by Rod Hughes

This morning, 3.3 million phones in Costa Rica converted to eight digits, apparently without a glitch. Well, perhaps human forgetfulness may have caused some frustrations.

The 1.5 million fixed-base phones and the 1.8 million cellular phones currently in use all had numbers tacked on the the beginning, 2 for fixed lines and 8 for cells. Thus the San Jose municipality number has changed from 295-6000 to 2295-6000.

by Rod Hughes

The National Liberation Party election last month of Antonio Calderon that put him into the powerful general secretary seat underscores the profound changes the party has undergone since its members nominated Oscar Arias for a second term in 2005. Calderon, 49, is a centrist who defeated his left-wing opponent, Rolando Gonzalez, 57, by a healthy margin of 73-41 in the national assembly of party leaders.

Only a few years ago, such a victory for a centrist and pro-Central American Free Trade Agreement politician would have been unthinkable, as an article by Gillian Gillers implied in the Feb. 15 edition of the English-language weekly The Tico Times. Calderon, a lawyer and member of the party’s political board, had less experience than Gonzalez, a former lawmaker and general secretary. But it is Calderon who will have the clout in 2010 in picking the next Liberation presidential and Legislative Assembly candidates.

National Liberation began during the troubled 1940s as a think tank for concerned University of Costa Rica students as the Center of Political Studies. One of the greatest influences on the Center was a Cartago farmer named Jose Figueres, a liberal who became the national icon “Don Pepe,” a future military leader in Costa Rica’s brief 1948 civil war, two-term president and a powerful proponent of democracy in an era when dictatorships and oppressive oligarchies dominated Latin America.

The Center developed a socialist philosophy while avoiding the extreme of Marxism, a moderate position comfortable to Costa Rican voters. When the military junta headed by Figueres dissolved the army and began a program of nationalizations, then voluntarily stepped down so elected President Otilio Ulate could finish his term, the Center students applauded and incorporated Figueres into their fledgling party. The party became the first broad-based modern political party in the country, shunning the traditional Latin scheme of politicians being “caudillos,” strongmen who considered the party an extension of their own personalities.

In the 1950s, Figueres rode the wave of nationalization of industry fashionable in Third World nations but in a distinctive, Costa Rican way, buying the industry, not confiscating it. Thus, for example, the refinery run by Allied Chemical became RECOPE, the National Refinery. Costa Rica developed a capitalist-socialist mix that even the home-grown communist party could live with, although later Kremlin-admiring extremists would try to wrest power from Communist leader Manuel Mora.

Thus, there was room under Liberation’s umbrella for a variety of viewpoints. Former Center students such as Luis Alberto Monge, Daniel Oduber and Gonzalo Facio became powerful in the new party. It was partly to counter this vibrant force that President Rodrigo Carazo gathered the smaller parties that had supported him during his successful campaign, creating the Social Christian Unity Party. So the country became essentially a two-party system, Liberation on the left, Unity on the right, neither one far from the center.

Just how broad-based Liberation would be is best illustrated by the 1980s campaign for presidential nomination of Manuel Castillo, former president of the Central Bank and a member of the party Old Guard. This reporter followed Castillo to a rally of supporters during the tumultuous days when this country stood on the edge of a cauldron of civil wars. Castillo, despite his patrician, aloof style, was very much the democrat and it was painful to watch his discomfort as his supporters became more and more extreme in their opposition to the Communists, even the peaceful ones in the country. He had landed in a radical far-right gathering of his party’s faithful and the experience disturbed him.

When a young Liberation stalwart named Oscar Arias brashly proposed to become the party’s nominee, the Old Guard of the party was not happy. But Arias was well qualified, a graduate of the London School of Economics, obviously an intellectual and popular with the younger voters. He won the nomination and then the election with only lukewarm support of the party leaders. Then, despite party counsel to the contrary, he embarked on a diplomatic “peace offensive” that successfully brought the Central American civil wars to a halt and gained him the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.

