently in Haiti, although they will be coordinated by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which organised this week’s four-day meeting, that was co-hosted by Costa Rica’s national meteorological institute and national commission for risk prevention and emergency response.

Money is not a problem, thanks to the outpouring of international aid. But time is running out fast.

“The earthquake hit just when we were getting ready for hurricane season,” Abel Nazaire, deputy coordinator of the Haiti civil protection bureau, told IPS.

At that time, one of the tasks was to identify public buildings that could serve as shelters during a hurricane. But today, many of those buildings are no longer standing.

Authorities have continued identifying the few buildings still fit to serve as shelters during heavy rains. “They wouldn’t withstand another earthquake, but they would survive a hurricane,” Semelfort said.

Another undertaking is obtaining prefabricated housing, and land, in order to relocate people from the camps. The first 200 prefab cabins, donated by Colombia to the community of Cabaret in the north, are about to arrive.

The project will be the first of many such efforts, which will be insufficient, however, because officials in Haiti estimate that a maximum of 200,000 people could be settled in prefab housing. Moreover, they would not be in place in time for the rainy season, in the country that was already the poorest in the hemisphere prior to the quake.

Even before Jan. 12, many Haitians were living in slums, or were homeless, Semelfort pointed out. “There was already a high level of vulnerability before, and since the earthquake it is almost total,” the Haitian meteorologist said.

While the authorities and experts attempt to come up with solutions, survivors of the earthquake pray that this year, the rainy and hurricane season will start late and will be mild.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Mar 8 2010 (IPS)

The Costa Rican government has declared retirement communities, aimed at attracting U.S. pensioners, to be “of national interest.” Plans to create “retirement clusters” providing complete health services for older adults are seen as a profitable prospect for this Central American country.

Old people as a business: this is the bottom line of the government and private sector’s new project.

Noting the rapid development of the “health cities” in Mexico and Panama, Costa Rican officials and entrepreneurs are poised to tap into the perceived gold mine among middle and upper-middle class senior citizens of industrialised countries.

The concept is simple, and includes slashing red tape to the minimum by providing one-stop residence permits at the Migration Directorate, so that foreigners, especially the well-heeled, can come to live in the country.

Tax exemptions on real estate and vehicles are on offer, and a promotional campaign aimed at older adults abroad will be run by the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT). The government will also boost training of human resources such as health personnel through the Costa Rican Social Security system, and seek to attract investment.

The Competitiveness Ministry has already identified eight locations for retirement clusters in Costa Rica, in areas of natural beauty with plenty of tourist attractions, and close to large hospital complexes.

Promoting Costa Rica as a retirement haven includes much more than boosting real estate sales or medical tourism. “It includes the hotel sector, travel, hospitals and research. Costa Rica will benefit from it,” Competitiveness Minister Jorge Woodbridge told IPS. Patients and their relatives are likely to travel all over the country, staying at hotels and engaging tour operators and so on.

Every 10,000 retirees are expected to generate employment for 40,000 people a year, 10,000 of them in direct jobs and 30,000 indirectly. The average income of the target population (middle and upper-middle class U.S., Canadian and Spanish citizens) is 3,500 dollars a month.

The main Costa Rican medical centres are already building two major hospital complexes in the city of Liberia in Guanacaste province, the top tourist destination in the country. They will comprise a hospital and residential zone, where services will be provided for four levels of care: active retirement, independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing, in increasing order of patient need.

A small retirement community for 12 people, the country’s only operational cluster so far, has opened on the slopes of the Poas volcano.

The owner, Ronald García, told IPS that “coming to Costa Rica has economic advantages” for foreign pensioners. “They pay for accommodation and medical care, and a family visit from home once a month, and it costs less than paying for medical services back home,” he said. His customers pay 1,600 dollars a month, whereas in the United States they would have to pay 4,500 dollars a month for comparable services.

“We want to attract 10,000 pensioners a year,” Woodbridge said. Estimated annual foreign exchange earnings per 10,000 retirees are 340 million dollars, “so in five years, the total would be 1.7 billion dollars,” he calculated.

In any case, the plan will take at least five years to take off as a national strategy, Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz told IPS.

Other Latin American countries have a head start on Costa Rica. Mexico, which has been developing its policy for over 20 years, is now home to 700,000 pensioners from the United States who are living in Mexican retirement communities.

Its other rival is Panama, which has been advancing in this direction for about a decade. Panama has five retirement communities at present, with another 42 currently being licensed and built.

But the government authorities are optimistic. The climate, enormous biodiversity, security, stability, and polls describing Costa Rica as “the happiest country in the world,” are factors that will work in its favour, according to Woodbridge.

Costa Rica’s reputation as “the Switzerland of Central America” will also help.

Not everyone is in favour of the creation of this new market, however. “It will affect the rights of the people of Costa Rica,” said Carlos Páez with the National Union of Social Security Fund Employees (UNDECA).

Páez said “if this is put into practice, doctors and nurses will go into private medicine,” which could bring about a crisis in the Costa Rican public health system, presently stretched to the limit. “There is already a lack of specialists and health personnel,” and the flight of these workers to private clinics and hospitals will only increase the shortage, said the UNDECA trade unionist.

“The first thing the country should do is to solve the crisis in the social security fund, before opening the market to additional demands,” Páez argued.

Every day, some 6,000 people reach the age of 65 in the United States. The baby boomer generation, born between 1945 and 1964, controls 77 percent of the available financial resources of that country.

Forty-six million people in the United States have no medical insurance, a fact that Costa Rica plans to use to attract U.S. older adults to its shores.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Feb 8 2010 (IPS)

Laura Chinchilla of the governing National Liberation Party (PLN) will be the first female president of Costa Rica and the ninth in the history of Latin America.

Chinchilla, who won a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections in this Central American country, thus follows in the footsteps of former President Isabel Perón (1974-1976) and current President Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Violeta Chamorro (1990-1997) in Nicaragua, Mireya Moscoso (1999-2004) in Panama and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, whose term began in 2006 and ends Mar. 11.

Other women who briefly held the presidency were Lidia Gueiler Tejada, acting president of Bolivia from 1979 to 1980, Ertha Pascal Trouillot, who governed Haiti in 1990-1991, and Rosalía Arteaga, who was interim president of Ecuador for just six days after Abdalá Bucarám was ousted in 1997.

Because she took 47 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections, Chinchilla avoided a run-off (she needed at least 40 percent to do so).

Although the polls showed she was the front-runner, they gave her a smaller lead.

The former vice president will succeed President Óscar Arias of the PLN, which has social democratic roots but has made a shift towards more neoliberal policies in recent years.

Chinchilla carried all seven of Costa Rica’s provinces, and 80 of the 81 “cantons” into which these are divided.

Voter turnout, which had been shrinking since 1998, to 65 percent in 2006, rose to 68 percent this time around, close to the 70 percent target set by the president of the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (electoral court), Luis Antonio Sobrado.

Political scientist Antonio Barrios said it was not extraordinary for a woman to finally be elected president in Costa Rica. “Because of the country’s strong democratic tradition, it could even have been expected to happen earlier,” he told IPS.

Another significant result in the elections was the fragmentation of the single-chamber legislature. Governance will now depend on the parties’ capacity to negotiate and shape consensus.

In the parliamentary elections, the PLN garnered 37 percent of the vote, which means its presence in the legislative assembly will drop from 25 to 22 or 23 seats (out of a total of 57), depending on the final results.

It was followed by the centre-left Citizen Action Party (PAC), with 12 seats; the farthest right party, the Libertarian Movement (ML), with nine seats; and the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), with six seats.

The big surprise was the Accessibility Without Exclusion Party (PASE), which grew from one to four seats. Three other parties won one seat each.

“The Legislative Assembly will shift to the right,” said Barrios, who expects alliances between the PLN and the ML. “Chinchilla will turn to them out of a question of ideological affinity, before she turns to the PAC,” he said.

At any rate, “a great deal of dialogue will be needed,” and the negotiations will be even more complex than in the current Arias administration, which ends May 8.

Barrios also said Chinchilla would seek out the more moderate PAC and ML legislators.

The PAC suffered a major setback. Although the polls had indicated it would slide to a position as the third-strongest political force, its candidate, Ottón Solís, won just 25.1 percent of the vote, compared to the 39.8 percent he garnered in 2006, when he was defeated by Arias by one percentage point.

His party, meanwhile, earned 17.6 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections, down from 25.8 percent in 2006.

After three unsuccessful runs for president at the head of the PAC, Solís announced that he would not stand again.

“His decision was to be expected,” said Barrios, who argued that he shouldn’t have even run this time, but should have made way for “new blood and fresh ideas.”

Not only will this country of 4.5 million people now have its first female president, but 23 out of the 57 seats in parliament – just over 40 percent – will be held by women.

However, feminists in Costa Rica were not particularly excited about Chinchilla’s triumph, according to María José Chávez, head of the women’s rights group CEFEMINA.

“She won’t necessarily bring improvements in women’s rights,” she told IPS. “She has already said that the fact that she is a woman means nothing, because men and women are equal. Statements like this confirmed to us that we should not expect changes and results in terms of our demands.”

Chinchilla, a social conservative who previously served as one of Arias’ two vice presidents (2006-2008), is staunchly opposed to the legalisation of abortion, gay marriage and the separation of church and state

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Feb 4 2010 (IPS)

The first attempt to collect a new tax on luxury homes in Costa Rica has ended in failure, in spite of the fact that it is a solidarity tax entirely devoted to building social housing for slum-dwellers.

The Finance Ministry in this Central American country admitted that only one-quarter of the expected revenue was collected after extending the deadline for paying the tax from Dec. 31 to Jan. 15.

The tax is levied on homes valued above 180,000 dollars, according to Finance Ministry valuation methods that real estate experts regard as setting figures well below market prices.

After the deadline was up, the Finance Ministry announced it had only collected 5.5 million dollars, instead of the expected 22 million dollars. The Ministry announced that there are 10,000 luxury homes in Costa Rica, but only 3,000 owners paid the tax. “We will go after those who haven’t paid,” said Finance Minister Jenny Phillips.

The levy known as the solidarity tax was formulated in a special law and approved unanimously by the Costa Rican parliament. All revenue will be used to finance the Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements’ slum eradication programme.

The solidarity tax is to be levied for a period of 10 years on owners of luxury homes, at annual rates that vary in six steps from 0.25 to 0.55 percent of the value of the house, rising according to its price. The rate to be paid will be based on appraisals of the houses updated every three years.

Housing Minister Clara Zomer told IPS that the tax would be in place for 10 years, in order to eliminate slums and shanty towns in the country. It was conceived as a solidarity measure to provide decent housing for people living in extreme poverty.

But the driving force behind the tax, lawmaker Federico Tinoco of President Oscar Arias’ National Liberation Party, says the tax should be reformed to last more than a decade, because “the slums cannot be eradicated in 10 years.”

The tax authorities have up to three years to oblige the home owners to pay up, but the Finance Ministry believes it can do this within one year because it can identify the houses involved, and even has aerial photographs of each of them.

Taxpayers have the space of that year to appeal the payment before the Administrative Tax Court, challenge their tax rating, or bring a lawsuit arguing that they are not eligible for the tax.

In the view of real estate and tax experts, another reason for the failure to pay the first tax payment is that the Finance Ministry has established mechanisms that are unfamiliar to taxpayers, such as making declarations online, and the overall procedure is cumbersome.

“The trouble is that the amount collected has been much less than expected,” said Minister Zomer.

However, the Housing Mortgage Bank, which is under the Housing Ministry, has already received the revenue collected, which will be immediately allocated to the “bono comunal” (community grant) programme to cover the cost of paving, sanitation services, parks and playgrounds and other improvements in shanty town areas.

Zomer said there are 400 shanty towns in Costa Rica at present, housing 40,000 families. She added that the revenue from the tax collected so far will only pay for the “improvement of one precarious neighbourhood.”

But she said her ministry has other funds, totalling 125 million dollars, for its programme to eradicate shanty towns. The luxury home tax is “complementary,” she said.

This country of 4.5 million people has a poverty rate of 18.5 percent, according to figures from 2009. But local authorities and social agencies are concerned because the overall poverty rate grew by nearly one percentage point compared to 2008, while the proportion of those living in extreme poverty increased from 3.5 to 4.2 percent.

Although Costa Rica’s poverty rates are among the lowest in Latin America, the latest figures show that poverty has risen as a result of the global economic crisis, after a 2007 poverty rate of 16.7 percent, the lowest in the country’s history.

Previously an average of 20 percent of Costa Rica’s population were living below the poverty line, although in the early 1980s the rate shot up to 40 percent, said César Zúñiga, a professor of political science at the University of Costa Rica.

“Poverty in this country is different from that in the rest of the region, because Costa Rican social services have relatively universal coverage,” unlike in most of Latin America, he said.

The National Housing System was created in the 1980s as part of a policy of social protection for the lowest-income population. “This is how the growth of poverty has been curbed,” Zúñiga said.

He remarked that the social protection plan has contributed to the paradox that the country’s middle classes have the greatest difficulty in achieving home ownership, as they have access neither to credits nor to the social assistance available to low-income groups.

“The (social housing) policy has been effective,” although administrative and political disorder have undermined the efficiency of the system, he said.

In Zúñiga’s view, the reluctance of the richest strata of the population to pay the solidarity tax indicates “a lack of solidarity, which is cultural and moral in character,” although he also blamed the ministry’s inefficient tax collecting.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Jan 22 2010 (IPS)

Political forces on the left in Costa Rica have formed a partial last-minute alliance to support Ottón Solís, the presidential candidate for the centre-left Citizens’ Action Party (PAC), in a bid to counter the conservative lead that the polls predict for the upcoming Feb. 7 elections.

The governing National Liberation Party (PLN) has a lead over the opposition Libertarian Movement (ML) that has narrowed to 10 percentage points, but pollsters say it is unlikely that any candidate will take 40 percent or more of the vote, the minimum required to win outright without a run-off election.

The goal of the last-minute leftwing alliance is either to boost Solís into second place in the presidential race, or for him to amass enough supporters to be able to tip the scales if there is a second round between the frontrunners, which would take place Apr. 4, and so exert pressure to neutralise key aspects of the conservative agenda.

PLN candidate Laura Chinchilla has the support of 41 percent of respondants in the latest polls, but ML presidential hopeful Otto Guevara has increased his share to 30 percent. Only 14 percent of respondents say they intend to vote for Solís.

