by Rod Hughes

Referee Venicio Mena did a disservice to both Saprissa and Brujas last night when one of Saprissa’s goals was made by Alvaro Alpizar’s successful penalty kick resulting from an infraction that never occurred. It was a pity because both sides played well, especially Saprissa in the second half.

Daniel Jimenez of the Brujas opened scoring by a beautiful left footed blast at long distance. Midfielder Walter Centeno tied it for Saprissa on a penalty. Then came a phantom foul converted by Alpizar and the whole party cooled down. Alpizar’s second goal came as an anticlimax.

Saprissa has won eight of nine games and earned 22 out of a possible 24 points.

by Rod Hughes

The Organization of American States and the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry, in their traditional peace-keeping roles, scrambled this week to defuse the diplomatic crisis between Colombia and its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela. The tensions spilled over Saturday when Colombian troops crossed the Ecuadoran border Saturday and killed 20 FARC guerillas including FARC’s number two commander, Raul Reyes.

Update 6/3/08: The leftist government of Nicaragua severed relations with Colombia in a show of support for Chavez. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sees in Chasvez a sort of political soulmate.

The OAS has called a special emergency session as diplomatic protests fly. Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe accused his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, of financing terrorism. Venezuela responded by closing the mutual border with Colombia and both Ecuardor and Venezuela are sending thousands of troops to the border. The Colombian Foreign Minister responded by accusing Venezuela of having ties with narcotics traffickers and rebels “responsible for horrendous war crimes.”

Meanwhile, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa made a whirlwind visit to Peru, Brazil, Panama and Venezuela to whip up support against Colombia. The OAS was caught by surprise at the speed the crisis developed. Costa Rica, following its inclination as a calming influence, began working behind the scenes.

The raid that killed Reyes also resulted in Colombian allegations that e-mails from laptops captured in the incursion show that Venezuelan president Chavez proposed to sell fuel to the FARC rebels.

by Rod Hughes

Costa Rica’s star swimmer Claudia Poll is not yet ready to hang up her swimming cap and dry off. She is eyeing competitions for, in the newspaper La Nacion’s delicate phrasing, swimmers of “a certain age.”

A determined competitor with a wall full of medals from regional and international meets including the Olympics, she appeared in the Holiday Classic at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, last December and in this country in January for the Millennium Master Tourney in January.

But, as La Nacion sportswriter Gustavo Jimenez notes, this does not mean that she is going to abandon going up against the elite. She is one of five aspirants signed up for the Peking 2008 Olympics with the national Olympic Committee. If selected to represent the country, (it is highly unlikely that she will be rejected) she will compete along with her countryman Kurt Niehaus whose specialty is in open water.

But her times in Ft. Lauderdale showed that she has a long way to go before she can be competitive. She had a baby in August and the nine months of down time told dearly. Still, trainer Francisco Rivas has no doubts she can return to her past form and she is famous for her dedication. She has until June 15 to trim her Olympic qualification times. Don’t usher her to a retirement rocking chair, yet…

by Rod Hughes

Next time you get a traffic ticket in Costa Rica, you might remember traffic officer Jesus Ruiz before you get too resentful. He maintains that he is paying dearly for giving a ticket—to his boss last December.

According to an exclusive story in the popular newspaper Diario Extra, Ruiz stopped a vehicle for lack of plates for going 84 kilometers in a 25 kilometer per hour school zone outside of Santa Cruz in Guanacaste province. The driver turned out to be the regional chief of the traffic cops, Walter Arguello. That part is undisputed and the Santa Cruz traffic court suspended Arguello’s license for six months.

It was after that incident when the trouble began, Ruiz told the newspaper. He was suddenly ordered on Christmas eve to report for work—in San Jose. He has lived in Nicoya and worked in Guanacaste since 1998. Moreover, he had to commute daily—by bus—paying his own way, because, Human Resources Dept. told him, he had been contracted originally in San Jose and, in pure bureaucratic logic, could not be paid transport because on paper he lived in San Jose. Catch 22. The assignment was to last three months.

The national Traffic Police chief German Marin says that the assignment was routine, that they needed Ruiz in San Jose, and there was no relation between the traffic citation and his temporary reassignment. Ruiz is having none of this explanation, noting that he was the only one in his divistion to get such an assignment.

The situation of a traffic cop ticketing his boss is not unheard of, noted the newspaper gleefully. In 2005, a traffic police chief was in an accident in his patrol car in the San Jose suburb of Zapote. An alcohol test showed 1.84, the equivalent, according to the paper, of 15 to 17 beers. Despite Article 74 of police regulations making drinking during duty hours a serious offense, the police Personnel Council recommended a 30-day suspension and payment of accident damage, taking into consideration the chief’s long service and clean previous record.

But, returning to Ruiz, if he is right about being punished for doing his duty as the newspaper maintains, one wonders what is in store for him for going over his superiors’ heads directly to the press?