Oct 3, 2008

No party no cry: Carnival dancers such as this won't strut their feathers this year in Limón, on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, after officials – for the second year in a row – canceled the festivities for fear of a dengue outbreak.

Monica Quesada | Tico Times

Washed away: Formerly a home, this structure in El Loto neighborhood in the southern San José district of Desamparados caved in when the Tiribí river overflowed during this week's heavy rain. The National Emergency Commission yesterday issued a “yellow” (Level 2) alert for the northwest Guanacaste province, while the Central Valley and the rest of the Pacific remain under a “green” alert (Level 1).

Ronald Reyes | Tico Times

Another attempt at civil protest ended in violence yesterday afternoon when a group of pro-government thugs clashed with a group of student protesters who were demonstrating outside Multinoticias Channel 4 TV, the official government station in Managua.

Reporters from Multinoticias responded aggressively to the students in the streets, who held signs denouncing the “dictatorship” of President Daniel Ortega. The reporters blamed the students for inciting violence.

A group of Ortega supporters was then called in to “rescue” Multinoticias by forcibly removing the students from the neighborhood. The pro-Ortega thugs shoved and hit the students, who tried to resist non-violently by sitting on the ground and chanting “We don't want violence.”

Reporters from Multinoticias accused the group of protesters of being right-wing “pretty boys” who are “financed by the United States” and “puppets of the empire” – echoing Ortega's mantra about the opposition. The students, however, evoked a revolutionary spirit by chanting old Sandinista slogans and insisting that were struggling against the Ortega dictatorship.

Yesterday was the second such bout of street violence in the past two weeks between Ortega supporters and anti-government protesters. The Orteguistas have warned they are not willing to “give an inch” to protesters because the Sandinistas “control the streets.”

For the second year in a row, Costa Rica officials canceled the annual Caribbean carnival in Limón set for next weekend because for fears of dengue fever, according to the Public Health Ministry.

Health Minister María Luisa Avila told the daily La Nación that the city's growing trash problem poses too great a risk of an outbreak.

The city's trash must be hauled to a dumping ground 100 kilometers away, and the result is a backup of rubbish in the streets. The trash, which would multiply with the influx of people to the carnival, attracts mosquitoes.

Last year, Avila canceled the carnival after more than 2,000 cases of dengue plagued the Limón province in under a year. This year, cases are down 65 percent in the province, Avila told La Nación.

“I'd rather be the bad guy if it's going to help people's health,” she said. “We can't risk losing what we've worked so hard for.”

Homes in San José-area districts Curridabat and Desemparados flooded and even some roofs caved in during the heavy rains that have battered much of Costa Rica this week.

Emergency workers counted 16 homes in the neighborhood of Tirrases in Curridabat, an eastern San José district, as standing in “high-risk” conditions.

The Santa Teresita de Tirrases Church is sheltering 100 residents whose homes sustained heavy damage. The other remaining shelter, the Asamblea de Dios Church in Gloria Bejarano, is offering refuge to 30 people.

“Intense rains, bad urban planning and informal constructions along the banks of rivers and in poor areas are still creating emergencies in different sections of the Central Valley,” said a National Emergency Commission (CNE) press release issued yesterday afternoon.

The Taras River in Cartago overflowed Wednesday soaking and damaging some 50 houses, according to the latest count by the CNE.

The commission issued a “yellow” alert – the second level of its weather warnings – for the Guanacaste province ahead of a low pressure system forecast for the region, according to CNE press officer Reinaldo Carballo.

Other flood-prone towns and villages throughout the Pacific and Central Valley remain under “green” alert, the lowest level, Carballo said.

GRANADA, Nicaragua – Congressional testimony delivered yesterday by a spokesman for liquid gas distribution company Tropigas de Nicaragua led to more questions than answers among lawmakers who criticized the company's business practices yet questioned the government's response in taking over the company last week.

On Sept. 24, President Daniel Ortega decreed an economic state of emergency to facilitate the government's takeover of Tropigas to assure the continued distribution of cooking gas following reports that the company had suspended supplies to pressure the government to increase gas costs – something the company denies doing.

Efrén Báez, legal adviser for Tropigas, went before the National Assembly yesterday to defend the company's practices and ask the government to lift the emergency decree to allow the company to continue operating as normal. “The 55 years that Tropigas has existed in Nicaragua is the best guarantee we can give that we will continue to administer gas,” Báez said.

Despite Báez's defense, a Sept. 19 letter from Tropigas executives warned that a freeze in distribution was “inevitable in the coming days.” Both Sandinista and Liberal lawmakers have criticized that letter as a type of blackmail and have argued that cooking gas is a fundamental product that needs to be protected for the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguan families.

Still, some lawmakers say the executive decree of emergency was going overboard. Liberal lawmaker José Pallaís, president of the legislative judicial commission, said that there were other legal mechanisms to protect consumers without going to the extreme of an emergency decree, which suspends constitutional rights. Yet despite disagreeing with the means, Pallaís said the goal of maintaining a supply of cooking gas was achieved.

The concern raised by others, however, is what long-term effect will the government's intervention of Tropigas have on the business climate when investors are already edgy about the Sandinista government's past history of confiscations.

Powder Puffs Add Showy
Touch to Patios, Fence Lines