Chinchilla resigned from her position as vice president in the government of President Óscar Arias 13 months ago to launch her candidacy. In September 2009 she had the backing of 63 percent of voters, but her steep slide in the polls – although less marked in the latest survey – leads analysts to predict a run-off election, which has only happened once before in Costa Rica, in 2002.

Formally, the governing PLN is a social democratic party, but it has veered to the centre-right, according to political analysts and dissident PLN sectors, while the ML and its candidate Guevara are openly on the far right of the political spectrum. They propose to limit the role of the state to a minimum and unleash market forces to their fullest extent.

Guevara’s support in the polls, in what is his third presidential bid, has leaped considerably compared to his electoral results in 2006, when he received 8.5 percent of the vote. This has deepened alarm among progressive sectors over the swing to the right seen in the polls.

Solís, also a third time presidential hopeful, came within a whisker of obtaining 40 percent of the vote in 2006, losing to Arias by just over one percent in elections which returned Arias to power after a previous term as president (1986-1990). Solís turned his party, the PAC, into the main opposition force, with 17 out of 57 lawmakers in parliament.

Because of this, the centre-left Patriotic Alliance (AP) and National Integration Party (PIN) decided to back Solís’ candidacy, although at this late stage their own candidates remain formally in the ring and any votes cast for them cannot be transferred to Solís, as the deadline for withdrawing from the contest is past.

The leftwing alliance is effective for the presidential race only, as the two minority centre-left parties are contesting the parliamentary elections, also to be held Feb. 7, independently.

The 10-point common programme drawn up by the alliance includes renegotiation of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, which is part of the Dominican Republic and Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) with that country.

The common agenda also aims at improving citizen participation, the defence of the environment, and reforming the electoral law.

A factor that detracts from the alliance is the absence of the second largest progressive force in Costa Rica, the Broad Front (FA), which continues to support its presidential candidate Eugenio Trejos and its own independent programme.

The entry into force in 2009 of the FTA “made unity necessary, in order to confront the right,” Walter Muñoz, nominally the PIN’s presidential candidate, told IPS. Muñoz regards the electoral campaign as “fraudulent”, referring to the polls as well as party financing, some of which is of dubious origin.

“The only way to counter them (the PLN and ML) was to provide a different option,” and that is where this “strategic alliance” comes in, he said.

In Muñoz’s view, the strengthened electoral option Solís now represents will be able to attract support from the social movements that actively opposed the FTA until it was finally approved.

As for Solís, he told IPS in a telephone interview that he was very satisfied with the coalition, which “will have great impact,” and was confident of victory “in the first round.”

The moderate leftwing candidate was dismissive of the polls, which in Costa Rica tend not to reflect what happens later at the ballot box, he said.

Solís recalled that four years ago, when he ran against President Arias, the polls predicted a difference between them of 20 to 25 percent of the vote, but on election day there was only a difference of one percent, equivalent to 18,000 votes.

The candidate emphasised that PAC voters, and those on the left in general, reflect carefully before voting, and he again criticised the management of polls in this country of 4.5 million people, of whom 2.8 million are eligible to vote.

Muñoz admitted that the alliance was a late move, but said it was imperative to react against the campign’s swing to the right, with all that is at stake now for the political and social sectors aligned with the left and centre-left.

He said it was “a proposal to save Costa Rica. We are still in time, because 60 percent of the electorate is undecided.”

Solís said the times the country is living in demand unity, and took a leaf out of the history books to ask himself why the countries who fought against Adolf Hitler’s Germany in the Second World War (1939-1945) did not act to stop him earlier. “That’s the way history works,” he said.

Asked about why the FA did not join the alliance, its leader José Merino told IPS he refused to do so because it involved “only the support of candidates who withdrew,” and recalled that two years ago Solís “explicitly” rejected the idea of participating in a progressive coalition. Even a few weeks ago Solís was not in favour of electoral coalitions, he said.

The FA party leader said that while he respected the initiative, he felt it was “rather irresponsible” at this stage of the campaign to ask a party to dissolve itself in order to support another candidacy. Merino hopes for a growth in support for the FA in the elections, as a basis for consolidating “a real option on the left” that in future might stand a chance of winning the presidency.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Sep 18 2009 (IPS)

A bill on the press and freedom of expression that has been kicking around in the Costa Rican Congress for the past eight years, which deals with questions like source confidentiality, access to public information, and libel and slander laws, was saved in late August from being permanently shelved by the legislature.

On Sept. 1, Freedom of Expression Day in Costa Rica, eight former heads of the Journalists Association sent a letter to lawmakers criticising the draft law. However, the present leadership of the Journalists Association openly supports it.

Two key aspects of the draft law are the right of journalists to keep their sources confidential, and citizens’ right of access to public information.

The text contains reforms and partial repeals of articles or items of the criminal code and criminal prosecution code, and an addition to the law on radio and television.

Under its “conscience clause,” the bill stipulates that a journalist cannot “be obliged to do work against his or her conscience or against generally accepted professional ethics,” nor can they be disciplined by their superiors “for their opinions or what they report.”

The main change proposed in the draft law is an addition to articles in the criminal code establishing fines for slander, defamation and libel. The bill says the plaintiff must prove “malice” on the part of the journalist, or show that he or she published statements with “reckless disregard for truth or in the knowledge that they were false.”

Article 7 of the press law, which provides for up to 100 days imprisonment for “crimes against honour” (resulting in a person feeling slighted or insulted), would be repealed by the bill, as well as Article 149 of the criminal code, which at present reverses the burden of proof, stipulating that those accused must “prove the truth” of their statements.

These changes would restore the presumption that a reporter is innocent until proven guilty. But according to the bill’s critics, they would leave citizens unprotected against the power of the press to defame or publish false information.

The letter from the former heads of the Journalists Association argues that “there is rampant commercialisation of a certain kind of press that might lend itself to publishing material that destroys the good name of a person, without incurring any risk whatsoever of criminal prosecution.”

Eduardo Ulibarri, head of the Institute of Press and Freedom of Expression, complained that Article 149 as it stands “is not concerned with the substance of the truth, but with details” and obliges the accused to prove their innocence.

But the letter sent to parliament by the former heads of the Journalists Association brands some of the items in the draft law as “liberticide,” that is, destructive of civil liberties.

“If the draft law has been before parliament for eight years and has not been approved, it is clearly not viable,” Armando Vargas, one of the signatories of the letter, told IPS.

In Vargas’ view, the bill is “counterproductive,” although he acknowledged that Costa Rica does need laws “to deal with these issues that have already been legislated on by other countries.” These laws should adopt principles enshrined in international conventions or the country’s constitution, and spell them out fully, he said.

The draft law would also reform Article 151 of the criminal code, on reporting offensive statements made by a source, with the introduction of the principle of faithful reproduction. “If I quote a source faithfully, the responsibility for what is said rests with the source,” as Ulibarri put it.

In 1999, journalist Mauricio Herrera was convicted for defamation for reproducing information published in Belgian newspapers alleging acts of corruption by a Costa Rican diplomat.

Herrera took his case to international courts, and in 2004 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights overturned the verdict against him, condemned the Costa Rican state for violating Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and ordered it to indemnify the journalist.

The Court also ordered the country to amend its laws to guarantee the right to appeal, which it has not yet done.

The representative in Costa Rica of the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), Gisela de León, told IPS that the bill “incorporates international standards on freedom of expression,” and pointed out that Costa Rican statutes still provide for prison sentences for crimes against honour, in Article 7 of the law governing the press.

In CEJIL’s view, it is essential to remove matters concerning freedom of expression from the criminal code, so that they are governed instead by the civil code or simply by the right of correction and right of reply.

Journalist Miguel Agüero of the La República newspaper said the draft law is “positive” but doubts the political will exists to approve it.

At any rate, in Costa Rica “we can criticise politicians, the government and companies,” although one of the worst problems is the lack of freedom within newspaper companies to criticise industries connected with the paper itself, or with its advertisers, he said.

The press is one of the institutions held in the highest esteem by the public, according to a 2008 survey titled “Población Costarricense, Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la Información” (Costa Rican Population, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information), carried out by the National University.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Sep 1 2009 (IPS)

The late June coup d’état in Honduras was a body blow to political integration in Central America. The institutions of the regional integration process have been incapable of reacting to the event, leaving the future of the process increasingly uncertain and trade agreements, themselves in poor shape, as the only viable way forward, experts say.

The Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), the Central American Court of Justice (CCJ) and the Central American Integration System (SICA) have remained deafeningly silent since Jun. 28, when the armed forces bustled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of his house and put him on a plane to Costa Rica, still in his pyjamas.

Then came the decision of Panama’s new rightwing government to withdraw the country from PARLACEN, further weakening the regional institution.

Renzo Rosal, assistant head of the Central American Institute for Political Studies (INCEP), said the Panamanian government’s decision showed how tentatively the issue of Central American integration is pencilled in on the agenda of the region’s governments.

PARLACEN, a permanent regional forum for the political representation of SICA, consists of the former presidents and vice-presidents and 20 directly elected representatives from each member state.

The member countries are at present El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, and the Dominican Republic (although it is not strictly within the region), which has 22 appointed representatives. Mexico, Puerto Rico, Taiwan and Venezuela have observer status.

Costa Rica never joined PARLACEN, which it regards as costly and ineffective. However, it is a member of SICA and the rest of the Central American regional institutions.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who took office Jul. 1, said PARLACEN was “a den of immunities,” referring to ex presidents of Central American countries taking refuge in parliamentary immunity from prosecution when they are accused of corruption. However, this immunity was lifted in 2004, and PARLACEN representatives are now subject to the laws of their own countries.

In any case, it will not be easy for Panama to extricate itself from the regional forum, because the treaty that established PARLACEN does not include a mechanism for resigning from it, Rodil said.

Under international law, in the absence of a resignation procedure, a member of a body may withdraw from it if all the other members agree. But the other PARLACEN members have so far rejected Panama’s decision, calling instead on the Martinelli administration to reconsider, he said.

PARLACEN and the CCJ absorb more than 60 percent of the resources available for integration. The PARLACEN budget is over 10 million dollars a year.

SICA, created in 1991, is the latest of a long series of integration efforts in the region. Its predecessor, the Central American Common Market (MERCOMUN), was formed in the 1960s but failed due to economic crisis and the civil wars that tore the region in the 1970s and 1980s.

Two of the most prestigious regional bodies, however, were both founded in 1960: the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) and the Central American Economic Integration System (SIECA), functionally now largely displaced by SICA.

The proliferation of acronyms is a bit overwhelming. “In the 1960s, there was even a Central American Defence Council (CONDECA), which few people knew about,” Rodolfo Cerdas, of the Costa Rican Centre for Political Administration Research and Training (CIAPA), told IPS.

Cerdas, author of the book “Las instituciones de integración en Centroamérica” (Integration Institutions in Central America), said that “years ago, I counted a total of 59 institutions, and another 14 that were defunct. No doubt there are more now.”

All this machinery, in his view, is completely ineffective. “Integration should be built from the bottom up, not the other way around, creating institutions without any content.” According to Cerdas, “political integration is dead,” but it is possible to envisage an emerging economic union.

Cerdas said that, in his opinion, the free trade agreement signed in 2004 by the United States, five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic – CAFTA – has made “the most progress” towards the oft-mooted Central American union.

In an interview with IPS, Arnoldo Rubio, coordinator of the master’s degree course in European Studies and Regional Integration at the Costa Rican Distance Learning State University (UNED), expressed a similar view.

“Integration is failing, especially in the political aspects. The process has not reached maturity,” he said.

“The commercial side has received greater stimulation,” Rubio added, emphasising the importance of the CAFTA treaty, as well as the negotiations towards an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Central America and the European Union.

According to Cerdas, there has been a conceptual problem with regional integration from the outset. The old MERCOMUN idea of a protected and privileged trade area does not make any sense now in the light of globalisation, “so the concept of open integration was adopted. But that needed to be translated into concrete terms: branches, activities, technology and timelines, and this was not done.”

The CIAPA researcher said “Central America’s big problem is that it has had many opportunities for integration since independence in 1821, but has succeeded in none of them.”

“Attempts have always been made to impose it from above, when the logical approach is to start by developing areas where economic, financial, commercial, cultural and educational affinities between the countries can be found.

“Conceptually, even a clear definition of ‘Central America’ is lacking, because it’s one region geographically, another historically, and anthropologically a different region again,” Cerdas said.

“Border conflicts and senseless jealousies” also play their part, said Rubio.

The legacy of Spanish colonialism lumped Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua together in the former Federal Republic of Central America (1823-1840). But the modern region includes the former British colony of Belize, and Panama since its 1903 separation from Colombia.

Unionist rhetoric has been rampant ever since independence from Spain in the early 19th century, but has remained hot air. The current integration model appears to be “a mistake,” according to Cerdas, because it is made in the image and likeness of the EU, without allowing for the region’s specific problems and diversity.

In order to change the system, there will have to be a crisis, “and it would be very easy to provoke one. The moment the EU tells PARLACEN that there is no more money, it will all be over, because no government will pay for its upkeep,” Cerdas said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Aug 16 2009 (IPS)

Some 3,000 people make their living from rural community-based tourism in Costa Rica, according to the association of tour operators who connect visitors to the delights of rural life.

Chirripó, Costa Rica's highest peak, located in the Talamanca range. Credit: Daniel Zueras/IPS

“We promote close interaction between the visitor and the local community” and there is a certain degree of natural adventure, which small farmers and indigenous people experience day-to-day as they provide tourism services, Mario Ordóñez, marketing manager for the specialised travel agency Simbiosis Tours, told Tierramérica.

“The tourists cross the same hanging bridges that the community members use, or ride horseback as part of a normal workday. None of it is specially organised or staged only for the tourist,” he explained.

The difference between community-based tourism and ecotourism is that the latter “delinks the cultural aspect from the activity,” Ordóñez added.

This kind of tourism is an “advanced” form of ecotourism “because it places special emphasis on land ownership by local residents, giving it added value,” Kyra Cruz, president of the National Chamber of Rural Community Tourism, told Tierramérica.

The Bribrí indigenous community, in the Talamanca Mountains, were a pioneer in this type of tourism.

The area is located in the eastern province of Limón, and extends from the beaches of the Caribbean Sea to the south-central part of the country. The Bribrí, who number around 10,000, live in the Upper Talamanca valley.

In 1987, in the wake of the crisis of cocoa crops and low prices for bananas, “we organised to see if we could improve banana production, and set up a telephone system and began the tourism initiative,” Guillermo Torres, manager of the Yorkín Natural Adventure organisation, told Tierramérica.