The local press, except for the English-language weekly, The Tico Times, editorially opposed his foreign policy and claimed that it took too much of his attention from internal economic affairs. Ironically, when Arias was finally re-elected to a second term in 2006, he made economics his crusade. But before that happened, he was to remain in the political wilderness, unable constitutionally to serve a second term until that law was overturned by the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber.

When he made it clear that the issue of CAFTA was central to his campaign, the party Old Guard nearly swallowed their teeth. Figures such as ex-president Monge refused to campaign for him and others left the party altogether. But Arias won out, through the same combination of astuteness, perseverance and intellect that landed him a peace prize. He had been successful in his peace initiative, after all, against the pressures of the Reagan Administration, the CIA and the State Department. He was no stranger to fierce opposition.

But politics abhors a vacuum. Liberation’s former place on the left was taken by the Citizen Action Party (PAC), bitter foes of CAFTA. After the lackluster 2006 election performance of Unity, that position on the right has been taken by the Libertarians. (Unity was badly wounded by corruption charges against two of its ex-presidents, a presidential candidate who did not, to put it mildly, set the electorate afire with enthusiasm and by the disappointing administration of Dr. Abel Pacheco, frozen by congressional chaos of multiple parties.)

Arias continues to show a marked sympathy for business, setting him apart from previous Liberation presidents who, while hardly hostile to private enterprise, paid far closer attention to social programs. Will he continue to lead Liberation down its new course? One never knows because the party has already gone through one drastic transition.

(The point of view of this analysis is solely that of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of the brokers and staff of American-European Real Estate. Your comments on the above or any other article in this news blog is warmly welcomed.)

by Rod Hughes

The Environmental Tribunal shut down three condominium projects yesterday because of damage to the habitat. They are the “Costa Montana” and “Hermosa Vista” condo projects near Jaco Beach as well as “Hills of Esterillos” at Parrita, totalling 360 dwellings in all.

According to the tribunal, an autonomous institution of the Environment Ministry, development of these projects resulted in leveled mountains, dead trees, drainage choked by sediment and danger to wetlands. “The case of the Parrita project is disagreeable, where they didn’t even have construction permits,” commented tribunal chief Jose Lino Chaves.

He added that Hills of Esterillos put up 36 houses where they had authorization for only six and had plans for another 64 units. In contrast, Costa Montana had all their municipal and environmental permits but proceeded to build in protected zones and on slopes of more than 60 degrees. In that project, the government shares the blame, however, in that SENTENA (an environmental watchdog agency, supposedly) issued the permit based upon the notion that the area was “pasture.”

Far from pasture, the zone is mountainous, covered with secondary forests and an important aquifer to supply water to nearby populations. This is the second case in a few months (see previous blog) in which the environmental watchdogs have proven blind, leading observers to wonder if inspections are ever made on prospective development sites before building begins. In this instance, the tribunal made eight on-site inspections, but only after the damage had been done to three. Only two were totally in harmony with nature.

Only 15 minutes from Jaco Beach, preparation of the Hermosa Vista project resulted in “destruction of the worst proportions, where a mountain was literally bulldozed to make way for terraces on which to build 100 homes,” the tribunal said.

by Rod Hughes

Properties and bank accounts of former President Miguel Angel Rodriguez (1998-2002) were embargoed by the courts last week in an ongoing investigation into corruption charges. A court order embargoed those of Cristobal Zawadzki as well. Zawadzki is an expresident of the government insurance monopoly, INS.

Besides freezing the bank accounts in Rodriguez’s name, his salary as a professor at the University of Costa Rica was put under a lien. In all, the court-ordered liens totalled $2.1 million and involves four other public officials and their families, the daily La Nacion reported. Four properties and two cars belonging to Zawadzki and his wife were embargoed.

The investigation is a new twist on the ongoing probe of Rodrguez’s activities. He was already implicated in the investigation of the granting of cell phones to the French firm Alcatel. In this case, he is suspected of being involved in a Panamanian company allegedly receiving funds siphoned from INS through a British company, PWS Holdings.

