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Oscar Arias goes to Washington: The Costa Rican president, second from left, participates in the Inter-American Peace Forum yesterday in Washington, D.C., during which he made his trademark call for a farewell to arms, saying, “Neither terrorist groups, drug-trafficking cartels or street gangs would have any power at all if they weren't backed by the power of their weapons.” |
Juan Manuel Herrera | EFE |
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| 30 months in jail for French exec in Alcatel scandal |
Christian Sapsizian, a French citizen and former executive of telecom Alcatel, was sentenced yesterday in the United States to 30 months in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said. |
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| Court refuses to extradite U.S. mom in parental abduction case |
| A Costa Rica court ruled Friday in favor of Nicole Kater, who faces charges in the United States of international parental abduction, the second time in two months this Central American country has struck down a U.S. request for extradition on the basis of kidnapping. |
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| Weekend’s Puerto Viejo festival canceled unexpectedly |
The third annual Arte Viva festival planned for this weekend in Puerto Viejo, on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, was canceled unexpectedly yesterday after local authorities revoked the festival's permits, according to the event's organizer, Claudio Ambroso. |
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| Illegal abortions skyrocket in Costa Rica |
Costa Rica has about 27,000 illegal abortions a year, a new report estimates. That reflects a significant increase over the 800 abortions reported in 1991, the last year such statistics were kept. |
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When the Saints Go
Marching in San Ramón |
A colorful parade of saints lined up along the aisle of the church in San Ramón during the last weekend of August as the city celebrated its patron saint's day with an old Spanish custom: la entrada de los santos, or the parade of the saints. |
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| 30 months in jail for French exec in Alcatel scandal |
Christian Sapsizian, a French citizen and former executive of telecom Alcatel, was sentenced yesterday in the United States to 30 months in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The U.S. District Court of Florida in Miami also ordered Sapsizian to forfeit $261,000, to serve three years of supervised release and to pay a $200 special assessment, according to a DOP press release.
The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the state-owned telecom authority, awarded Alcatel an almost $150 million mobile phone contract in August 2001. Sapsizian then an assistant to Alcatel's Latin America vice president, appears to have had a behind-the-back hand in sealing the deal.
Sapsizian confessed to engaging in a $2.5 million bribery scheme started in 2000 to win ICE's phone contract. He pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and agreed to cooperate with law enforcement officials from the United States and abroad in the ongoing investigation.
He admitted to conspiring from February 2000 to September 2004 with Edgar Valverde Acosta, a Costa Rican citizen who was Alcatel's senior Costa Rica representative, and others to bribe officials here. |
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Court refuses to extradite U.S.
mom in parental abduction case |
A Costa Rica court ruled Friday in favor of Nicole Kater, who faces charges in the United States of international parental abduction, the second time in two months this Central American country has struck down a U.S. request for extradition on the basis of kidnapping.
Police arrested 28-year-old Kater near Sabalito de Tierra Morena, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, in April, almost three years after she had fled with her daughter to Costa Rica in 2005 during a custody dispute with the child's father in Humboldt, California, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Humboldt County Superior Court awarded custody to the girl's father John Gehl, and in December 2005 the United States issued a federal warrant for her arrest.
The Costa Rican National Institute for Women (INAMU), however, claims that Kater had Gehl's authorization to travel here, and settled in Cóbado, Puntarenas, to start a new life.
Held in San José's Buen Pastor prison since her arrest in April, Kater filed for refugee status here in July, claiming to be a victim of domestic violence. That came shortly after the arrest of another U.S. woman in a similar case, Chere Lyn Tomayko, who also sought protection in Costa Rica from what she described was a violent situation with her child's father back in the United States.
Immigration authorities are still processing Kater's request, news agency EFE reported.
Kater must wait for a high court of appeals ruling till she can go free, INAMU said. |
-Tico Times |
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Weekend’s Puerto Viejo
festival canceled unexpectedly |
By Elizabeth Goodwin
Tico Times Staff | editorial@ticotimes.net |
The third annual Arte Viva festival planned for this weekend in Puerto Viejo, on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, was canceled unexpectedly yesterday after local authorities revoked the festival's permits, according to the event's organizer, Claudio Ambroso.
He said a person from outside Puerto Viejo filed a request for an injunction against the Talamanca municipality with the Constitutional Court (Sala IV) for an unknown reason and for now the local government must forfeit their power to grant permits for large gatherings.
The municipality would not comment on the matter.
“Carrying on with the activities would be ugly and not legal and not possible,” Ambroso said. “We are pretty sad about this.”
The festival is organized by Escuela de Artes del Caribe Sur (South Caribbean School of Arts), a nonprofit that provides arts education to local school children, and was scheduled to begin this Friday. Ambroso said the festival is their major fundraiser and if they are not able to eventually hold the event, they will be hard pressed to provide services to their community this year.