According to Torres, today there are 18 families that make a living from this enterprise. They have a lodge for 25 people and are building an eight-room inn. They also offer a canoe trip to transport bamboo on the Yorkín River and activities ranging from craft-making to cocoa farming and archery.

It has also been a boom to the Bribrí language “because we teach words to our visitors,” said Torres. The emphasis on the culture of each community is one of the things that attract people to this type of tourism.

The new law is intended to regulate a growing activity, which is characterised by small-scale operations. “Until now, in order to benefit from the tourism initiatives law, they required a minimum of 10 hotel rooms, and 98 percent didn’t reach that number,” said Cruz.

The new legislation lowers the minimum to three rooms for eligibility for aid, which includes tax exemptions, facilitation of paperwork by local governments and promotion of “the importance of this model of sustainable tourism,” she said.

“The law is going to be very important if the regulations are truly effective and not too bureaucratic,” Cruz added.

In the opinion of Marcy Arrieta, promoter of this kind of innovative tourism at the government’s Tourism Institute, the legislation “recognises the effort the country has made over the past 18 years,” as well as the quality of the services, which have a social and economic foundation “highly suited to further development.”

Community-based tourism “has become a model, extending beyond our borders,” Arrieta told Tierramérica. It has been successfully exported to other Central American countries, as well as to Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Gonzalo Vargas, president of the National Chamber of Tourism, described the benefits of rural community-based tourism this way: “The capital that is invested is nearly all Costa Rican, and better yet, from families with limited resources,” which reassures the visitors that they are consuming a product that improves the quality of life of the local people.

Furthermore, an incredibly high percentage of each “colón” (the national currency) that is spent on these services remains in the family or the community, he said.

Of the 43,000 hotel rooms in Costa Rica, just 1,000 are found in the community-based tourism sector, said Vargas. The average is four or five rooms with a total of 10 to 12 beds, especially at the bed and breakfasts.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

Costa Rican tourism is incorporating rural community-based vacations as the fourth leg of an industry otherwise centered on beaches, ecotourism and adventure travel.

: Chirripó, Costa Rica's highest peak, located in the Talamanca range. - Daniel Zueras/IPS

Known in other places as agro-ecotourism, in Costa Rica it has been operating for 18 years. A law enacted Jul. 17 by President Óscar Arias aims to make it a permanent and growing endeavor.

“We promote a close interaction between the visitor and the community” and there is a certain degree of natural adventure, which the small farmers and indigenous peoples live day-to-day as they provide these services, Mario Ordóñez, marketing manager for the specialized travel agency Simbiosis Tours, told Tierramérica.

“The tourists cross the same hanging bridges that the community members use, or the horseback riding that the community does as part of its work. There is nothing specially organized,” he explained.

The difference between community-based tourism and ecotourism is that the latter “delinks the cultural part from the activity,” Ordóñez added.

According to experts, it is an “advanced” form of ecotourism “because it places special emphasis on land ownership by the local residents, giving it added value,” Kyra Cruz, president of the National Chamber of Rural Community Tourism, told Tierramérica.

The Bribrí indigenous community, in the Talamanca Mountains, was a pioneer in this type of tourism.

The region is located in the south of the eastern province of Limón, and extends from the Caribbean beaches to the country's south-central zone. The Bribrí, whose population is about 10,000, live in the Upper Talamanca valley.

In 1987, in the wake of the crisis of cocoa crops and low prices for bananas, “we organized to see if we could improve banana production, and we set up a telephone system and began the tourism initiative,” Guillermo Torres, manager of the Yorkín Natural Adventure organization, told Tierramérica.

According to Torres, today there are 18 families that make their living from this enterprise. They have a lodge for 25 people and are building an eight-room inn. They also offer a canoe trip to transport bamboo on the Yorkín River and activities ranging from artisanry to cocoa farming to archery.

And it has been a boom to the Bribrí language “because we teach words to our visitors,” said Torres. The emphasis on the culture of each community is one of things that attract people to this type of tourism.

The new law is intended to regulate a growing sector, one which is characterized by its small-scale operations. “Until now, in order to benefit from the tourism initiatives law, they required a minimum of 10 hotel rooms, and 98 percent didn't reach that number,” said Cruz.

The new legislation lowers the minimum to three rooms for access to aid, which includes the elimination of taxes, facilitation of paperwork by local governments and promotion of “the importance of this model of sustainable tourism,” she said.

“The law is going to be very important if the regulations are truly effective and not too bureaucratic,” Cruz added.

In the opinion of Marcy Arrieta, promoter of this alternative at the government's Costa Rican Tourism Institute, the legislation “recognizes the effort the country has made over the past 18 years,” as well as the quality of the service, with a social and economic platform “very suitable for further development.”

Community-based tourism “has become a model, extending beyond our borders,” Arrieta told Tierramérica. It has been successfully exported to other Central American countries, as well as to Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Gonzalo Vargas, president of the National Chamber of Tourism, described the benefits of rural community-based tourism this way: “The capital that is invested is nearly all Costa Rican, and better yet, from families with scant resources,” which reassures the visitors that they are consuming a product that improves the quality of life of the people who live here.

Furthermore, an incredibly high percentage of each “colón” (the national currency) that is spent on these services remains in the family or the community, he said. Of the 43,000 hotel rooms in Costa Rica, just 1,000 are found in the community-based tourism sector, said Vargas. The average is four or five rooms with a total of 10 to 12 beds, especially at the inns.

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, May 27 2009 (IPS)

The Diquís dam, the largest hydroelectric project in Central America, is worrying indigenous communities because Costa Rica’s state power company has excluded them from the decision-making process, in spite of international treaties that stipulate that they must be consulted.

Indigenous people in Térraba in the southern district of Buenos Aires, which has the highest population density for five of the country’s eight Indian tribes, complain that the national utility, ICE, has never consulted them about the project, as it is required to do under International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which held a session in mid-May, reminded governments of the need to cooperate with native communities as the owners of natural resources in their territories.

This is not the first project of its kind that the state electricity monopoly has tried to push through in the southern part of the country.

The first, the Boruca hydroelectric complex, began to be discussed in the 1970s but was brought to a halt by strong opposition from local communities, and by doubts about its location in an area of seismic activity.

The plan was for a dam that would have flooded an area of 25,000 hectares to generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity. In the 1990s, the Veragua project met with a similar fate. Both projects were located on the Río Grande river in Térraba.

The projected Diquís dam on the El General river would have a planned capacity of 622 megawatts that would supply the energy needs of one million people. The projected cost is 1.85 billion dollars, making it the largest public investment in infrastructure ever undertaken in Costa Rica. If everything goes ahead as planned, ICE expects the plant to come onstream in 2016.

The dam would flood 6,000 hectares, displacing 1,100 people. Within the affected area, 800 hectares is indigenous territory belonging to the Térraba people, which is why the tribes are requesting consultation on the project.

The huge plant was declared to be of national interest in February 2008 by the government of President Óscar Arias. It is part of ICE’s strategy for expanding the country’s energy capacity, now estimated at 2,100 megawatts, which it wants to double in the next 10 years.

This month the constitutional court turned down an appeal for protection, presented in February by community leaders who claimed the right to be consulted. The final text of the ruling has not yet been released.

Genaro Gutiérrez, leader of the Térraba indigenous Integrated Development Association (ADI), told IPS he was disappointed at the position taken by the constitutional court and said that if there was no change in 15 days’ time, “we won’t let the ICE workers into the site.”

In his view, ICE is breaking the law in going ahead with the work. He said the ADI of the Térraba Indigenous Reserve in Buenos Aires is, by law, “a separate government, and consultation is necessary.”

ADIs were set up on every indigenous reservation by the state National Commission for Indigenous Affairs (CONAI), and act as local governments, but they have been criticised as not being representative or participative enough, of imposing ways of organising different to indigenous people’s own ways, and of being vulnerable to political manipulation.

The ADI headed by Gutiérrez presented a proposal to ICE requesting 10 percent – a “negotiable” proportion – of the profits of the hydroelectric plant, for development in the reserve. “We don’t want to let them do good business and leave indigenous people out in a discriminatory way,” Gutiérrez said.

The Térraba are divided over the project. Gutiérrez said they are not opposed to the dam being built. “What we want are reliable benefits for the development of the district and the indigenous community,” he said.

“It’s the government’s project, not ours, and if they don’t give us anything we won’t let it happen on our territory,” he added.

A different position is taken by Ditsö, a non-governmental organisation supporting indigenous peoples that helped lodge another appeal for protection, this time with respect to the environmental impact of ICE operations in the community of Térraba, which is still being processed.

Ditsö’s communications officer, Marvin Amador, told IPS there are two opinions about the dam among the Térraba indigenous community. On the one hand are those who “have informed themselves” and are against the project, and on the other hand those who are for it, who “either are not informed, or are hoping to get something from it.”

There is no consensus on the issue. Amador maintains that Gutiérrez cannot make the decision to negotiate with ICE “unless he consults the community; that involves the state, and Genaro is no longer a legitimate representative, he only still holds his position because of a series of flawed procedures.”

He said both the ADI and its leader were discredited within the community.

The Ditsö spokesman was extremely critical of the constitutional court, and said that its dismissal of the first appeal for protection had “a very simple” explanation. “Ever since the government started to exert an influence, the court has systematically made decisions that openly run counter to” the country’s laws, in line with “vested interests,” he said.

Ditsö is against the building of the dam, but Amador said the group’s goal was for consultation to take place and for the indigenous community to decide. Its opposition is due to the indigenous people being, once again, sidelined and forgotten.

“It is said that 80 percent of the energy generated will be exported,” although ICE denies this. But even if the power is used for domestic consumption, “the indigenous people are being asked to give us their resources and heritage, in exchange for so-called development that will not reach the poorest of the poor,” he said.

Ditsö says the Diquís project will have an enormous impact, socially and culturally, on the Térraba way of life. According to Amador, the dam will flood 50 archaeological sites, among them “ancient burial sites with a major spiritual significance.”

ICE did not respond to IPS requests for comment on the matter.

The mayor of the district of Buenos Aires, Feliciano Álvarez, told IPS that he supports the construction of the Diquís plant.

Álvarez said it would have a great impact on the area, and that the municipality is advocating “for the labour to be drawn from the local area.” He also said he was confident that the project would increase local trade and lead to improved infrastructure.

Amador, however, was critical of that stance. “Agreeing with this kind of project depends on one’s vision of what constitutes development,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, May 27 2009 (IPS)

The Diquís dam, the largest hydroelectric project in Central America, is worrying indigenous communities because Costa Rica’s state power company has excluded them from the decision-making process, in spite of international treaties that stipulate that they must be consulted.

Indigenous people in Térraba in the southern district of Buenos Aires, which has the highest population density for five of the country’s eight Indian tribes, complain that the national utility, ICE, has never consulted them about the project, as it is required to do under International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which held a session in mid-May, reminded governments of the need to cooperate with native communities as the owners of natural resources in their territories.

This is not the first project of its kind that the state electricity monopoly has tried to push through in the southern part of the country.

The first, the Boruca hydroelectric complex, began to be discussed in the 1970s but was brought to a halt by strong opposition from local communities, and by doubts about its location in an area of seismic activity.

The plan was for a dam that would have flooded an area of 25,000 hectares to generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity. In the 1990s, the Veragua project met with a similar fate. Both projects were located on the Río Grande river in Térraba.

The projected Diquís dam on the El General river would have a planned capacity of 622 megawatts that would supply the energy needs of one million people. The projected cost is 1.85 billion dollars, making it the largest public investment in infrastructure ever undertaken in Costa Rica. If everything goes ahead as planned, ICE expects the plant to come onstream in 2016.

The dam would flood 6,000 hectares, displacing 1,100 people. Within the affected area, 800 hectares is indigenous territory belonging to the Térraba people, which is why the tribes are requesting consultation on the project.

The huge plant was declared to be of national interest in February 2008 by the government of President Óscar Arias. It is part of ICE’s strategy for expanding the country’s energy capacity, now estimated at 2,100 megawatts, which it wants to double in the next 10 years.

This month the constitutional court turned down an appeal for protection, presented in February by community leaders who claimed the right to be consulted. The final text of the ruling has not yet been released.

Genaro Gutiérrez, leader of the Térraba indigenous Integrated Development Association (ADI), told IPS he was disappointed at the position taken by the constitutional court and said that if there was no change in 15 days’ time, “we won’t let the ICE workers into the site.”

In his view, ICE is breaking the law in going ahead with the work. He said the ADI of the Térraba Indigenous Reserve in Buenos Aires is, by law, “a separate government, and consultation is necessary.”

ADIs were set up on every indigenous reservation by the state National Commission for Indigenous Affairs (CONAI), and act as local governments, but they have been criticised as not being representative or participative enough, of imposing ways of organising different to indigenous people’s own ways, and of being vulnerable to political manipulation.

The ADI headed by Gutiérrez presented a proposal to ICE requesting 10 percent – a “negotiable” proportion – of the profits of the hydroelectric plant, for development in the reserve. “We don’t want to let them do good business and leave indigenous people out in a discriminatory way,” Gutiérrez said.

The Térraba are divided over the project. Gutiérrez said they are not opposed to the dam being built. “What we want are reliable benefits for the development of the district and the indigenous community,” he said.

“It’s the government’s project, not ours, and if they don’t give us anything we won’t let it happen on our territory,” he added.

A different position is taken by Ditsö, a non-governmental organisation supporting indigenous peoples that helped lodge another appeal for protection, this time with respect to the environmental impact of ICE operations in the community of Térraba, which is still being processed.

Ditsö’s communications officer, Marvin Amador, told IPS there are two opinions about the dam among the Térraba indigenous community. On the one hand are those who “have informed themselves” and are against the project, and on the other hand those who are for it, who “either are not informed, or are hoping to get something from it.”

There is no consensus on the issue. Amador maintains that Gutiérrez cannot make the decision to negotiate with ICE “unless he consults the community; that involves the state, and Genaro is no longer a legitimate representative, he only still holds his position because of a series of flawed procedures.”

He said both the ADI and its leader were discredited within the community.

The Ditsö spokesman was extremely critical of the constitutional court, and said that its dismissal of the first appeal for protection had “a very simple” explanation. “Ever since the government started to exert an influence, the court has systematically made decisions that openly run counter to” the country’s laws, in line with “vested interests,” he said.

Ditsö is against the building of the dam, but Amador said the group’s goal was for consultation to take place and for the indigenous community to decide. Its opposition is due to the indigenous people being, once again, sidelined and forgotten.