The investigation stems from a report published by La Nacion in September of 2006. As reported by La Nacion today, the probe reveals that Rodriguez’s company and Zawadzki received a total of $1.4 million in payments from PWS between 1999 and 2002. Rodriguez’s lawyer, Rafael Gairaud, denies the ex-president is involved with the Panamanian company but a former member of the bearer share corporation, Rafael Sequierra, testified before prosecutors to the contrary in 2004.

According to PWS record, the actual amount totals some $2.1 million, since money was also paid out to ex-officials of INS as well as to one current employee. They were made, according to the newspaper, after Zawadzki asked for a raise in insurance premiums for another government monopoly, ICE, the electricity and telecommunications giant. Supposedly, PWS paid out money to the INS officials “for training and travel costs.”

The complicated web of payments testifies to the complex nature of the INS and Alcatel investigations and why it has taken so long to process the charges against Rodriguez.

by Rod Hughes

The tentacles of the leftist Colombian guerrilla force, FARC, appears to have reached out into this country even as FARC continues to cause friction between Colombia and Ecuador. The Organization of American States this week issued a condemnation of Colombia’s incursion into their neighbor to attack a FARC encapment.

FARC has been at war to topple the Colombian government for four decades. Like many movements, what began as a grassroots force has degenerated into what a reporter in a British magazine described as more of a business, as if drug running and kidnapping can be called a business. Colombia defends its latest armed raid, as well as a previous airstrike into Ecuador that killed 20 FARC fighters including its number two commander Raul Reyes, as justified since Ecuador’s government appears unable or unwilling to prevent FARC from using Ecuador as a base and refuge.

The United States, a firm ally of Colombia in its anti-narcotics struggle, voted for the OAS condemnation only reluctantly in solidarity with its hemisphere neighbors. The foreign ministries of both Colombia and Ecuador abstained from the 14 hours of OAS diplomatic debates. Colombia’s diplomats attempted to avoid the word “reject” in the resolution but unsuccessfully.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica’s equivalent of Scotland Yard, OIJ, raided the Heredia home of Cruz Mary Prado and confiscated $480,000 of FARC funds plus a document giving Prado power of attorney to handle FARC money. The document, signed by the “foreign minister” of the guerrilla group, Rodrigo Granda Escobar, gives Prado, 52, legal permission to manage unlimited funds. In it, Granda is identified as a “Colombian businessman.”

Agents of the police intelligence agency DIS and OIJ said they found the money in a musty safe in a storage area. The power of attorney did not specify what the activities were that was to generate the funds Prado was to handle. The Bareal de Heredia lawyer who notarized the 1997 document, Rafael Salazar, told the newspaper La Nacion that he remembers neither it nor Prado or Rojas and assumes they used his services only that one occasion.

Attorney General Francisco Dall’Anese said that no criminal complaint was pending against Prado or her husband, Francisco E. Gutierrez, a former dean of the National University at Heredia. Of the computer OIJ also confiscated from the home, Gutierrez said tartly that it contained his doctural thesis.

The newspaper Al Dia this morning reported that the couple had hosted FARC commander Raul Reyes several times in the late 1990s without knowing who he was. But, added the paper, they also hosted Granda Escobar. The paper said that they knew Granda as “Rodrigo” and Reyes as “Dario” and entertained them at the behest of lawyer and unionist
alvaro Montero.

The morning after the raid, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said the computer data had revealed ties between Costa Rican politicians and FARC. “This country must know,” he said, “why there are people in political sectors who have lost their reason. From what the computer says, many things come out …some political sectors of this country have lost their sense of reality.”

But Berrocal did not reveal any details. Attorney General Dall’Anese publicly urged Berrocal to reveal names so that OIJ could investigate. “We stand ready,” the chief prosecutor said.

On the diplomatic front, Costa Rica’s “peace offensive” in the crisis involving Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela is partly founded in its opposition to FARC and the terrorism into which it has fallen and partly on its sympathy for the awkward position of Ecuador. Costa Rica has twice been in the position of harboring guerrillas on its territory while they attacked another nation.

