by Rod Hughes

Every year, authorities send 700 adolescent sex offenders to the National Children’s Hospital Adolescent Clinic for counseling and, hopefully, behavioral modification. Now, the Social Security Administration (Caja) confesses that the clinic does not have enough staff to perform the service.

The infractors, minors who sexually prey on other minors, can under law avoid correctional incarceration by receiving treatment. In the year 2000 the Caja opened a special sexual offender unit in the Adolescent Clinic, a bold, humane move but one that did not anticipate the demand for the service. Since the unit opened it has treated 270 teenagers but the courts are referring nearly three times that number per year.

The cash-strapped Caja is between a rock and a hard place. In August, 2006, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ordered that the clinic treat all offenders the courts sent it and repeated the order this Nov. 14. But this kind of treatment is not like setting a broken bone and sending the patient home. It is longterm, intensive and time-consuming.

But now, a special commission appointed to study the problem has come up with a unique solution: Adolescent sexual aggressors will be treated in regional Caja medical facilities. As project coodinator Gerardo Arias notes, this will require some special training—doctors are usually involved in treating the victims of aggression, not the perpetrators.

by Rod Hughes

It appears Costa Rica can expect no new get-tough traffic law in time for the end-of-the-year holiday highway massacre, thanks to Libertarian Movement congressmen Mario Quiros. The law had been anticipated to raise fines for traffic infractions, punish drunk drivers and to try generally to bring some semblance of law and order to the Wild West of the country’s traffic.

The Arias Administration decided to withdraw the bill after Quiros filed an amendment to take the vehicle mechanical imspection monopoly away from the Costa Rican-Spanish consortium Riteve. His motion would open the field to public bidding within six months.

Although the motion sounds reasonable enough and Libertarians are known to be violently allegic to monopolies in principal, this raises the specter of the bad old days. Before Riteve, small mechanics shops the the country were authorized by the Ministry of Transport (MOPT) to conduct inspections. Whether corruption was present in the licensing was never proven, but it was an open secret that the mechanics could be bribed to pass vehicles that were, to put it charitably, mere smoke-spewing basket cases.

Accidents due to mechanical failure have gone down since Riteve and vehicular air pollution reduced. Moreover, some deputies pointed out that Riteve would be due damages if its contract were broken. Quiros quickly corrected himself that the inspection should be thrown open for bids when the contract runs out in 2012. (Why this could not be done by another, separate, law was not explained.)

Meanwhile, legislative committee chairman Alexander Mora of National Liberation hopes to salvage the bill, putting it on the floor in early December.

by Rod Hughes

ALAJUELA—This is obviously NOT Alajuela’s year to shine, although usually their fans are better behaved. But this week, the winningest soccer side in the country (historically) found itself down 3-0 in the battle for third place in the UNCAF regional tournament.

So disgusted were a few Alajuela fans when the Municipal of Guatemala side went ahead late in the match, 2-1, that they invaded the field and confronted police. In the ensuing mele, 17 policemen and 15 fans were injured. The local press reacted with horror at the blow to the national image—the largest newspaper, La Nación, carried a headline that read: ¡Que Verguenza! (For Shame!)

The soccer commissioner Bertie Chimilio from Belice, penalized Alajuela’s minority of riotous fans, who insulted Alajuela players, the front office and the coaches as well as causing damage in the stadium. He took Alajuela’s goal, adding it to the Guatemalans’ score. FIFA, the world soccer federation, holds the home team strictly responsible for maintaining order in its home stadium. And this will not be the end of matters. Swift FIFA justice has levied a $10,000 fine and banned international games from Alejandro Morena Soto Stadium for six months.

The match itself was nearly ignored in the aftermath, a pity because Municipal played well and the game was filled with surprises, especially in the first minute of play when Alajuela’s Roy Myrie netted a left-foot goal after barely a minute of play! It was not for another 35 minutes that Municipal’s Mario Acevedo fooled Alajuela’s goalie Wardy Alfaro to even things up. Then at minute 80, Freddy Garcia took a pass from Acevedo and won it for the Guatemalans.

At minute 81 a small group of fans called El Doce (the Twelve) arose as one and caused hell to break lose, suspending the match and all but knocking Alajuela out of the tourney. Police moved to block them, but they dispersed and entered at different points of the pitch perimeter. We hope they are proud of themselves because no one else is.

Update: Police are convinced that the invasion of the pitch was premeditated. A leader of the rowdies was caught trying to sell an ID card of a partner in the soccer club before the game and was taken to the front office to be confronted by an angry club management, police told the newspaper La Nacion.

The fan, identified by the initial “R”, was berated by club officials for trying to sell an ID card of another person (illegal) and the card confiscated. “R” angrily responded that the deal was simply to raise enough money for fans to travel to away matches. He was released.