“It is said that 80 percent of the energy generated will be exported,” although ICE denies this. But even if the power is used for domestic consumption, “the indigenous people are being asked to give us their resources and heritage, in exchange for so-called development that will not reach the poorest of the poor,” he said.

Ditsö says the Diquís project will have an enormous impact, socially and culturally, on the Térraba way of life. According to Amador, the dam will flood 50 archaeological sites, among them “ancient burial sites with a major spiritual significance.”

ICE did not respond to IPS requests for comment on the matter.

The mayor of the district of Buenos Aires, Feliciano Álvarez, told IPS that he supports the construction of the Diquís plant.

Álvarez said it would have a great impact on the area, and that the municipality is advocating “for the labour to be drawn from the local area.” He also said he was confident that the project would increase local trade and lead to improved infrastructure.

Amador, however, was critical of that stance. “Agreeing with this kind of project depends on one’s vision of what constitutes development,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, May 16 2009 (IPS)

Government institutions and civil society organisations are holding talks, workshops and other activities aimed at raising awareness and overcoming intolerance, in preparation for the National Day Against Homophobia on Sunday in Costa Rica.

Sign announcing national day against homophobia. Credit: Daniel Zueras/IPS

The decree states that public institutions must widely disseminate the goals of this commemoration, and must also "facilitate, promote and support activities aimed at the eradication of homophobia."

This step was taken as a result of a campaign by the Centre for Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights in Central America (CIPAC), one of whose members, Francisco Madrigal, spoke to IPS about the importance of the decree for encouraging the state to take part in the transformation of society.

In his view, "deeper awareness is needed as well as the institutionalisation of policies to respect a person's sexual orientation."

To further this task, several government institutions will carry out awareness-raising activities like talks for their employees, training events and round table discussions in various parts of the country. The rainbow flag of the homosexual rights movement will also be raised at their buildings.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office and the Health Ministry are some of the government bodies involved.

The National University, the Institute of Technology and the University of Costa Rica (UCR) have been holding the First Inter-University Festival for Sexual Diversity since Wednesday.

Considerable progress has been made over the years in the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation in this Central American country, but the leader of the Diversity Movement, Abelardo Araya, told IPS that, in spite of these efforts, homophobia still exists. But, Araya said, "it cannot be compared to how things were 20 years ago," when homosexuals were persecuted with "police raids and imprisonment."

In this activist's view, the pattern of homophobia nowadays is different, although some sectors are resistant to greater openness, and "it can be found at all levels of society."

For instance, the Catholic Church has already expressed its opposition to the draft law on civil unions between same-sex couples which is currently before parliament.

The statements by the church hierarchy surprised no one, but the position against the proposed law taken by the centre-left Access Without Exclusion Party (PASE) did, especially as it specifically called for the vote of the gay community in the last legislative elections.

PASE is now advocating a referendum to decide the issue of same-sex civil unions. The gay community is against the idea "because it is a matter of human rights," Araya said.

The Diversity Movement is putting the final touches to a document to be presented to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, showing the amendments made to the draft law, as well as the conventions that Costa Rica has ratified which would preclude calling a referendum on issues that involve human rights.

Among these are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Sociologist Jacobo Schifter, one of the first well-known Costa Ricans to come out of the closet in 1988, told IPS that "homophobia has always existed and will continue to exist." In his view, 20 years ago gay people were completely invisible, but "AIDS made this community more visible."

A 1987 national AIDS survey "found that the most homophobic people were those who were least familiar with homosexuals," he said.

Schifter said that people are more open-minded in rural and marginalised areas, because they have a more communal social life. But changing the country's laws "is to import the U.S. model" and "is a stupid approach," he said.

He said that in Latin America, "it's easier to focus on changing people's social attitudes. Gay marriages won't make any difference to acceptance" of the gay community. He also said "no one pays any attention to what the Catholic Church says, so what does it matter what they say about people's sex lives?"

What needs to happen is social progress, Schifter said, "so that gays come out of the ghetto and take their place in every sector. And it should happen from the bottom up." In his view, the present strategy followed by the gay rights movement is a waste of time.

As for participation in political life, Araya said the Diversity Movement is trying to encourage participation by gay people within the party structures, without "reducing our participation to one political party, but helping new community leaders emerge in the existing structures."

He said he was confident that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) caucuses would begin to emerge in the parties.

The Movement is also campaigning for "the vote for equality," that is, an "informed vote" within the community, where it is "calling on people not to vote for those who discriminate against us, like PASE," he said.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, May 11 2009 (IPS)

Global trafficking of persons continues apace and Costa Rica is not exempt from sexual exploitation and forced labour. Data compiled by the United Nations indicate that women and girls are most affected by human trafficking, making up 80 percent of victims worldwide.

A large proportion of these girls and women are trapped into sexual exploitation, although there are no real statistics. “There is a lot of mythology around this subject,” Ana Hidalgo, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) unit combating slavery and human trafficking in Central America and Mexico, told IPS.

She explained that sexual exploitation cannot always be prosecuted as illegal trafficking in women, because it is not necessarily combined with coercion or deprivation of freedom, a basic requirement for the U.N. definition of trafficking.

The phenomenon is still popularly referred to as the “white slave trade”, a phrase that originated in its impact on white people. “It seems as though problems only exist when they affect white people in the West,” Hidalgo said.

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, also known as one of the Palermo Protocols after the Italian city where it was signed in 2000, supplements the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.

Among the shortcomings of the convention is that it addresses and penalises traffic between countries, “but in Costa Rica, the domestic trade is more of a problem” than cross-border trafficking, although “they are closely interlinked,” said Hidalgo.

Other forms of exploitation endured by victims of trafficking include recruitment as child soldiers or beggars, illegal adoptions, forced marriages, surrogate motherhood, organ extraction, forced labour, servitude, classical slavery or forced participation in crime, the expert said.

In the last few years, the justice system in this country has acted in cases involving the sex trade and forced labour. Costa Rica is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking.

The main victims of forced prostitution, apart from Costa Ricans themselves, are women immigrants from the Dominican Republic, followed by those from Nicaragua. Costa Rica is documented as the country of origin for human trafficking bound for Canada, Mexico and Japan.

According to the Regional Study on Legislation regarding Trafficking of Persons in Central America and the Dominican Republic, 54 prosecutions for human trafficking were opened in Costa Rica between 2002 and 2006, which led to the conviction of 16 people.

Between 1998 and 2007, 151 victims of such crimes were identified, including a contingent of 56 persons from China and another group of 44 Peruvians and 13 Ecuadoreans.

The other cases investigated by the justice system during that period focused on the traffic of women for sexual exploitation and the sale of children for illegal adoption.

According to Hidalgo, there are many cases of young women travelling back and forth under the auspices of modelling schools and agencies, where they are offered attractive contracts. However, when they reach their destination they find the reality to be very different to what they were promised.

The most susceptible victims are “poor, unemployed women looking for opportunities,” she said.

Slave labour is another serious problem in Costa Rica, and Chinese mafias engaged in human trafficking, apparently to meet that demand, have appeared on the scene. In the latest case, in early April, a shipment of 300 under-age children from China to Costa Rica was foiled.

The Costa Rican embassy in Beijing had been warning the Chinese authorities since 2008 about forged “hukou” (family registration booklets), which are required to obtain visas to enter Costa Rica.

The mafias look for Chinese people living in Costa Rica whose surnames match those of future under-age Chinese forced workers. “They would ask for people with a certain surname, and a given number of people would come forward. They would set a maximum price and hold a reverse auction,” the head of the Costa Rican Migration Service, Mario Zamora, told IPS.

The person with that surname willing to take the least money would be paid, and would come forward to pick up the trafficked child, posing as the child’s father. The trafficked under-age worker would then work a given number of years free for the organised crime group running the scam.

The ringleaders of the trafficking network were arrested in China, while in Costa Rica a former Foreign Ministry official is facing prosecution.

Thanks to this operation and another one carried out in 2007, for which the trial verdict is still awaited, “we have been able to find out how these networks operate,” said Zamora. Based on available evidence, the Chinese immigrants were probably going to be used as forced labour, he said.

But Zamora said it was difficult to prove crimes related to trafficking in court, because both the accused and the victims remained silent. The victims’ families back in China were the “guarantee” that they would not talk.

According to Zamora, trafficking is organised by international organisations that carry out “criminal activities behind a legitimate front. They transform themselves into corporations.”

The attempted trafficking that was interrupted in 2007, when the alleged criminals tried to pay Zamora 5,000 dollars for each of 500 visas they applied for, is being tried only on the charge of bribery, “because bringing in human trafficking would complicate the case,” said the head of the Migration Service.

He complained that although penalties for such crimes have recently been stiffened, to bring them closer into line with the Palermo Protocol, this is still not enough to successfully combat the traffickers.

In his view, “the crime of human trafficking has been typified as a socio-political concept, but from the judicial point of view it is an extremely complex matter to prove unequivocally in court.”

According to Zamora, the Palermo Protocol is inadequate, because it is necessary to demonstrate international linkages, and the judges are faced with witnesses who refuse to talk.

Trafficking exists in the context of the economic dynamics of supply and demand, and the networks establish the connections between one and the other.

“As long as there are asymmetric labour dynamics, conditions will be ripe for (human) trafficking and slavery,” Hidalgo concluded. To put an end to these practices, the OIM regional official called for migration policies that recognise different economic realities, and regulate the entry of foreigners under conditions that are “legal, decent and safe.”

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 30 2009 (IPS)

Domestic employees in Costa Rica have run out of patience. After 17 years of fighting, they are threatening to report the state to international bodies if their slave-like working hours are not cut back.

Protest by domestic workers in Costa Rica Credit: Daniel Zueras/IPS

This is the last battle in a long campaign “for the law to stop treating us as second-class workers,” 49-year-old Ileana Morales, who has been working for the rights of domestics for 12 years, told IPS.

ASTRADOMES is demanding that working hours for domestic employees be the same as for other workers in this Central American country – 48 hours a week – and warns that it will report the state to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), with the help of the Washington-based non-governmental Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), which has already pledged its support.

Nearly 12 percent of working women in Costa Rica are domestics, so their claims will have repercussions for the labour market and also for the middle and upper classes in this country who benefit from their discriminatory working hours.

In 2008, ASTRADOMES scored a decisive victory when the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court recognised that domestic employees suffered discrimination, and ruled that they have a right to one day off a week, as well as national holidays.

But the Court dismissed the demand for an eight-hour day – the key point in the lawsuit brought by ASTRADOMES in 2005, Álvaro Moya, the organisation’s legal counsel, told IPS.

Costa Rica’s Labour Code dates back to 1943 and regulates paid domestic work as an exceptional case, “with several discriminatory rules,” said Moya, in whose view a workday with slave-like hours is clearly unconstitutional.

The Costa Rican constitution of 1949 “contains more guarantees,” the lawyer said, but labour issues continue to be regulated by the Code, which is in violation of Convention 11 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), signed by Costa Rica in 1962, that says that all workers have a right to equal labour conditions.

Congress is dragging its feet over the second debate of a draft law to limit daytime work by domestic employees to eight hours, and night-time work to six hours. The first debate on the bill was held in November 2008.

Rosita Acosta, the head of ASTRADOMES, told IPS “we were promised that the law would be approved in April, and we will keep up the pressure until it happens.”

As part of this pressure, ASTRADOMES delivered a letter to President Óscar Arias in March stating that “if the vote has not taken place by Apr. 30, we will take the matter to the IACHR” and sue the Costa Rican state for discrimination.

But Moya is not optimistic, especially as Congress is in the final year of the current legislative term. “We have exhausted all legal avenues in Costa Rica, with the appeal on grounds of unconstitutionality and the law that is now bogged down in parliament,” he said.

The state National Institute for Women (INAMU) supports ASTRADOMES’ demands and helped to draft the law, Eugenia Salazar, the coordinator of INAMU’s legal department, told IPS.

“We have delivered their petitions to the Ministry of the Presidency and we are trying to get them approved,” she said. But the draft law, she explained, is currently tied up in committee, and “we’ll have to see when” the second and final debate to pass it is held, probably not until after May.

Salazar said the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court had rejected the premise that different working hours were a violation of the constitution, although a law could remedy that discriminatory aspect. INAMU is part of the state and will play a negotiating role if the claim is taken to the IACHR.

Discrimination – in figures

Nearly 120,000 people work as domestic employees in Costa Rica, according to the National Statistics and Census Institute. Ninety percent of them are women, and 60 percent are foreigners, mainly from neighbouring Nicaragua.

With a GDP per capita of 6,557 dollars in 2008, this country of 4.5 million people has a relatively large middle class which can afford to employ domestic help.

An estimated 8.3 percent of child labour in Costa Rica works in domestic service, making a total of some 9,500 children aged between five and 17 who do paid work in other people’s homes, nearly all of them girls, according to ILO statistics from 2002.

Most child domestic labour occurs in rural areas, the ILO says, where women heads of household must work outside the home and need someone else, mainly under-age children employed informally, to look after the house and children.

Costa Rican law prohibits working under the age of 15, and education is obligatory until that age. Fifteen to 17-year-olds may work up to six hours a day, providing they can continue their studies.

Barely 12 percent of domestic employees have social security coverage for sickness, disability and retirement. The new law would require employers to register domestics with the Costa Rican Social Security System.

Acosta is quite clear in her mind about why there are so many hurdles to establishing the same rights for domestic employees as for the rest of the workforce. “Ministers and lawmakers are also our employers, and it is not in their interests to expand our rights,” she says. In her view, that is why “political will is lacking.”

The minimum wage for domestic employees is the lowest in the country, equivalent to 207 dollars a month, more than half of which is paid in kind as food, accommodation, personal items and toiletries.

The total wage is the basis for the annual additional bonus payment provided by law, and for severance pay when employment is terminated. Workers are entitled to two weeks’ vacation only after having worked for the same employer for 50 weeks.

The draft law delayed in parliament improves all these aspects of working conditions, not just working hours, and its starting point is the concept that there is a historic debt with this sector, which has been treated as an exception and has been discriminated against in terms of labour and human rights.

A typical story

Ileana Morales came to Costa Rica in 1993, when she was 33, and the first few years were hard for her because of her status as an undocumented immigrant. “When I telephoned in response to job advertisements and said I was Nicaraguan, they would hang up on me straight away,” she said.