In 1979, the Sandinistas used this country’s northern sector as a base from which to attack Nicaragua before finally ousting the dictator Anastasio Somoza. Then, a few years later, the so-called Contras used that same area as a supply base to mount military operations against the Sandinista government. But at least Costa Rica had the excuse that, being without military forces, they were powerless to stop paramilitary incursions into the adjoining nation. Ecuador has no such explanation, in fact having thousands of troops that were sent to the border immediately following the first Colombian attack. The Ecuadoran army appears unable to stop Colombian incursions, let alone prevent FARC from crossing the border.

by Rod Hughes

Perhaps it was the strong run for the Democrat nomination of Sen. Hillary Clinton in the United States that prompted the question from La Nacion reporter Alvaro Murillo to President Oscar Arias: Is this country ready for a woman president?

Arias’s response was unequivacably affirmative, even down to saying he would not mind campaigning for a woman candidate in 2010. This will inevitably raise speculation that current Vice President Laura Chinchilla might go for the National Liberation Party nomination next term. Certainly she knows how government works, having been Minister of Public Security previously, and the current widespread concern about crime could propel her into the chief executive’s seat. And she has been increasingly high profile lately.

The president, caught on a trip to Nicaragua, mused on the question this way, “Other countries with less political culture than ours have had (women presidents) such as Nicaragua (Violeta Barrios Chamorro, 1990-97). Currently, two women have carried elections by their own merit, Mishelle Bachelet in Chile and Christina Fernandez in Argentina.” Panama has also had its female chief executive.

Arias could think of other reasons as well, especially in Costa Rica. “There are more women in universities. And, also, women have many virtues, some superior to men,” said Arias, “Today, no one argues about their intelligence or their preparation because they’ve demonstrated this in both the public and private sector. Moreover, they have superior values in ethics. They’re more transparent and honest.”

But, the, Arias has always been an “emancipated” politician, backing his ex-wife, Margarita Penon, in her unsuccessful bid for the National Liberation Party nomination in 1993. At that time, cynics said that Arias wanted to use Penon as a front so he could be the power behind the presidential office. This is a disservice to both. Penon was her own woman, a Vassar graduate with strong views about the course the country should take.

Ironically, Costa Rica, the most open and the oldest of Latin American democracies has never had a woman president, partly because of an entrenched machismo in the old guard of established political parties. That appears to be a viewpoint on its way out the door.

by Rod Hughes

Well, anything can happen in soccer. Yesterday, cellar-dweller Cartago rose up and smote San Carlos, 1-0, to pull itself laboriously within two points of an equally struggling University of Costa Rica in the sweepstakes of which team will wind up being banished to the wilderness of the Second Division.

The winning goal came in two minutes of overtime, on Martin Arriola’s goal on a corner kick by Leonardo Ocamica. Until then, San Carlos appeared content with the tie, showing the folly of such defensive thinking. Cartago appeared revitalized in the second half when veteran Minor Diaz came in for Rodolfo Gabriell. Both sides had missed chances goal in the first half when headers rebounded off the cross bar.

by Rod Hughes

What’s this? A government reluctant to spend its budget? Unheard of!

But a closer reading of today’s La Nacion article reveals that the seven governmental entities involved in penny-pinching are not as virtuous as they seem. (Are government bodies ever?) The Comptroller General’s office blames it on a tendency to budget great projects with a lack of planning.

The government watchdog agency found that the seven agencies had not spent 171 billion colones (at 500 colones per dollar currently) last year and that sum includes funds to fix potholed streets. But three of the biggest parts of the national budget were the least apt to spend: ICE, the monopoly on electrical generation and telecommunications, budgeted 145 billion for hardware and spent barely a third; RECOPE, the nationalized oil refinery, budgeted 32 billion but spent half; and the Social Security Administration (Caja) in charge of public hospitals spent only 62% of its 32 billions.

The “hardware” above refers to such things as construction materials, additions on buildings, machinery, equipment and such. As for roads and streets, the National Road Council (CONAVI, for its Spanish acronym) left nearly 15 billion unused despite the yawning holes in the pavement eager to swallow it.

