by Rod Hughes

Alajuela and Puntarenas battled each other and a pitch that degenerated into a giant mud pie Sunday and gave soccer fans their money’s worth. It was Alajuela 2-0 but it wans’t easy. The officiating was a trifle muddy, as well.

The slippery surface at Alejandro Morera Soto Stadum in Alajuela should not have been conducive to lightning attacks but fancy footwork made up for much. Still, it wasn’t until deep in the second half that scoring opened and that a penalty kick by Victor Nunez after Puntarenas’s Kevin Sancho committed a non-no against Pablo Herrera. Then, with six minutes to play in regulation time, Nunez put the frosting on the cake from a pass by Pablo Nassar.

No account, no matter how brief, of this match is complete without mentioning excellent work by midfielders Rodrigo “Batata” Pinhierro (Alajuela) and Josimar Arias (Puntarenas). No should it be doubted that Puntarenas came to win. When Rodrigo Cordero’s free kick rebounded from the horizontal of Wardy Alfaro’s goal, it was signal enough.

In other results Sunday, Heredia eased by University of Costa Rica 1-0. The sole goal was Mauricio Solis’s mid-distance shot from a pass by Gerald Drummond.

Perez Zeledon won amid frequent rain showers over a scrappy Liberia team, 2-1, in its home pitch. After only 12 minutes of play, Diego Pais score for the home side. But Jacques Remy tied it late in the first half. At minute 76, Bill Gonzalez took Marvin Calvo’s pass and turned it into gold.

by Rod Hughes

The country most dedicated to peace may be booted from EGMONT, the world’s leading anti-terrorist organization, reported the daily La Nacion today. And the reason may surprise even the Foreign Ministry: Terrorism, as such, isn’t illegal here.

The reason may be that before 9/11, the idea never occurred to Costa Rican lawmakers. A terrorist act usually entails loss of life and that is treated in Costa Rica’s strict laws about murder, even though the country did away with the death penalty in the 10th century. Also, they may have depended upon the country’s stout avocacy for peace.

EGMONT is an organization created by G-8, the eight most powerful nations on the planet, a vast pool of data shared by subscribers on the doings of terrorists worldwide. The organization requires in turn that laws specifically mentioning terrorism be on the books.

Costa Ricans have been victims of terrorists, specifically in the mid-1980s when a bomb placed in a press conference called by Contra leader Eden Pastora exploded, killing two native Costa Rican journalists and the U.S. reporter for The Tico Times, and wounded many others. But the site of that blast, La Penca, is across the San Juan River in Nicaragua, part of a civil war going on there in those Cold War days.

Although former judge and penal expert Ewald Acuna notes that for most purposes, local criminal law covers terrorism although not by name, the law needs updating. Criminologist and former UN Hostage Unit negotiator Gerardo Castaing agrees, saying the legislation needs “semantic changes” rather than reform. But chief of the country’s drug institute, Mauricio Boraschi, notes that the main loophole is prohibiting financing of terrorism.

Costa Rica also has had its own way of dealing with foreign terrorists trying to operate from within its borders. When, several decades ago, members of ETA, the Basque separatists responsible for bombings in Spain, were found to be taking refuge in Costa Rica, they were quickly and quietly expelled.

by Rod Hughes

Good evening, Welcome to Costa Rica. May we recommend the fish or seafood?

As the final article of a five-part series in the English-language newspaper, The Tico Times, on Costa Rica’s endangered commercial fishing industry, writer Dave Sherwood turned to the concerns of the consumer. He discovered that, despite pollution of offshore waters, the seafood that one eats here is safe.

This is despite what Sherwood calls “the country’s dirty little secret,” that 97% of greywater and sewage is wantonly dumped into rivers to be carried to the ocean. And perhaps why routinely the laboratory of the National Animal Heath Sergvice (SENASA) tests random samples of tuna and other offshore catches that find their way into markets and restaurants.

The lab claims this food is well within safe levels of contaminants. Migratory fish such as tuna, shark accumulate more mercury over time but even the big ones here are under international safety levels. Ditto for E. coli and other bacteria, mainly because the lab catches a developing problem before the catch reaches market.

Not willing to trust government bureaucracy to give them the straight story, the paper bought two fish at Puntarenas markets, one as ultra clean as the lab and the other at the scruffiest market reporters could find. The corvina and the snapper were tested the next day at a private lab. Both tested well below U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards for mercury, an element traces of which occurs in nature as well as in industrial pollution. (Pregnant women are advised to check with their doctors before eating the fruit of the seas.)

Experts warn that while the country’s shellfish appear generally safe, mussels and clams certain localized areas such as the mouth of the Tarcoles River have tested abnormally high in heavy metals.

Still, The Tico Times series noted that a lack of transparency in testing led to local shrimp fishermen being shut out of the lucrative European Union’s market. But that ban is due for review.

When one contrasts these findings with the recent recalls in the United States if various animal products mass produced in seemingly pristine conditions, Costa Rica appears in a favorable light. Bon apetite!