March 3, 2008

Power ballad: Mercedes Sosa, the legendary husky-voiced troubadour of Argentina, sang Saturday night at the Palacio de los Deportes in Heredia, north of San José, in what became a moving sing-along of such hits as “ Gracias a la vida ” and “ Todo cambia. ” While Sosa received repeated standing ovations, a fan in the audience, President Oscar Arias, was met with booing.

Gabriella Téllez | EFE

Hot to trot: Mauricio Masis from Ganadera AG warms up with Lucas, the white stallion, before a riding competition Saturday at the Bonanza 2008 Spanish Horse Show in Costa Rica, in Santa Ana, a suburb southwest of San José.

Harmony Reforma | Tico Times

Chavez beats war drum; Ortega condemns
Colombia after the killing of FARC chief

Leftist Venezuelen President Hugo Chávez ordered 10 battalions to the Colombian border Sunday in response to a Colombian government military raid that killed the No. 2 leader of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC).

Calling Saturday's raid, which occurred near the Colombia-Ecuador border, a “cowardly murder,” Chávez denounced Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe, a close ally of the United States, as a “criminal and gangster.”

The battalions Chavez ordered mobilized include tank and attack aircraft.

“We don't want a war, but we are not going to permit imperialism and the Colombian oligarchy to divide us,” Chávez said in his weekly TV broadcast Sunday. Chávez also ordered the Venezuelen embassy in Bogota closed and all embassy personnel withdrawn, according to the Associated Press.

Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who is accusing Colombia of violating his country's airspace, also has recalled his ambassador from Bogota.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a Chávez ally, also condemned the Colombian government for the killing of Raúl Reyes, the second in command of the left-wing FARC, saying it could hinder attempts toward peace in the embattled South American nation, the newswires Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Colombia's military on Saturday said it had killed Reyes, one of seven members of the FARC secretariat, in an operation in Ecuador that included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the border. Another 16 FARC soldiers were killed in the battle too.

Ortega said Reyes was “the man assigned by (FARC) to work for peace,” according to AFP.

By taking Reyes out, military troops “are killing the possibility of a peace process in an act of total provocation, because the doors opened a few days ago,” Ortega said in a speech. The Nicaraguan leader was referring to the FARC's liberation of four hostages last week.

Analysts consider Reyes' death a severe blow to the FARC, which has engaged in a four-decade-old conflict with the Colombian government.

Ortega's statement came after a remark in December in which the Nicaraguan president incensed Uribe by calling FARC chief Manuel Marulanda a “dear brother.”

Meanwhile, one of the six Colombians detained last month in Panama admitted the group belongs to the FARC, according to a separate report yesterday by newswire ACAN-EFE.

-Tico Times

By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net

The legendary Argentine trova singer Mercedes Sosa enthralled a packed Palacio de los Deportes arena in Heredia, north of San José, Saturday night in a concert in which the emotional Costa Rican audience, and their president, stole much of the spotlight.

Before the first note of Sosa's performance, President Oscar Arias was ushered into the front row and a large portion of the audience erupted into a fierce bout of booing and shouting, “Get out! Get out!”

Arias supporters were visibly annoyed and frowned with disgust; some shouted back or raised their fists with thumbs down.

While enjoying the best approval rating of his term, according to a recent CID-Gallup poll, Arias is still on the hot-seat for pushing forward a controversial free-trade agreement with the United States, known as CAFTA. Many Sosa fans yelled “ No al TLC!” – to denounce the treaty, using its Spanish acronym.

However, once the singer was escorted onto the stage, bitter jeers quickly turned to overwhelming cheers.

Sosa responded to the protest, reminding the audience that it does not know the kind of suffering her compatriots faced under Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship, from which she took exile.

Then she commenced to sing. At 72, Sosa's already husky voice has grown deeper since her early recordings including the 1971 Homenaje a Violeta Parra, a tribute to the Chilean poet who penned the words of one of Sosa's most loved songs “ Gracias a la vida ” (meaning “Thanks to Life,” heard on Sosa's Web site: www.mercedessosa.com.ar ). But the rich quality and power remain, and almost seemed capable of shaking the vast stadium unmiked, if she had chosen to do so.

During sudden crescendos, Sosa's voice thundered with vibrato against a restrained and excellent quartet of keyboard, guitar, bass and percussion. But in the enthralling mood piece “ Vengo a ofrecer mi corazón ” (“I Come To Offer My Heart”), she sustained somber, almost still, notes.

Some audience members wept throughout the event. Almost all mouthed the words to every lyric of such hits as “ Todo cambia ” (“Everything Changes”) and, of course, the eternal “ Gracias a la vida. ” To its credit, the Tico crowd's singing was in key and on the beat. The singer thanked the crowd for its musicality.

Ill health has forced Sosa to sit throughout her performances – except the last upbeat number brought her to her feet to dance. Not to stay quiet for long, the audience rose with her and roared again with gratitude.

Nicaraguan legislators debate exotic species ban

By Blake Schmidt
Nica Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net

An omnivorous African fish that has become a dominant species in Lake Nicaragua, the largest tropical lake outside of Africa, has

legislators debating whether to prohibit the introduction of exotic species in all Nicaraguan waters.

Nicaraguan biologists say the non-native fish, known by the common name of tilapia, have been pushing other native species out of their natural habitats and that mass processing of the fish for export has resulted in thousands of tons of fish poop a year polluting one of the world's unique freshwater ecosystems.

The lake's natural predators – from the freshwater bull shark to the sawfish to the massive sabalo real, or tarpon – have been dwindling in recent years.

But Alex Gutiérrez, production manager of NICANOR, a foreign-owned operation on the volcanic island of Ometepe that exports 3,000 tons of tilapia a year, says environmentalists have been exaggerating the tilapia's environmental impact upon the lake.

"Environmentalism is a trend right now," Gutiérrez told The Nica Times at the company's production site, where it manages dozens of floating tilapia cages off the shore of Ometepe Island.

Read more about Lake Nicaragua's tilapia controversy Friday in a series on the country's lakes in The Nica Times, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times.

U.S. Commerce Dept: new deadline
Costa Rica's 'last chance' for CAFTA

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is urging legislators to approve the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) in under half the time until its new Oct. 1 deadline, the daily La Nación reported Saturday.

Arias' call for the Legislative Assembly to speed up the process came two days after a meeting with a representative of the U.S. Commerce Department about the CAFTA process.

The new deadline – which gives Costa Rica a seven-month extension – is this country's “last opportunity,” said Christopher Padilla, under secretary for international trade at the U.S. Commerce Department.

The United States “is giving Costa Rica its last opportunity to enjoy the benefits of having access to the largest market in the world,” newswire EFE quoted Padilla saying.

He continued, “We hope Costa Rica doesn't get left out” of CAFTA.

“It's ironic,” Padilla told La Nación, that Costa Rica has fallen behind. Costa Rica is the only country that has ratified but not entered CAFTA. Padilla noted that this country was one of the treaty's primary negotiators when the process began in 2003 and the countries signed on the following year.

Padilla spoke privately with Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Marco Ruiz and President Oscar Arias in two separate meetings about free trade, a centerpiece policy of the Arias administration. San José was Padilla's last stop on an official Central American tour, just one day after Washington had agreed to push back the deadline.

See our top story http://www.ticotimes.net/topstory.htm for more on CAFTA.