RECOPE blamed its situation on the ponderous Administrative Contracting Law that delays the letting of contracts to private companies. But Comptroller General Office contracting specialist Carlos Andres Arguedas just does not buy that argument. He says flatly that the problem is lack of planning. He adds that the law does not apply all contracting and that, moreover, when it does, the losing companies do not always appeal, which can take a long time to resolve.

Gabriela Murillo of the Caja points out that all the money to be spent on a construction project must be included in the budget even though it may not be spent for two or three years. (Certainly, it would apply to a project such as replacement of the wing of Calderon Guardia Hospital destroyed in a disastrous fire. But that project was budgeted in 2006.) In fact all of the big agencies had excuses for not spending the money. But bureaucrats’ desks come equipped with a big drawer full of excuses…

by Rod Hughes

The 44-year-old carpenter accused of drunk driving in the accident that killed long-time hospital director Mario Bonilla Wednesday was found to have been at the wheel with more than three times the blood alcohol permitted to drive, said traffic police. The man remains in intensive care but is out of danger. Ironically he had been rushed to the very Puntarenas medical institution, Monsenor Sabaria Hospital, in which Dr. Bonilla had been director for 15 years.

Traffic police said the alleged drunk driver tested out 1.62 milliliters of alcohol per liter of blood contrasted to the ,49 milliliters permitted by law. Police add that the driver’s Hyundai Starex minivan crossed over into Bonilla’s lane and the resulting violent crash nearly destroyed Bonilla’s Nissan Frontier pickup. Special tools had to be used to cut Bonilla’s body from the twisted wreckage.

Police said they found no signs of skid marks from the minivan. Bonilla did brake but could do little to avoid the crash. The doctor died instantly. Bonilla’s body was taken to the hospital where grieving hospital staff refused to believe their director was dead until they had reviewed the body, according to the newspaper Al Dia.

by Rod Hughes

The headline in the daily paper Al Dia said it all ¨”Believe it or not, we´re number one in security.” But, according to a poll of businessmen and multinationals conducted by the Miami weekly, The Latin Business Chronicle, Costa Rica is the safest place in Latin America for crime.

The disbelief implied in the headline comes on the heels of a major push by government to beef up laws and enforcement. (See previous blogs.) Most Costa Ricans will tell you that crime is the worst in living memory here, perhaps in history, as the mobilization of law enforcement, police training and special budgetary injections prove. Of course, the nation was hardly a lawless Wild West before the crime figures turned bad…

Wisely, government officials, while pleasantly surprised, are taking the rating as encouragement, not an indication that the job is done. Vice President Laura Chinchilla, herself a former high police official, cautioned that simply to get a top rating is no excuse to “let our guard down since indicators of criminality are on the rise and we could get a bad rating later on.”

This is precisely the reason for the governmental push against crime and the comprehensive crime bill, currently stalled in the Legislative Assembly in the traffic jam backed up behind the CAFTA implementation bills. Judges, previously cushioned by being appointed, not elected, are also feeling public pressure to abandon their former “boys will be boys” attitude toward offenders and to get tough. One-time President Daniel Oduber once explained that the Costa Rican culture makes judges “reluctant to deprive their fellows of their liberty.”

Nor is Minister of Public Security Fernando Berrocal ready to rest on his oars. “Much remains to be done, everything is not rosy. But we’re putting effort in combatting narcotraffic and organized crime,” he said.

This country was not the only surprise in the survey. Chile and Uruguay trailed Costa Rica in the list. Chile was at the top last year, according to Latin Business Chronicle. The two biggest economies in Latin America, Brazil and Mexico, remain among the five most hazardous nations in the region. Haiti is at the bottom of the list, a rating explained by Latin American security expert Frank Holder this way: “(Haiti) continues to have civil and political disturbances, an extremely high level of homicides and other crimes.”

Latin Business Chronicle publisher Joachim Bamrud explained that the rating was built on “a data base of murders, crimes, thefts and robberies. The data is obtained from police, public and private institutions. This will help the country a great deal to attract foreign investments.”