“Unfortunately right now we are not in the position of saying when (the festival) is going to be,” Ambroso said.
The organizers had estimated that about 1,000 people would flock to Puerto Viejo this weekend to raise a total of $3,000 for the organization. He added that hundreds of the children who were eager to perform at the festival will be disappointed, and that they would also miss out on the educational components of the weekend.
Arte Viva is a celebration of food, music, and visual arts. Ambroso said updates are available at the festival's Web site, www.arteviva-puertoviejo.com/index.asp. |
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| Illegal abortions skyrocket in Costa Rica |
By Nick Wilkinson
Tico Times Staff | nwilkinson@ticotimes.net |
Costa Rica has about 27,000 illegal abortions a year, a new report estimates. That reflects a significant increase over the 800 abortions reported in 1991, the last year such statistics were kept.
Researcher Cristian Gómez, who completed the project for the nonprofit Costa Rican Demographic Association (ADC) with funding from the United Kingdom but none from the Tico government, said the results are alarming and should give the country pause about its policy against sex education in the public schools.
“The investigation represents an update of statistics on a subject that has been marginalized for 17 years in the country,” the researcher said. “(Government officials) believe the problem doesn't exist. We don't have prevention programs. They've been negligent, and we think it's time to put the issue back on the agenda.” |
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When the Saints Go Marching in San Ramón |
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A colorful parade of saints lined up along the aisle of the church in San Ramón during the last weekend of August as the city celebrated its patron saint's day with an old Spanish custom: la entrada de los santos, or the parade of the saints.
This year, 53 venerable statues of saints came from surrounding parishes and organizations in this western Central Valley coffee canton. The statues, some old and valuable, were borne on platforms decorated with flowers, carried on the shoulders of men and women from the parishes or groups. Each saint was accompanied by a band playing music, some traditional, some religious.
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| Saints Alive! The parade of the saints is an annual tradition at the San Ramón church. |
Joan Bougie | Tico Times |
This was a festival, nothing grim about it. There was St. John the Baptist carrying his long staff, the Virgin of El Carmen, the Virgin of Ujarrás and the Virgin of the Angels, a replica of the national shrine in the basilica in Cartago, east of the capital. St. Barbara, the patron saint of firefighters, was accompanied by a fire truck. The Holy Family came along with saints Gabriel and Raphael, the archangels. The images will remain in the church for nine days, or a novena, with daily Masses dedicated to the different parishes, explained Daniel Vargas, San Ramón's young and energetic pastor.
The principal saint of this event, of course, is San Ramón Nonato, and his statue, dressed in the red cloaks of a church official, had a special platform in front of the altar decorated with streamers in red and white.
San Ramón is the patron saint of pregnant women and newborn babies, Vargas said. He was born in the 1200s in Spain. His mother died giving birth to him, and he was delivered and adopted by a man named Ramón Cardona, who gave him the name Nonato, or “no birth.” At the age of 19, young Ramón joined the Fathers of Mercy, an order of priests dedicated to buying slaves to save them, and he went to Algeria, where slavery flourished. When funds ran out to buy more slaves, Ramón offered himself in place of a slave until more funds were available.
Pope Gregory IX wanted to honor the young priest by making him a cardinal, but with his health compromised during the episode of slavery, Ramón died on the way to Rome, at the age of 36.
The annual celebrations attract visitors from all over Costa Rica, because los ramonenses provide a week full of civic, religious and cultural activities. This year's included a zoo full of farm animals so that young city dwellers could get to know them. There were oxcart parades, folk dances, a sculpture contest, a band parade, theater and the reopening of the regional museum, displays of organic products and plants, and lots of traditional food under a thatch-roofed pavilion that spanned the entire street. A city that works together can produce a first class party.
“This is a family event to bring people together,” Vargas said. “With thousands of people filling the streets of San Ramón, no car thefts, assaults or vandalism were reported. And no alcohol was sold.”
San Ramón was first settled by the Maleku indigenous group. During the colonial years, the area was considered to be “the interior,” and prisoners and undesirables were sent here as punishment. In the early 1800s, expansion from Palmares, another western town, brought settlers into the area. Early residents Ramón Solís and Ramón Rodríguez placed the new town under the protection of San Ramón, and in August 1854 it officially became a city.
San Ramón became known as a literary and cultural center in the 19th century, after a priest of that era published an epic poem that scandalized citizens for not giving full support to the church, and which was read across the nation. This literary effort drew other poets and writers to San Ramón, giving it a reputation for arts and letters.
Leading statesman and founder of modern Costa Rica, José “Pepe” Figueres, was born in San Ramón in 1906. His home across from the church is now a cultural center. A branch of the University of Costa Rica is located here, and its professors and students add to the cultural life of the city.
And every year, during the last week of August, the whole community comes together to celebrate their patron saint's day, Aug. 31.
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