But, police say, a fan heard “R” and his cronies planning to invade the pitch in the second half and, five minutes before the disruption was to occur, a fan told a stadium guard who alerted police. By then, “El Doce” had taken in their Alajuela banners in preparation. Police say they formed a force in front of where the group had been, but the gang had dispersed and jumped the barriers to converge on the pitch.

This is unlikely to impress FIFA, still stinging from the bad publicity generated by riots sparked by the “Hooligans,” a wild group of English fans, decades ago. Alajuela’s management is taking the situation seriously, appointing a committee to probe into stadium security, including a member of a private security company not involved with the club. With fans like these, who needs enemies?

by Rod Hughes

A Security Minister Fernando Berrocal’s recommendation that Costa Rican police receive advance training at a school at Fr. Benning, Ga., has stirred an outcry of protest from peace advocates in Costa Rica, the English-language weekly The Tico Times reported recently.

Berrocal visited the United States inspecting schools to send local police to hone their skills, stopping in Miami, New Mexico—and spending two days at the WHINSEC facility in Georgia. The facility is the former infamous School of the Americas that trained some of the most notorious torturers and human rights violators in the Cold War in Latin America.

The school changed its name in 2000, reopening as WHINSEC with a different charter. But peace groups, remembering the oppressive techniques of Latin American regimes in the 1970s and ’80s, are not at all sure that the leopard has changed its spots. They also noted that it is run by the U.S. Defense Dept., which has shown itself willing to bend or break rules of the Geneva Convention.

None of the peace advocates deny the need for Costa Rica’s cops to bring themselves up to date with techniques of combatting organized crime and violent drug traffickers. But they point out that President Oscar Arias specifically promised a peace delegation last May that none of the 150 officers to be sent for two years’ training would go to the former School of the Americas.

The editorial position of The Tico Times was made clear by its editorial headline: “Don’t Send Police to WHINSEC.” The editorial urged that the policemen be sent to Miami and New Mxico, despite those two schools not having all their classes in Spanish as does WHINSEC. A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate should not “support a highly controversial military training program,” scolded the editorial.

by Rod Hughes

Panamanian judicial investigators are asking the Costa Rican nationalized Banco Popular why a cash deposit from a Panama bank came over the border in a private car. (Narcotics police there are nearly certain that it is not that Panama banks have never heard of Internet money transfers.)

The Ministry of Finance here is also interested in the case and is asking Popular executives why they did not report the strange bank-to-bank transfer of funds.

Javier Soriano, prosecutor for the Chiriqui Zone of Panama, said the money came from Banco Universal, a Panamanian bank with its headquarters near the Costa Rican border. “It’s highly unusual that banks send cash to one another,” said Soriano, “when electronic transfers are so much more secure.”

The newspaper La Nacion reported today that Banco Popular had received $1.2 million in cash from Banco Universal from January to September of this year. plus some 83 million in colones. Popular’s corporate manager, Gerardo Porras, partially answered the Finance Ministry’s question by saying that his bank does not have the resources to comply with all regulations dealing with “money from dubious sources.” (Whether this explanation will satisfy the ministry is also doubtful.)

He added that his bank is “examining the procedures” used in dealing with the Universal bank account. According to La Nacion, the procedure appears to have been that Banco Popular employees crossed the border to pick up the funds, passed through the frontier at Paso Canoas again in order to deposit the cash in a Popular Bank branch at Ciudad Neily, 17 kilometers north of the border crossing.

Banco Universal has operated in Panama’s northern zone since 1994 and officials of that bank indicate that their regular account was opened in Popular expressly for easy exchange into dollars of colones that came to them from Panama transactions,

by Rod Hughes

Don’t put away that umbrella yet. The National Meteorological Institute predicts rains for the Caribbean and Northern Zone during December and January due to the advance of one cold front each month interacting with a buildup of clouds.

It will not be exactly a continuation of the rainy season but it does mean more rain than usually falls during these two dry season months and that you will not be storing your umbrella in the closet soon. Even the Central Valley will be affected somewhat, suffering colder temperatures than usual.

Walter Stolz, chief of the analysis and prediction section at the institute, says that the Central Valley and the Pacific can also expect isolated shower during the dry season, which does not always happen there. But the Caribbean and the Northern Zone should be prepared for flooding, he cautioned.

by Rod Hughes

Nicoya Peninsula residents were shaken at 5:22 p.m. Saturday by an earthquake that registered 5.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was only nine kilometers (about five miles) from Samara Beach. No damage or injuries were reported.

The whole Pacific coast appears to be active. Friday, a 4.0 tremor with an epicenter off northern Panama rattled the southern Pacific coast, also without damage.

The Nicoya Peninsula has not had a major quake since 1950.

by Rod Hughes

Right Hand Ignoring Left Hand’s Actions Dept. As reported in La Nacion today, functionaries of the Central Pacific Conservation Area of the Environment Ministry thought they had stopped a project that would have destroyed a mangrove swamp in Parrita, Puntarenas province. But they found to their horror that biologist Oscar Chaves of the Technical Environmental Secretariat (SETENA) had classified the mangroves as “pastrure,” giving its destruction the green light.

