by Rod Hughes

Those orphan fire hydtrants the have had no legal guardians for the last dozen years, funally got one, the Water and Sewer Institute (A y A), thanks to a vote yesterday in the Legislative Assembly. Delighted firemen blew station sirens in the capital every time one of the 50 lawmakers present voted yes to the bill. And they all did.

The bill was the result of countless incidents in which defective fire hydrants have turned firemen into frustrated spectators at conflagrations. The press made a big fuss after a chemical plant went up in huge pillars of smoke several years ago while firemen were hamped by having to fight it with tank trucks. But the fact is that for 12 years no one has had legal responsibility for maintaining and replacing the hydrants.

In the past, legislators have not been exactly attentive to the problem. This is the third bill on the subject to have been presented in that dozen years and the only one to have made it to floor debate. Said fire operations chief Luis Salas, “There’s no excuse why it should not have been a reality that hydrants are in accord with present and future necessities. We are now working on regulations to determine the distance between hydrants.” A dismaying lack of hydrants exists throughout the nation.

by Rod Hughes

The Arias Administration has fired National Production Council (CNP) CEO Guido Vega for having rushed through 21 projects, valued at 21 billion colones (at 475 colones per dollar) at the last minute before this function passed from CNP hands. The Comptroller General’s Office blew the whistle on 18 of them for violations of legal procedure.

On April 10, a Legislative Assembly bill creating the Devekopment Bank System passed into law, removing this function from CNP. On that day, CNP rushed through the projects benefitting cooperatives, farming, cattle and dairy operations while it still had the funds. Only three of those projects met legal standards.

Last week, Vega admitted that he was responding to pressure from interested parties who feared delays if the projects passed into a new system of financing, according to the national newspaper, La Nacion. Both Vega and Deputy Minister of Agriculture Carlos Villalobos were parties to the approvals but Villalobos remains in his post but must appear before the Legislative Assembly tomorrow to answer uncomfortable questions about the matter put to him by some upset lawmakers.

by Rod Hughes

The alleged detainment for questioning in Miami of Costa Rica’s Chief Prosecutor Francisco Dall’Anese and several judges on an official mission to the United States sparked a hot debate in the Supreme Court here yesterday and a protest to Washington about their treatment.

According to a report submitted to the court by Dall’Anese, U.S. immigration officials subjected him and Judges Roberto Gutierrez, Victor Ardon Acosta and Luis Fernando Salazar to questioning despite their having passports identifying them as being on an official visit. (The report identified the detaining officials as being with immigration, but recently that function has been incorporated into Homeland Defense in the reorganization of the latter department.)

According to Judge Jose Manuel Arroyo, this kind of incident is typical of the brusque methods of U.S. immigration officials. In the debate yesterday, he told his colleagues, “The truth of this case is that this incident reminds many Costa Ricans that the same thing has happened to them. In every family able to travel, this type of anecdote is more and more frequent: a neighbor, a friend, a relative that is taken out of line for interrogation. This treatment is denigrating for anyone.”

But Judge Annabelle Leon, while not questioning the facts presented by the prosecutor, expressed doubts about their interpretation. “But what the American Embassy says in the press contains different details.” She asked if the incident was really an arbitrary detainment violating the Costa Ricans’ rights or whether it was a routine procedure.

Judge Alfonso Chavez answered this with a hot reply: “Are were trying to believe more an official of the Embassy who barely speaks Spanish and not believe our own functionaries? …This I can’t tolerate that they do this to four functionaries of our Judicial branch, who are not on vacation, but are functionaries performing their duties.”

Referring to Dall’Anese’s report, Judge Leon lamented deteriorating relations between the Costa Rican court system and the U.S. Department of Justice and the alleged lack of cooperation of U.S. authorities.