Six months later she got a job, but she lived in constant fear of deportation. Immigrant women are highly vulnerable to the threat of being fired or deported. “I didn’t even feel safe walking around outside until I got my identity documents in the 1999 amnesty,” she said.

Since then her situation has greatly improved. “I have been with my present employers for nine years, and I’m still with them because they treat me as a person and respect my rights,” Morales said.

In her view, ASTRADOMES has transformed the lives of domestic workers “because it has carried out a real revolution, informing women about their rights, providing advice and training workshops, and supporting us when we have problems.”

On her monthly wage of 250 dollars, Morales managed to put her three children through school in Nicaragua. Her eldest son will finish law school this year, and she longs to go back. “I love Costa Rica, but I wouldn’t change my roots for anything,” she said.

All these years that she has been living in the house where she works, she has been able to send 90 percent of her wages to her children. “I’ll go back as soon as one of them starts working,” she said. And her dream includes independence: “I won’t ever work for someone else again,” she concluded.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 15 2009 (IPS)

With traditional tourism hit hard by the global recession, Costa Rica is seeking to draw foreign visitors by offering low-cost, high-quality health care – especially targeting people from the United States, where the same medical procedures can cost up to four times more.

Health tourism is growing around the world due to the high costs of private medical services in industrialised countries, which have prompted many to look to developing countries in search of good quality, inexpensive care.

More than 40 million people in the United States (population 306 million) have no health insurance, which makes them an attractive potential market for medical tourism countries like India, Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Brunei, Cuba, Colombia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Hungary, and more recently, Costa Rica.

Costa Rica has the advantage of proximity to the United States, good air connections between the two countries, political and social stability, and low crime rates.

Most sought-after here are eye surgery and dental treatment, followed by plastic surgery, orthopedic procedures, neurosurgery and gynecological care, according to government statistics. Foreign patients generally pay 30 to 60 percent less than what they would pay back home.

But in some cases, such as coronary bypass surgery, costs in the United States are four times higher than in Costa Rica.

A 2008 study by the Deloitte & Touche international accounting and consulting firm estimated that the world market for medical tourism is around sixty billion dollars and could grow to 100 billion dollars by 2010.

Last year, some 100,000 foreign visitors came to Costa Rica – known as the Switzerland of Central America – to undergo medical procedures in private hospitals, spending roughly 60 million dollars, according to private sector estimates that are accepted by the authorities.

Tourism Minister Ricardo Benavides told IPS that patients do not generally declare their reason for travelling to Costa Rica, which means that estimates of what they spend on health care visits are obtained from the hospitals and clinics themselves.

Benavides said there is great potential for growth, pointing out that health travel to Costa Rica expanded 20 percent last year, to 1.5 percent of the global medical tourism industry.

He also noted that for medical travel, the global economic crisis that originated in the United States is a key ally.

"It is clearly more economical for them to get treatment in Costa Rica than in their own countries," and the crisis has driven more and more people from all socioeconomic levels to seek less expensive health care abroad, said the minister.

Visitors often combine health with recreation. On average, patients and their families stay for nearly two weeks in Costa Rica after the medical treatment, at a total cost of just over 3,000 dollars – much less than they would have spent on the operation alone in their own countries.

The government of Óscar Arias plans to foment this kind of tourism by means of actions by the ministries of tourism, health and foreign trade, including tourist publicity campaigns abroad and efforts towards increasing the number of health centres in the country with the international credentials necessary to draw foreign patients.

The Association for the Promotion of Costa Rican Medicine (PROMED) was also created, consisting of six health consortiums, three private hospitals, and several local universities and hotels.

The hospitals that form part of PROMED are accredited by the U.S.-based Joint Commission International (JCI) – obligatory credentials for health care institutions interested in breaking into the medical tourism market. Several U.S. insurers have already signed alliances with the hospitals.

But the fact that only three medical centres have been accredited by the JCI is a problem, because if demand for treatment by medical tourists continues to grow, it will outstrip Costa Rica’s capacity to provide services.

Hospital hotels have begun to crop up over the last year, offering operating and recovery rooms along with the services of a five star hotel.

In the World Health Organisation's (WHO) ranking of the world's health systems, Costa Rica ranks 36th, ahead of the United States, which ranks 37th.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSE, Mar 5 2009 (IPS)

The government of Costa Rica hopes to increase its power generation by tapping into volcanic hot spots, and to that end it has introduced a controversial bill in Congress that would allow drilling into volcanoes in national parks.

Miravalles geothermal power station. Credit: Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE)

The plant is scheduled to become operational in 2011, adding 35 megawatts to the 163.5 that are already supplied by the five units of the Miravalles volcano power station, in operation since 1994.

That same year, a third project, the Borinque, on the northeast side of the Rincón de la Vieja volcano, will be launched.

Geothermal power uses underground steam from volcanic regions. The energy is harnessed by extracting the heat from within the earth’s crust, in the form of a fluid that is used to move the turbines. Two holes are drilled in each case: one is used to draw hot water, and the flow of water is then cooled and re-injected into the other.

In Costa Rica’s case, high temperature wells (150 to 400 degrees Celsius) are used, but there are also medium and low temperature wells.

One of the goals of the ICE is to increase the percentage of geothermal energy that is channelled to the country’s power grid. ICE president Pedro Pablo Quirós told Tierramérica that several sites have been identified in northern Costa Rica, in an area stretching from the Poás volcano to the Nicaraguan border, from which up to 800 megawatts will be generated.

The problem is that these areas identified for geothermal power generation are located in national parks, and thus congressional authorisation is necessary, which explains the bill currently under consideration. Geothermal prospecting is similar to oil prospecting, with drilling usually penetrating 1.7 kilometres deep, but in some cases going down as far as 3.7 kilometres.

The opposition to the project comes from environmental organisations.

The president of the Wildlife Preservation Association (APREFLOFAS), Angeline Marín, told Tierramérica that she was “against the opening up of national parks for any purposes.”

Marín believes that by opening the parks up to tourism and putting their habitats at risk, the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications has already demonstrated that it is incapable of implementing “precautionary” regulations. APREFLOFAS advocates other forms of power generation, such as solar and wind, “which are less harmful to the environment,” she said.

Marín fears the effects on wildlife, and suspects that the new power projects are not intended to meet domestic demand, but instead are export-oriented.

Quirós insists that the power generated by these plants will stay in Costa Rica. “We can’t tell the country to stop growing,” he said.

The use of existing natural resources and the “definition of regulations to protect the environment” are both essential to growth, he said. He also defended the ICE by pointing out that it is the largest investor in reforestation and that it promotes “environmentally-friendly” projects.

“There wasn’t a single tree” in Miravalles, “and today it is completely reforested,” Quirós said.

“If we can’t touch our natural sources, like water or steam, all we have left are nuclear plants,” he said.

In his opinion, geothermal power reduces the country’s dependency on imported fuel.

During the dry season, from December through April, the ICE consumes 90 percent of the national gas-fuel bill – some 260 million dollars – to keep its thermal plants running. Quirós claims that this expense will be cut in half as geothermal power generation increases.

Another advantage of geothermal power is that it is continuously generated, as it is not dependant on weather conditions, like hydroelectric power, which is stretched to its limits during the driest months, when water reserves are low.

Geologist Eddy Fernández, an expert on geothermal energy, says that it is “the ideal complementary source” for hydroelectric power, which accounts for around 80 percent of the country’s power generation.

There is a risk of pollution from toxic gas leakage, but safe operation can be achieved by re-injecting the gases, Fernández told Tierramérica.

Central America could become a leading geothermal power generator, as it is located in the Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt, an area of high volcanic activity in the Pacific coast, both in Asia and the Americas.

And, Fernández said, Costa Rica must position itself as the subregion’s leading geothermal producer, as “we have been researching this field since the late 1960s.”

The North Volcanic Mountain Ridge, in Guanacaste, is the ideal region for geothermal power generation, with its Miravalles, Rincón de la Vieja and Tenorio volcanoes. These are rural areas, and geothermal production would foster “their development, without harming the population,” he said.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

Geothermal power is the second leading source of energy in Costa Rica, after hydroelectric power, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s energy and covering an increasing proportion of its electricity needs.

Piping a the Miravalles geothermal power station. - ICE

In January, the governmental Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) announced the contracting of equipment for the geothermal power station of Las Pailas, on the side of the Rincón de la Vieja volcano, in the northwest province of Guanacaste.

The plant is scheduled to become operational in 2011, adding 35 megawatts to the 163.5 that are already supplied by the five units of the Miravalles volcano power station, in operation since 1994.

That same year, a third project, the Borinque, on the northeast side of the Rincón de la Vieja volcano, will be launched.

Geothermal power uses underground steam from volcanic regions. The energy is harnessed by extracting the heat from within the earth’s crust, in the form of a fluid that is used to move the turbines. Two holes are drilled in each case: one is used to draw hot water, and the flow of water is then cooled and re-injected into the other.

In Costa Rica’s case, high temperature wells (150 to 400 degrees Celsius) are used, but there are also medium and low temperature wells.

One of the goals of the ICE is to increase the percentage of geothermal energy that is channeled to the country’s power grid. ICE president Pedro Pablo Quirós told Tierramérica that several sites have been identified in northern Costa Rica, in an area stretching from the Poás volcano to the Nicaraguan border, from which up to 800 megawatts will be generated.

The problem is that these areas identified for geothermal power generation are located in national parks, and thus authorization from congress is necessary, which explains the bill under consideration by the Legislative Assembly. Geothermal prospecting is very similar to oil prospecting, with drilling usually penetrating 1.7 kilometers deep, but in some cases going down as far as 3.7 kilometers.

The opposition to the project comes from environmental organizations.

The president of the Wildlife Preservation Association (APREFLOFAS), Angerline Marín, said to Tierramérica that she was “against the opening up of national parks for any purposes.”

Marín believes that by opening the parks up to tourism and putting their habitats at risk, the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications has already demonstrated that it is incapable of implementing “precautionary” regulations. APREFLOFAS advocates for other forms of power generation, such as solar and wind, “which are less harmful to the environment,” she says.

Marín fears the effects on wildlife, and suspects that the new power projects are not intended to meet domestic demand, but instead are export-oriented.

Quirós insists that the power generated by these plants will stay in Costa Rica. “We can’t tell the country to stop growing,” he said.

The use of existing natural resources and the “definition of regulations to protect the environment” are both essential to growth, he said. He defended the ICE by pointing out that it is the largest investor in reforestation and that it promotes “environmentally-friendly” projects.

“There wasn’t a single tree” in Miravalles, “and today it is completely reforested,” Quirós said.

“If we can’t touch our natural sources, like water or steam, all we have left are nuclear plants,” he said.

In his opinion, geothermal power reduces the country’s dependency on imported fuel.

During the dry season, from December through April, the ICE consumes 90 percent of the national gas-fuel bill -some 260 million dollars- to keep its thermal plants running. Quirós claims that this expense will be cut in half as geothermal power generation increases.

Another advantage of geothermal power is that it is continuously generated, as it is not dependant on weather conditions, like hydroelectric power, which is stretched to its limits during the driest months, when water reserves are low.

Geologist Eddy Fernández, an expert on geothermal energy, says that it is “the ideal complementary source” for hydroelectric power, which accounts for around 80 percent of the country’s power generation.

There is a risk of pollution from toxic gas leakage, but safe operation can be achieved by re-injecting the gases, Fernández told Tierramérica.

Central America can become a leading geothermal power generator, as it is located in the Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt, an area of high volcanic activity in the Pacific coast, both in Asia and the Americas.

And, Fernández says, Costa Rica must position itself as the isthmus’ leading geothermal producer, as “we have been researching this field since the late 1960s,” .

The North Volcanic Mountain Ridge, in Guanacaste, is the ideal region for geothermal power generation, with its Miravalles, Rincón de la Vieja and Tenorio volcanoes. These are rural areas, and geothermal production would foster “their development, without harming the population,” he said.

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Dec 17 2008 (IPS)

Costa Rica is hoping for a big jump in its Clean Trips (Viajes Limpios) programme, which allows air passengers to offset the climate-changing gas emissions from their airplane flights by paying for activities that preserve the country’s forests.

The beach in Manuel Antonio Park, on Costa Rica's Pacific coast Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS

The programme, part of the pioneering Payment for Environmental Services, consists of a voluntary payment of five dollars per ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere during an international flight to or from Costa Rica.

People can also directly donate up to 2,560 dollars, making an electronic payment through the National Forestry Financing Fund (FONAFIFO).

On FONAFIFO’s web site, each passenger can calculate the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by his or her flight. For example, someone traveling to Chile from San José would produce three tons of carbon dioxide, so would pay 15 dollars to offset it.

That money goes towards reforesting and conserving the forests of Costa Rica, a country rich in biological diversity. The circle is completed with the carbon dioxide captured by the trees, which mitigate climate change.

Alberto García, head of resource management in FONAFIFO, told Tierramérica that thanks to the 617 passengers who have participated in the programme, “10,825 dollars were collected, which means that 125 hectares were reforested.”

The initiative is linked to the Voluntary Carbon Market, in parallel with international mechanisms agreed under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Although it is still in its experimental stages in this country, it has seen rapid growth worldwide, as an alternative for companies or individuals who want to compensate for the carbon emissions generated by their activities.

Unlike the carbon market schemes under the Kyoto Protocol, which establish “certified emission reductions” (CERs), the voluntary market authorises “verified emissions reductions” (VERs).

There are various voluntary markets being developed, but there is no oversight body that regulates compliance with trade and quality standards of the VERs.

The 125 hectares reforested as a result of Viajes Limpios are distributed among eight projects, which will mitigate 2,165 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

That volume is tiny, but there are big hopes for next year. “Being very conservative, we hope that at least five percent of air travelers will take part in the programme,” García said.

In the past year, 1.9 million tourists visited Costa Rica, so total participation could possibly reach 95,000 people. But the goals are likely to change because a 30 percent decline in tourism is predicted as a result of the global economic crisis.

This year, Payment for Environmental Services affected 58,000 hectares. Since 1997, when the programme was created, 8,000 landowners have included more than 600,000 hectares, generating some 180 million dollars.

“The funds go to the areas of the country with the lowest levels of social and economic development,” said García.

The activities covered by the funds include reforestation, for which the landowner receives 816 dollars per hectare for the five-year duration of the programme, and for protecting the forest, for which the owner is paid 64 dollars per year per hectare.

Through FONAFIFO, the government pays the landowners, who are then entrusted with providing the environmental services.

The idea is to protect pristine forests on privately-owned land, with 87 percent of the funds going towards conservation and 13 percent to reforestation, forest management, and the natural recovery of forests.