The confusion began when ministry inspectors found cut trees and undergrowth, plus bulldozer tracks at the seaside Marina Linda farm and brought the case before the courts. Mangroves are a treasure trove of wildlife, both in the shallow seawater and roots and on dry areas under the trees.

Both SETENA and the conservation inspectors are allies but this time, they were at cross purposes. The SETENA biologist’s classification had given the go-ahead for the five hectare mangrove’s destruction in order to build a shrimp farm. Moreover, the Conservation Area’s ministry watchdogs even checked with the Parrita municipal government for a construction permit. Civil engineer Daniel Rohas said flatly, “I haven’t inspected yet, therefore there’s absolutely no permit.”

But investigators received a fax from the owner—a copy of a permit issued after office hours and without inspection. Despite efforts of the Conservation Area personnel, distruction and construction contined merrily throughout 2005 and 2006, defying all their efforts.

Finally, the comedy of errors reached its end last May when the appellate court upheld a judge’s previous order to destroy the concrete cisterns the shrimp farm had constructed. But years will elapse before nature is able to replace the grove that bureaucratic bungling killed.

by Rod Hughes

Five years ago, this conservative Catholic country was rocked by the news that a nine-year-old girl of Nicaraguan parents living in the rural Costa Rica area of Turrialba was pregnant. Police acted rapidly, arresting Costa Rican Alexis Barquero for child abuse and statutory rape. One problem: Barquero was innocent.

Not for the first time, forensic medicine came to the assistance of justice. The girl, called “Rosita”—a rape victim’s real name cannot be released to the press—was found to have several sexually transmitted diseases. Barquero, examined under court order three times, had none. Although Rosita had named Barquero as her attacker, the prosecution’s case unraveled rapidly when she changed her story on Feb. 11, 2003, claiming she had been raped on her way home from school. Finally, last July, a criminal court in Turrialba absolved Barquero. The father of three, he had served three months’ preventive detention at La reforma Prison.

In late 2002, doctors determined that if Rosita carried the child full term, a likelihood existed that both little mother and child would die. But this raised another firestorm: The Catholic Church here strongly urged against abortion. Rosita was whisked across the border into Nicaragua where a therapeutic abortion was performed. The Church excommunicated the medical staff that performed the surgery.

Although justice had been served in Barquero’s release, Rosita’s rapist remained at large. Again, forensic medicine came to the rescue. Rosita’s mother presented a formal accusation against the girl’s stepfather last August in the police station in Masaya, 25 kilometers south of Managua, Nicaragua. The accused rapist: Francisco Fletes, Rosita’s stepfather. DNA tests on Fletes proved conclusively he was the rapist.

Prosecutor Leyla Ramirez asked for a 40 year sentence on two counts—20 years for rape in Nicaragua and 20 for rape in Costa Rica. This, the panel of judges granted, although 30 years is the maximum sentence for rape in Nicaragua.

After five years, almost to the day, the curtain fell on one of the most argued cases in the country’s history. Or so it seemed the end, until the newspaper La Nacion on Nov. 28 revealed that nine members of the Nicaraguan Women’s Network against Violence have been accused of concealing the true identity of the rapist and moving Rosita from Costa Rica before DNA tests could be performed.

The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights are urging authorities to arrest the women who, they say, allowed an innocent Costa Rican man to be unjustly accused. “They covered up the fact that the stepfather had raped the child,” said Roberto Petrays, executive director of the human rights group.

One must take some care in forming an opinion about this accusation. Everything is politicized in Nicaragua these days as the Sandinistas attempt to control all facets of social life in the country and loosen the hold of independent groups while the opposition accuses them of trying to return to the bad old days after they took over from the Anastacio Somoza dictatorship and dominated all movements down to the neighborhood level.

Petrays admitted that “the mother also knew. Now the prosecution, through the Ministry of the Family, should continue the investigation.” It now comes out that, more recently, Rosita again became pregnant (she is now 14) and that was when Fletes was finally accused.

by Rod Hughes

Costa Ricans want a university education but many are the aspirants and few are called. Look at the figures: University of Costa Rica (UCR) has the same 7,500 new students as last year, although 30,000 took the entrance exam. Autonomous University (UNA) at Heredia is adding space for 500 but that only brings the openings up to 4,500–15,500 will be turned away.

At Costa Rica Technological Institute a 400-place rise only brings new student up to 4,524, although 19,000 took the exams. And low test scores are not the only reason for turning away students–some courses fill up rapidly.

Some public universities have tiny regional annexes that really do little to alleviate the need. For those who are rejected and can afford it, private universities will take up some slack. Universidad Latina, for example, has 19,000 total enrollment and others are nearly as large.

University rectors complain that they are getting no more public funding than they did last year. And budget makers in the Legislative Assembly must balance their needs with primary and secondary schools.