According to FONAFIFO, in 2008, 6,000 hectares in economically depressed areas were reforested under the programme, most of them with exotic species that can later be harvested and sold.

Costa Rican officials will promote Viajes Limpios through an agreement with the Costa Rican Travel Agencies Association, which will inform passengers of the programme and will provide details for carrying out the emissions calculations and payment in an electronic ticket.

Also participating are the Costa Rican Tourism Institute and the National Chamber of Tourism, and efforts are under way to bring the National Chamber of Ecological Tourism on board as well.

We want “80 to 90 percent of tourists to ‘clean up’ their travel,” Seidy Ruiz, of the climate change strategy office at the Costa Rican Environment Ministry, told Tierramérica.

But environmentalists are not happy with this type of initiative.

“We oppose voluntary carbon markets because there is no regulatory body. There is an estimate on how much carbon a tree captures, in addition to a highly inexact methodology, with a 40 to 60 percent degree of uncertainty,” biologist Javier Baldotano, of La Ceiba Ecological Communities-Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, told Tierramérica.

Furthermore, this is how “we begin to create the embryo of the privatisation of nature,” he added. “It’s the idea that I can pollute a common good as long as I pay for it.”

In Baldotano’s opinion, it would be better “to promote a structural change that leads to a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels, instead of taking part in the game of offsets.”

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

Every air traveler to or from Costa Rica may be paying the government five dollars per ton of carbon dioxide produced by the flight. The funds will be earmarked for conserving and reforesting the country's jungles.

The beach of Manuel Antonio Park, on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. - Diana Cariboni/IPS

By mid-November, 617 people (210 Costa Ricans and 407 foreigners) had compensated for the carbon emissions created from their trips. The initiative has been in place for just over a year.

The program, part of the pioneering Payment for Environmental Services, consists of a voluntary payment of five dollars per ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere during an international flight to or from Costa Rica.

One can also donate directly up to 2,560 dollars, making an electronic payment through the National Forestry Financing Fund (FONAFIFO), which is in charge of the problem.

On FONAFIFO's web site, each passenger can calculate the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by his or her flight. For example, someone traveling to Chile from San José would produce three tons of carbon dioxide, so would pay 15 dollars to offset it.

That money goes towards reforesting and conserving the forests of Costa Rica, a country rich in biological diversity. The circle is completed with the carbon dioxide captured by the trees, which mitigate climate change.

Alberto García, head of FONAFIFO resource management, told Tierramérica that thanks to the 617 passengers participating in the program, “10,825 dollars were collected, which means that 125 hectares were reforested.”

The initiative is linked to the Voluntary Carbon Market, in parallel with international mechanisms agreed under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Although it is in its experimental stages in this country, it has seen rapid growth worldwide, as an alternative for companies or individuals who want to compensate for the carbon emissions their activities create.

Unlike the carbon market schemes under the Kyoto Protocol, which establish “certified emission reductions” (CERs), the voluntary market authorizes “verified emissions reductions” (VERs).

There are various voluntary markets being developed, but there is no oversight body that regulates compliance with trade and quality standards of the VERs.

The 125 hectares reforested as a result of Viajes Limpios are distributed among eight projects, which will mitigate 2,165 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

That volume is tiny, but there are enormous hopes for next year. “Being very conservative, we hope that at least five percent of air travelers will take part in this program,” García said.

In the past year, 1.9 million tourists visited Costa Rica, so the participation total could reach 95,000 people. But the goals are likely to change because a 30-percent decline in tourism is predicted as a result of the global economic crisis.

This year, Payment for Environmental Services affected 58,000 hectares. Since 1997, when the program was created, 8,000 landowners have included more than 600,000 hectares, generating some 180 million dollars.

“The resources go to the areas of the country with least social and economic development,” said García.

The activities that are paid for include reforestation, for which the landowner receives 816 dollars per hectare for the five year duration of the program, and for protecting the forest, for which the owner is paid 64 dollars per year per hectare.

Through FONAFIFO, the government pays the landowners, who then are entrusted with carrying out the environmental services.

The idea is to protect virgin forests on private land: 87 percent of the funds are for conservation and 13 percent for reforestation, forest management, and natural regeneration.

According to FONAFIFO, in 2008, 6,000 hectares in economically depressed areas were reforested under this program, most with exotic species that can later be harvested and sold.

Costa Rican officials will promote Viajes Limpios through an agreement with the Costa Rican Travel Agencies Association, which will inform passengers of the program and will provide details for carrying out the emissions calculations and payment in an electronic ticket.

Also participating are the Costa Rican Tourism Institute and the National Chamber of Tourism, and efforts are under way to bring the National Chamber of Ecological Tourism on board as well.

We want “80 to 90 percent of tourists 'clean up' their travel,” Seidy Ruiz, of the climate change strategy office at the Costa Rican Environment Ministry, told Tierramérica.

But environmentalists are not very happy with this type of initiative.

“We oppose voluntary carbon markets because there is no regulatory body. There is an estimate about how much carbon a tree captures, in addition to a highly inexact methodology, with a 40 to 60 percent degree of uncertainty,” biologist Javier Baldotano, of La Ceiba Ecologist Communities-Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, told Tierramérica.

Furthermore, this is how “we begin to create the embryo of the privatization of nature,” he added. “It's the idea that I can pollute a common good as long as I pay for it.”

In Baldotano's opinion, it would be better “to promote a structural change that leads to a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels, instead of taking part in the game of offsets.”

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Nov 8 2008 (IPS)

The Crucitas open-pit gold mining project in northern Costa Rica could become an environmental cross to bear for the government of Óscar Arias.

The great green macaw (Ara ambigua) faces extinction in Costa Rica. Credit: Public domain

But the concession for a gold mine granted to the Industrias Infinito company, a subsidiary of the Canada-based Infinito Gold, has stirred things up between environmentalists, who are opposed to the project, and the government they accuse of double dealing.

Infinito obtained a government permit to cut down 191 hectares of forest in Las Crucitas de Cutris, in the northern province of Alajuela. The area is habitat to the almendro tree (Dipteryx panamensis), highly prized for its hardwood and for its role in the feeding and nesting of the great green macaw (Ara ambigua), which is facing extinction in Costa Rica.

In northern Costa Rica, deforestation in recent decades has left less than 30 percent of the original forest standing.

Furthermore, the possible use of toxic substances like cyanide to extract gold from the ore, and the proximity of the mine to the San Juan River, which Costa Rica shares with Nicaragua, have awakened opposition to the mine across the border.

In an executive decree, President Arias and Environment and Energy Minister Roberto Dobles declared the mine a project of national interest. In response, the attorney general’s office opened an investigation of both officials for breach of duty.

When “functionaries dictate resolutions contrary to Costa Rican and international law,” they are committing breach of duty, attorney and environmental consultant Mario Peña told Tierramérica.

Costa Rica, which has protected the almendro tree by law, is party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

This Central American country requested the inclusion of the tree in the Convention’s Appendix III, aimed at protecting the species in at least one country. The Convention then asks the rest of the CITES nations for help in controlling trade. The green macaw is listed on Appendix I – species that face extinction and the trade of which can occur legally only in exceptional circumstances.

But Peña does not believe the lawsuit will go anywhere because “everyone is claiming ignorance. The president says he trusted the opinion of the minister, and the minister trusted his legal department. I don’t think the criminal case is going to succeed,” he said, because for charges of breach of duty to stick, it is necessary to prove that the person who committed the offence was fully aware of what they were doing.

Meanwhile, on Oct. 20, the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber ordered a halt to the logging in response to an appeal for protection against the executive decree filed by citizen Edgardo Araya and the local association Norte por la Vida (roughly, North for Life).

The Infinito company estimates that it will extract 700,000 ounces of gold from the mine over the next decade, with an investment of 66 million dollars.

The 873-square-km rural district of Cutris is home to 8,000 people who live in dire poverty. Most work in Ciudad Quesada, the capital of San Carlos.

A large portion of the population is in favour of the gold mine because it would create jobs. Also, the company has promised to improve local health centres and schools.

“It’s not that I’m in favour of the mine, but I am in favour of development opportunities, and that’s what it represents for us,” said Luis Guillermo Álvarez, a resident of Coopevega, one of the communities near the mining site.

“The infrastructure that the company leaves behind is going to help develop the area. Beyond the 10 years that it is here, the roads, bridges, electricity, telephones – all of that will remain,” he added.

“Whoever says there won’t be environmental problems is lying, but some of the environmentalists are extremists. It is a modern mine and will be regulated by the government. We have to sacrifice a little environment in order to survive. They should monitor the mitigation policies,” said Álvarez.

“The environmentalists have demonised the issues of the green macaw, but I’ve lived here 25 years and I’ve seen thousands of almendros cut down,” he said.

Peña says he understands the people of Las Crucitas, because “the government has forgotten about certain areas, facilitating projects like this that distribute crumbs to the community. They are projects that should take time to carry out, and they prefer to risk their health and their future for those crumbs.”

Minister Dobles denied on Oct. 27 before the legislature that the green macaw nests in Las Crucitas, noting that the concentration of the almendro tree is not significant in that area. He also stated that the mining company is required to plant 100 trees for each one cut down.

Peña responded that it “is a mistaken idea…Probably Mr. Roberto Dobles knows a lot about energy and telecommunications (the other branches of his ministry), but not about the environment. A forest takes 40 to 50 years to recover.”

The minister assured that the entire mining project is supported by studies from the national environmental technical secretariat and that if the constitutional court upholds the decree, the project will move forward.

But not even the lawmakers of the governing National Liberation Party supported Dobles. Legislative deputy Maureen Ballestero, who also heads the permanent special committee on the environment, criticised the fissure being created between economic development and the environment.

Much of the country’s growth has come from tourism, which “has provided more wealth than exports have,” she said. “And Costa Rica’s tourism is based on its exuberant wildlife and nature.”

Citizen and environmental groups gathered Oct. 27 outside the Environment Ministry and Congress to protest the gold mine project and to demand Dobles’s resignation. But groups in favour of the mine also rallied, which led to some tension on the streets.

On Nov. 14, groups opposed to the mine in San Carlos plan to stage a nationwide protest.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

The Costa Rican government of Óscar Arias faces a charge of breach of legal duty for giving the go-ahead to a gold mining operation in the north of the country.

Great green macaw (Ara ambigua) faces extinction in Costa Rica. - Public domain

For more than two decades Costa Rica has cast itself as a pioneer when it comes to environmental matters.

But the concession for a gold mine granted to the company Industrias Infinito, an affiliate of the Canada-based Infinito Gold, has stirred up the dust between environmentalists who are opposed to the project and the government they accuse of double dealing.

Infinito obtained a government permit to cut down 191 hectares in Las Crucitas de Cutris, a district of the San Carlos canton in the northern province of Alajuela. The zone is habitat to the almendro tree (Dipteryx panamensis), highly prized for its hardwood and for its role in the feeding and nesting of the great green macaw (Ara ambigua), a bird facing extinction in Costa Rica.

In northern Costa Rica deforestation in recent decades has left less than 30 percent of the original forest standing.

Furthermore, the possible use of toxic substances like cyanide to extract gold from the ore, and the proximity of the mine to the San Juan River, which Costa Rica shares with Nicaragua, have awakened opposition in the neighboring country about the gold extraction project.

In an executive decree, President Arias and Environment and Energy Minister Roberto Dobles declared the mining plan one of national interest. In response, the Public Ministry (Attorney General) opened an investigation into both for breach of legal duty.

“Prevaricato” (in Spanish legal terminology) is committed when “functionaries dictate resolutions contrary to Costa Rican and international law,” and these accusations are “very strong”, attorney and environmental consultant Mario Peña told Tierramérica.

Costa Rica, which has protected the almendro tree by law, is party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).

This Central American country requested the inclusion of the tree in Appendix III of the Convention, aimed it protecting the species in at least one country, which has asked the rest of the CITES nations for help in controlling trade. The green macaw is listed in Appendix I — species that face extinction and the trade of which can occur legally only in exceptional circumstances.

But Peña does not believe the lawsuit will go anywhere because “everyone is claiming ignorance. The president says he trusted the opinion of the minister, and the minister trusted his legal department. I don't think the criminal case is going to succeed,” he said, because for charges of “prevaricato” to stick, it is necessary to prove knowledge by the one committing the crime.

Meanwhile, on Oct. 20, the constitutional tribunal of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered a halt to the logging in response to an appeal for protection against the Executive decree filed by citizen Edgardo Araya and the local association North for Life (Norte por la Vida).

The Infinito company estimates that it will extract 700,000 ounces of gold from the mine over the next decade, with an investment of 66 million dollars.

The rural district of Cutris, 873 square kilometers, is home to 8,000 people who live deep in poverty. Most work in Ciudad Quesada, capital of San Carlos.

A large portion of the population is in favor of the gold mine because it would create jobs. Also, the company has promised to improve local health centers and schools.

“It's not that I'm in favor of the mine, but I am in favor of development opportunities, and that's what it represents for us,” Luis Guillermo Álvarez, resident of Coopevega, one of the communities near the mining site.

“The infrastructure that the company leaves are going to serve to develop the zone. Beyond the 10 years that it is here, the roads, bridges, electricity, telephone — all of that will remain,” he added.

“Whoever says there won't be environmental problems is lying, but the environmentalists are some extremists. It is a modern mine and will be regulated by the government. We have to sacrifice a little environment in order to survive. They should monitor the mitigation policies,” said Álvarez.

“The environmentalists have demonized the issues of the green macaw, but I've lived here 25 years and I've seen thousands of almendros cut down,” he said.

Attorney Peña says he understands the people of Las Crucitas, because “the government has forgotten certain areas, facilitating projects like this that distribute crumbs to the community. They are projects that should take time to carry out, and they prefer to risk their health and their future for those crumbs.”

Minister Dobles denied Oct. 27 before the Legislative Assembly that the green macaw nests in Las Crucitas, noting that the concentration of the almendro tree is not significant in that area. He also stated that the mining company is required to plant 100 trees for each one cut down.

Peña responded that that “is an mistaken idea… Probably don Roberto Dobles knows a lot about energy and telecommunications (the other branches of his ministry), but not about the environment. A forest takes 40 to 50 years to recover.”

The minister assured that the entire mining project is supported by studies from the national environmental technical secretariat and that if the constitutional court upholds the decree the project will move forward.

But not even the political bloc of the governing National Liberation Party supported Dobles. Legislative deputy Maureen Ballestero, who also heads the permanent special committee on environment, criticized the fissure being created between economic development and the environment.

Much of the country's growth has come from tourism, which “has provided more wealth than exports have,” she said. And Costa Rica's tourism is based on its exuberant natural resources,” Ballestero added.

Citizen and environmental groups gathered Oct. 27 outside the Environment Ministry and the Legislative Assembly to protest the gold mine project and to demand Dobles's resignation. But groups in favor of the mine also rallied, which led to some tensions on the streets.

On Nov. 14, groups opposed to the mine in San Carlos plan to stage a nationwide protest.

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Oct 29 2008 (IPS)

In Costa Rica, the most advanced country in Central America in terms of human development, indigenous people tend to be neglected and forgotten.

The country’s native peoples have the highest poverty rates and lowest levels of human development, and their views and interests receive little attention from the government.

The single-chamber parliament modified a clause in the Biodiversity Law and approved the amended legislation in the first reading on Oct. 16, without having consulted the country’s indigenous people, despite a constitutional court ruling that they had to be consulted about the change.

Under International Labour Convention (ILO) 169, the “Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries”, to which Costa Rica is a signatory, governments must consult indigenous communities prior to undertaking any activity or passing any law that directly affects them or their land.

On Oct. 20, lawmakers from the Citizen Action Party (PAC), the Broad Front, and the Accessibility without Exclusion Party (PASE) questioned the constitutionality of the amended law, an aspect on which the courts must now rule.

“The state has made indigenous people invisible,” Eliécer Velas, a representative of the Maloku people, one of Costa Rica’s eight distinct native groups, told IPS.

The country’s 24 indigenous reservations cover a total of 400,000 hectares, approximately seven percent of the national territory, and the nearly 64,000 members of the different groups make up just under 1.5 percent of the population of 4.3 million. (The vast majority of the population is of mixed blood – generally Spanish and Native American – or European heritage).

The eight indigenous groups are the Bribri (who account for 35 percent of the country’s indigenous people), Cabecare (25 percent), Brunca (15 percent), Ngöbe Bugle (13 percent), Chorotega (four percent), Huetares (three percent), Maloku (three percent) and Teribe (two percent).

Most of them live in the southern part of the country. A 1977 law established the country’s Indian reservations.

Maloku leaders met last week with representatives of government institutions in the presidential palace to discuss issues of concern to their community, like the acquisition of land, construction of a water pipeline, a local health clinic and a four-km road, and a housing programme.

Velas criticised the government because, after turning a blind eye to the fact that the legislature modified the Biodiversity Law without consulting indigenous groups, it has called on them, one by one, to ask them about their needs and negotiate necessary infrastructure projects.

“In Costa Rica, electricity is available in 95 percent of the territory. And the indigenous communities are included in the remaining five percent,” said Velas.

The outlook is the same in terms of health and educational coverage, to which most of the country’s native people have little to no access.

Rubén Chacón, a lawyer who specialises in indigenous rights, said the authorities talk about building schools and medical centres, and about helping native communities gain formal title to their ancestral territories. “But what kind of education and what kind of medicine?” he asked.

“The government is interested in opening schools and health centres even if they don’t have desks or medicines, and they don’t guarantee indigenous cultural content either. That is a serious problem,” he argued.

But a parliamentary debate that has begun on a draft law on autonomous development for indigenous people is good news for the country’s native communities, said Chacón, who added that the new law may be passed in the first quarter of 2009.

The question, though, is whether the draft law’s strong indigenous perspective will become reality, or will remain just empty words. “Costa Rica has the most advanced legislation on indigenous rights in Latin America, but the laws are not enforced,” said Velas.

“This country has signed many international conventions on human rights, but there are still problems when it comes to their application, whether due to economic or ideological reasons,” said Chacón.

Indigenous activists are hopeful that if the draft law that respects the world view of native communities is approved, compliance will improve.

“It took a lengthy participation process to get to this point,” said Chacón.

“The new law will grant autonomy to indigenous communities,” each of which will have a direct relationship with the state, said Velas. Under the law, the Finance Ministry will assign funds, “and each community will decide how to use that money,” he explained.

Costa Rica’s indigenous people are demanding respect for basic rights: cultural integrity; non-discrimination; property rights to, use of, control over and access to their land and natural resources; ethnodevelopment; social assistance and educational coverage in line with their world view; and political participation.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Oct 22 2008 (IPS)

The announcement that former Costa Rican Vice President Laura Chinchilla will seek election to the presidency in 2010 indicates that the country “has matured and is ready” to have a woman as head of state, according to some analysts.

Chinchilla, who has the support of President Óscar Arias, stepped down as vice president and justice minister on Oct. 8 to compete in the governing National Liberation Party’s (PLN) primary elections. By law, she had to give up public office by January 2009 in order to be eligible to become a presidential nominee.

Political observers say that her likely opponents within the PLN are San José Mayor Johnny Araya, and former security minister Fernando Berrocal, who has also resigned.

But Arias has already said that he would prefer to hand over his presidential sash to a woman.

“The women’s movement is very critical of the PLN’s political and economic programme,” so it will not support Chinchilla “just because she is a woman; we have to examine where her commitments lie,” said Tita Torres, head of the Gender and Democracy programme of the non-governmental organisation Alforja, which is part of the international Social Watch network.

In contrast, Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) lawmaker Ana Helena Chacón said Chinchilla’s announcement was “wonderful,” because “she has handled difficult jobs and has an impressive track record.”

It is unlikely that other political parties with a chance of winning the presidential elections in 2010, such as the PUSC and the Citizens’ Action Party (PAC), will field women candidates.

“Epsy Campbell had prospects in the PAC, but they seem to have sidelined her,” said Chacón. “And the PUSC is dominated by an ex-president who does not allow other people to operate,” she added, referring to Rafael Ángel Calderón (1990-1994), who is awaiting trial on corruption charges, but intends to return to the political arena with renewed strength.

The head of the National Women’s Institute (INAMU), Jeannette Carrillo, said the situation today differs from that of a decade ago, when polls indicated that it was impossible for a woman to become president. Now, “the country has matured, and is ready,” she said.

In 1996 Costa Rica adopted a quota law making it obligatory for political parties to include at least 40 percent of women candidates on their electoral lists. As a result, 38 percent of seats in parliament are now occupied by women lawmakers.

In Latin America, Costa Rica is in second place in terms of the proportion of women in parliament, behind Argentina, where 40 percent of the members of the lower house of Congress, and 39 percent of senators, are women, according to the worldwide Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

In legislatures in the Americas as a whole, the average is 21.4 percent.

Before Costa Rica adopted the quota law, only 12 percent of the members of parliament were women.

However, in other areas of government, the proportion of women officials has fallen compared with the percentages achieved during the administration of President Abel Pacheco (2002-2006).

During his term, 35 percent of ministers and 48 percent of deputy ministers were women, compared to the current 28 and 37 percent, respectively. And out of the 19 autonomous state institutions, three are presently headed by women, compared to five during the Pacheco administration.

Carrillo told IPS that women have greater access to decision-making posts in institutions involved in the social areas, “but not in those related to infrastructure or the economy.”

In private companies the pattern is similar: decision-making positions are mainly held by men, and only 26 percent are in the hands of women, although women make up more than 50 percent of the professional, scientific and intellectual labour force.

Women are also usually paid less than men, even when they are doing equivalent jobs. In some cases the gap remains very wide.

In contrast, the presence of women in the judicial branch has increased. Women make up 27 percent of the total number of titular judges, and 40 percent of substitute judges.

Furthermore, one of the three members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is a woman, as are two of the four alternates.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Oct 10 2008 (IPS)

The financial crisis in the United States and Europe could cause a fall in Central American exports, tourism, property investments and remittances sent by migrant workers to their families, Costa Rican economist Eduardo Lizano says in this interview with IPS.

Eduardo Lizano Credit: Daniel Zueras/IPS

Lizano, born in San José in 1934, was president of the Central Bank for two periods (1984-1990 and 1998-2002), has been a consultant to several international organisations and is now the honorary president of the Central American Academy, a not-for-profit private institution devoted to social sciences research and policy formulation.

IPS: How could the region be affected by the present financial debacle? EDUARDO LIZANO: The financial crisis has begun to hit us hard. We don't fully know what its effects will be, because we don't know whether it has hit bottom yet. Everything depends on how swift and deep the crisis in the United States will be.

Since the economies of the United States and the European Union are growing more slowly, they will buy less, and import less, so we in Central America are going to export less.

With fewer exports, there will be less production, less employment, and also less investment. If the financial crisis further reduces the growth rates in the United States and the EU, then the real impact will be even greater.

Another aspect that will affect us is that of real estate investments. Some Central American countries have big property developments on their coasts, which were basically being bought by people from the United States. A large number of these projects have been postponed, and others are being developed much more slowly.

Then there is tourism, which is an important source of income for Costa Rica and Guatemala. If the crisis means that people stop travelling, tourism flows will be reduced and the impact on the hotelier business will spill over into the rest of the economy.

In fourth and last place, a very important issue for the region, especially for countries like El Salvador, is remittances from workers in the United States. Economies like that of El Salvador have already felt the effects of growing unemployment in the North, and immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, are the first to feel the impact, so they send less money, or none at all, to their families back home.

IPS: Is the outlook that grim? EL: It's not entirely bleak, because the slowdown in the world economy has lowered the prices of products imported by Central America, like oil and food. Our economies import virtually all of our oil, which was costing 130 dollars a barrel and is now down to 90 dollars.

This is bad news for other Latin American countries that export oil (like Venezuela and Ecuador) or food (lik Brazil and Argentina). They will feel this as a negative impact. But this aspect of the crisis benefits us in Central America.

IPS: What are the negative implications of the crisis for countries that are parties to CAFTA – Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua – whose main trading partner is the United States? EL: There is, we might say, a political-psychological problem. One of the main reasons CAFTA was approved was the hope that positive results would be achieved relatively quickly. Now, a significant proportion of its expected benefits will not be achieved, because the chief hope was that Central America would receive increased investment to produce goods for export to the United States.

With a considerably lower level of consumption in the United States, those investments will not be made and the expected benefits will not materialise, or will be diminished.

IPS: How do you think Costa Rica's image is affected by its continued postponement of the entry into force of CAFTA (the deadline has been deferred for a second time, until Dec. 31), and how could this affect its future trade relations with its partners? EL: We are very ashamed of what is happening. Costa Rican President Óscar Arias met recently with the other Central American presidents and with U.S. President George W. Bush, and had to begin with an apology.

Costa Rica is making a very poor showing in terms of its ability to make decisions. It's fine not to make decisions of this magnitude in haste, for instance in one or two weeks, but the country has taken four years over this one.

IPS: What is the main threat looming over Central America? Do you think the region is prepared for the crisis? EL: This crisis is not going to affect us too much. Our countries are not sufficiently integrated into the international financial systems. We can lose individual investors without the local economy being hurt. The threat will be from the real economy, if exports suffer. That will depend on how deeply and for how long the United States is in crisis. Exports, production, employment, those are the things that will affect us most.

IPS: But in recent years, large international banks have entered the region. With the shaking of the financial system's foundations that we have seen, couldn't Central American savers be affected? EL: Large banks have made an entrance. One, Scotiabank, is Canadian, one is from the U.S., Citibank, and another, HSBC, is British. Of the three, Citibank has been hit hard by the crisis but the other two much less so. If any one of the three wobbles, as has happened to other North American banks, it would be a whiplash of the crisis that could, indeed, affect us.

IPS: President Arias said that after a reduction in poverty in Costa Rica, this year it would grow again. Isn't that worrying? EL: Yes it is, because for 15 years we have had a poverty rate in Costa Rica of around 20 percent, and last year we managed to reduce it by nearly three percentage points. It would be very disturbing to reverse our success and go back to the previous situation. It would be a pity for that effort to be wasted.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Feb 26 2008 (IPS)

As European barriers against immigration have become tighter and tighter, the number of Costa Ricans turned back at the international airport in Madrid is steadily growing, even though people from this Central American country do not need a visa to enter Spain.

Daniela Vargas flew to Spain to join her boyfriend, a Spaniard she met when he was working in Costa Rica. But her excitement at seeing him again after several months of separation was squelched when customs officials did not allow her into the country.

It all seemed so auspicious: Vargas’ flight reached Spain on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. After crossing an entire ocean and spanning continents, the last obstacle to the happy reunion that lay ahead – customs procedures – seemed so simple.

But then things started going wrong.

“When I got there, they asked me for an invitation letter from the private individual with whom I was to stay, which was to have been sent through a police station and certified by a lawyer, or for a reservation in a hotel,” she told IPS. “But at no time had the authorities or the airline informed me of that prerequisite.”

Costa Ricans entering Spain are also required to show a round-trip ticket and a sum of money equivalent to or greater than 57 euros (around 85 dollars) a day for the person’s entire stay there. Vargas was carrying 1,500 euros for a nine-day visit.

Under the 1985 Schengen Accord, the countries making up the Schengen zone, which include most European Union nations, eliminated all border controls among themselves, while stepping up security along their borders with non-Schengen countries to curb the inflow of undocumented immigrants from outside the area.

The latest expansion of the Schengen area took place in December, when the number of participating countries was increased to 24, and external border controls were further tightened.

Compounding the recent stiffening of external border security is the effect of the campaign for Spain’s Mar. 9 elections, in which migration policies have become a hot issue.

“I don’t believe there has been a tightening of controls specifically for Costa Ricans,” said Miguel Albero, cultural attaché in the Spanish Embassy in Costa Rica. “The measures are the same throughout the Schengen space. Perhaps there is greater vigilance on certain flights,” he told IPS.

Spain deported 60 Costa Ricans in 2006 and 80 in 2007. But recent Migration Department statistics show that in the past few months, between five and seven passengers from each flight from Costa Rica are sent back from Madrid.

Albero, however, pointed out that not all of the people sent back from Madrid on the daily flights are Costa Ricans.

Costa Rica’s director of Migration, Mario Zamora, told IPS that “San José is the gateway through which Central Americans fly to Spain. But it is true that there has been an abrupt change in the past few months, with the number of people turned back soaring from what was previously a small total.”

The problem was first brought to the attention of the Migration Department in late 2007, “by an informal complaint from a Costa Rican,” said Zamora.

Both Albero and Zamora said the airlines must inform passengers of the new requirements for travelling to Spain.

“The situation would easily be solved if the airlines, when they issue tickets, told customers what they need in order to enter Spain,” said Zamora.

Albero said he “would like to think that Spain isn’t racist.” He added that “what is clear is that there is no migration pressure from Costa Rica in Spain.”

He also promised that Spain would investigate the incident involving Vargas.

Vargas is furious at the treatment she received at the hands of the customs officials in Madrid. “They sent back all of the Latinos who were on that flight. Of course there’s racism in Spain, and a great deal of it. I am not going to set a foot in that country again,” she said.

The young woman, who holds a doctoral degree in pharmaceutical sciences, was held for a day and a half in the airport’s holding centre. “We were all Latinos. Most of us were tourists.” It was “a horrible experience; I felt violated.”

She also said the customs officials treated them with contempt, making scornful jokes. “Every time they would show up with someone new, they would tell us ‘we’ll just leave you here with your family members’ or ‘see if you can find a girlfriend’.”

They also told Vargas “You are nobody here. Who do you think you are in this country?”

“The officials tried to intimidate us,” she said. “There were Costa Ricans who had been there for six days without anything, not even their toothbrushes, practically living on bread and water, because the food was disgusting.”

She also said she saw customs agents mistreating people from Africa.

Similar complaints have come from Argentine and Uruguayan citizens who have flown to Spain in the last two years.

Albero, however, said that “According to European Union evaluations of airport holding centres, the Barajas (Madrid) airport’s is among the best.”

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSE, Jan 7 2008 (IPS)

China is threatening to snatch away Taiwan&#39s last remaining allies in Central America.

Costa Rica established diplomatic relations with the People&#39s Republic of China on Jun. 1, 2007, after more than six decades of ties with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, although it has had an independent government since 1949.

The Chinese ambassador to Costa Rica, Wang Xiaoyuan, said that in a meeting last year held in San José, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya told him that his country&#39s "relations with China are irreversible," including the diplomatic and political spheres as well as trade.

The textile industry in Honduras and Guatemala has attracted private investors from China, but investment in Nicaragua is lower. In Panama, on the other hand, Chinese companies use the Colón Free Zone as a base to re-export their products to other countries. China is also the second largest user of the Panama Canal.

Wang told IPS that diplomatic contacts had been established between China and Panama earlier than with Costa Rica, although San José was the first of the two to formalise relations. Contacts with Panama are being maintained, and hopefully diplomatic ties will be established soon, he said.

In the meantime, China maintains economic and trade representatives in Panama.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias first visited China in 2004, when he was as yet only the National Liberation Party&#39s presidential candidate.

Bilateral talks led to the Arias administration officially recognising China last year and simultaneously breaking off relations with Taiwan after 63 years.

China has diplomatic relations with 169 countries while Taiwan is officially recognised by only 24, five of which are in Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama).

Costa Rica, with a population of 4.4 million, is one of the few countries in the world to have a positive trade balance with China, which has 1.3 billion people. From January to November 2007, bilateral trade stood at 2.6 billion dollars, considerably more than for the whole of 2006, when it totalled 2.1 billion dollars.

Of those 2.6 billion dollars, Costa Rican exports made up 2.1 billion, while Chinese sales were worth 500 million dollars. Most of this trade is in high technology goods and services.

Wang said that trade between the two countries is growing. Between January and May 2007, even before diplomatic relations were established, it increased by 60 percent compared to the equivalent period in 2006, he said.

When Arias visited Beijing again in October 2007, a number of economic, trade and cultural agreements were signed. He also invited Chinese President Hu Jintao to Costa Rica, a trip Hu may make this year.

One of the most important agreements was between the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the state-owned Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery (RECOPE).

The agreement covers training of Costa Rican personnel in China, renovation of the refinery in Puerto Limón on the Caribbean sea – which due to obsolete technology only refines 20,000 barrels a day, when its design capacity was for twice that amount – and exploration for oilfields in the Central American country.

Chinese assistance in modernising the refinery will be aimed at doubling its present capacity and will be based "on environmentally friendly advanced technology, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," according to Wang.

"China is very concerned about climate change, and wishes to make an effort along with the other major countries" to reduce pollution which causes global warming, he said.

Meanwhile, preliminary contacts to discuss a free trade agreement between the two countries began in August, when Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz travelled to China.

Talks are still focused on the viability of a free trade deal, and formal negotiations are expected "soon," Wang said.

The ambassador said that these negotiations take time: for example, the bilateral free trade agreement between China and Chile, which entered into force in October 2006, "was reached quickly, but it still took a year, and five rounds of negotiations."

According to Wang, between 50,000 and 60,000 Chinese or people of Chinese descent live in Costa Rica, of whom only 2,000 have Chinese passports, many of which are out of date and are being renewed.

Ninety-five percent of the members of the Chinese community are originally from the southern region of Guangzhou (or Canton), the capital of Guangdong province, and the rest are from Taiwan.

"They all gave us a wonderful welcome," said Wang. The embassy opened on Aug. 23, 2007. The Costa Rican embassy in China opened on Oct. 24, to coincide with Arias&#39 visit.

Excerpt:

By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Jun 19 2007 (IPS)

People fleeing Colombia receive protection and assistance in Costa Rica. But integration is difficult, and the refugees continue to face threats from paid killers sent from the war-torn country they fled.

Costa Rica, a country of 4.1 million, has taken in around 10,000 of Colombia’s 500,000 refugees, said Philippe Lavanchy, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Americas bureau director.

Nearly all of the 10,636 refugees under UNHCR protection in this Central American country are from Colombia.

“My main objective is to stress the importance of the role Costa Rica has played in granting refuge to people” displaced by internal armed conflicts, said Lavanchy last week on a visit to this country in preparation for the activities surrounding World Refugee Day, which is celebrated Jun. 20.

Costa Rica has a strong tradition of providing asylum. “Over 20 years ago, they took in a good number of Salvadoran and Nicaraguan refugees, and that tradition is still alive today,” said Lavanchy.

One-third of the 30,000 Colombians living in Costa Rica are refugees. The producer of the “Tierra compartida” (Shared Land) radio programme, Henry Rodríguez, is one of them.

The Colombian journalist has been living in Costa Rica since 2000, when he was forced to leave his country after covering the peace talks between the government and guerrillas in the “demilitarised zone” in San Vicente del Cagüán in the southern Colombian province of Caquetá.

“I did not receive direct death threats like three of my colleagues, but we received a string of very strange telephone calls at my house, and we decided to come to Costa Rica,” he told IPS.

“Being a refugee generates problems of rejection from the business community. It carries a stigma,” added Rodríguez.

Another difficulty, said Lavanchy, is that “every time a violent incident occurs, refugees or people of certain nationalities are blamed.”

“Tierra compartida”, which went on the air on Jun. 16 with UNHCR support, will disseminate information on the rights and responsibilities of refugees in Costa Rica.

Colombia’s four-decade armed conflict, in which the army and far-right paramilitaries – which have partially demobilised through negotiations with the government – face off with leftwing guerrillas, has led to the forced displacement of millions of people, while hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries.

That situation has given rise to the UNHCR’s biggest operation in the Americas.

Colombia has the third largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, after Sudan and Angola. The UNHCR estimates that there are three million IDPs in Colombia, out of a total population of 44 million.

The Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a respected Colombian human rights group, put the number somewhat higher, at nearly 3.7 million, in October 2005.

Close to 1.8 million IDPs had registered with the Colombian government as of April. However, many do not do so for fear of reprisals from armed groups.

More than 130 Colombian and international organisations, including the UNHCR, decided to declare 2007 the Year of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia.

The campaign is aimed at drawing attention to those displaced by the armed conflict and promoting their rights.

The U.N. agency says that while the United Nations, local and international NGOs and the Colombian government recognise the existence of the problem, there are discrepancies as to the measures taken to deal with it.

The UNHCR says the Colombian state’s response has focused on humanitarian aid rather than a lasting solution, such as returning land stolen from the displaced by paramilitary groups.

With respect to the refugees, Lavanchy underscored the “positive” attitude taken by the government of Costa Rica, where he said “they receive protection and assistance.”

However, to achieve true integration, it is important to guarantee people’s safety, he added.

“There are serious problems, not only in Costa Rica. It’s obvious that we cannot request one police officer per refugee, but cases in which safety is threatened must be given priority treatment,” said the UNHCR official, referring to Colombians who have been murdered in this country, presumably by “sicarios” (paid gunmen) who followed them here from Colombia.

The Costa Rican government is drawing up reforms of the country’s migration laws, which would strengthen the confidentiality surrounding the paperwork carried out by asylum-seekers and improve the safety of refugees.

Lavanchy, who has spoken of the need to redistribute Colombian refugees in the region, praised Brazil’s 2004 proposal to set up a regional resettlement programme for Latin American refugees. Brazil has since accepted urgent Colombian refugee cases, and Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay have also joined the initiative.

Ecuador has felt the heaviest impact of Colombia’s refugee crisis, having received 250,000 Colombians, while 200,000 have crossed into Venezuela. However, in both cases the number of Colombians who have actually sought or applied for formal refugee status or asylum is much smaller.

The resettlement plan forms part of the Mexico Plan of Action to Strengthen International Protection of Refugees in Latin America, which was signed by more than 20 Latin American countries in 2004.

The “Borders of Solidarity” and “Cities of Solidarity” programmes are other aspects of the plan. The former is implemented along Colombia’s borders with Venezuela and Ecuador, where special projects for refugees are carried out and the local population, which suffers the burden of the influx of refugees, is provided with support.

The Argentine and Ecuadorian capitals, meanwhile, are among the “Cities of Solidarity” where the integration of vulnerable groups of refugees, like women-headed families, is facilitated.

“In many cases, the support does not involve money, but is a question of making it possible, through legislation, for these people to lead normal lives, to work, and to have access to schools and medical services.”

UNHCR representative in Costa Rica Jozef Merkx emphasised family reunification initiatives. “We are designing protocols, in conjunction with migration authorities, and to do so we need the support of the Costa Rican consulate in Colombia, for the issuing of visas to family members,” he explained.

The U.N. agency’s office in Costa Rica granted 380 microcredits for a combined total of 250,000 dollars “to both Costa Ricans and migrants, because what is important is integration,” said Merkx.

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By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ, Feb 27 2007 (IPS)

Although tens of thousands of Costa Ricans protested the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) between the United States, Central America and the Dominican Republic Monday, overall public support for the free trade pact has grown, according to opinion polls.

The organisers of Monday’s march in the Costa Rican capital said it drew 50,000 participants, mainly students and teachers.

Costa Rica is the only country that has not yet ratified CAFTA, which has already gone into effect in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, although not in the Dominican Republic.

Costa Rica has spent four years debating the free trade deal. The government of Oscar Arias hopes the legislature will approve it by the Mar. 1, 2008 deadline.

The protest was convened by the National Front Supporting the Fight Against the FTA (free trade agreement), a group of Costa Rican intellectuals and academics “who realised that their arguments about the negative effects of the treaty had failed to convince the political class,” said Fabio Chávez, secretary-general of the Association of Employees of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the country’s biggest trade union.

“That is why the people were urged to take to the streets, where the FTA issue will really be decided,” he told IPS.

Although there was no official estimate of the number of people taking part in the demonstration, presidential spokesman Rodrigo Arias said that only 20 percent of the country’s teachers responded to the call and joined the march.

“The reports that we have is that all of the public services were running smoothly, and the hospitals…and the ports of Limón (in the east) and Puntarenas (in the northwest) operated normally,” said the presidential spokesman.

Both the organisers and the government stressed that the protest, in which the demonstrators marched up to the legislature, was peaceful and took place without incidents.

The country’s trade unions are worried about the opening up of telecommunications, which are controlled by ICE, and insurance, which is a monopoly of the National Insurance Institute.

Although the opening up of these state-run sectors does not form part of the CAFTA treaty itself, it is stipulated in a complementary agenda of reforms that are requisites to its approval.

Chávez said Monday’s demonstration was “the biggest march held since we began to fight CAFTA four years ago.”

Protesters came to the capital from around the country, like Marlon Bonilla, who told IPS that “I come from Puntarenas (on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast), and we are already in a local war, even though it hasn’t gone into effect yet. We are against CAFTA.”

The ferry line running between Puntarenas and Paquera has already been privatised. The monopoly was handed over to the Naviera Tambor company, which belongs to the Spanish transnational corporation Barceló.

Another demonstrator, ICE worker Rocío Quesada, commented to IPS that “We are among those who will be hardest hit. This treaty favours only a few, not the majority. It has been poorly negotiated.”

“It should be renegotiated in an equitable manner,” she argued.

The number of people who joined the demonstration was significant in this country of four million.

But also significant were the results of the latest opinion polls, which showed that support for CAFTA has grown nationwide, to more than 60 percent of respondents.

“Today there are more Costa Ricans supporting the FTA with the United States than on election day (in February 2006) and also than on May 8, when I was invested as president. That is the reality, as demonstrated by the polls,” said President Arias in an interview with IPS published earlier this month.

Arias called for calm in a statement issued Monday. “We Costa Ricans have grown up looking each other in the eye, talking and discussing together; we have always worked out our differences through dialogue. That is the way we have moved forward,” he said.

Writer and musician Jacques Sagot stated that “the demonstration must be orderly and respectful. Demonstrations give dignity to the cause, but provocations undermine it.”

Giovanni Masís, president of the Corporación Hortícola – the association representing the country’s farmers, another sector that will be affected by CAFTA – also called for dialogue and negotiations.

Costa Rica’s farmers, who were initially sceptical about the free trade agreement, have done an about-turn and today are in favour of CAFTA, because they estimate that only six percent of agricultural producers will see no benefits, as Masís said in a press conference.

Chávez cautioned that “with this peaceful action, we will not defeat the FTA. We are in the final stretch.” Monday’s demonstration, he said “is a march within the framework of the country’s laws and the constitution, and if it does not bring results, we will move on to Plan B, C, D or E.”

When asked about what those plans might be, the trade unionist responded that “if the political class does not pay attention to the demonstration, we will move on to Plan B, which would involve the calling of general strikes, Plan C – roadblocks – and Plans D and E, if necessary,” although he did not elaborate any further.

He said the country’s trade unions see CAFTA as something that “will destroy Costa Rica’s social model. It is not a common treaty, but one that forces us to join a neoliberal FTA, which runs counter to Costa Rican culture.”

Arias’ stance on the issue is “provocative, annexed to U.S. foreign policy, and even strongly opposed to social sectors that have always acted in a democratic and peaceful manner,” Chávez added. “These free trade agreements have already proven to be a failure in the rest of Latin America,” he argued.

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