Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, January 30,  2004

HE'S HERE! World-acclaimed tenor Luciano Pavarotti met the press yesterday in preparation for tonight's concert in the National Stadium in La Sabana - his first performance in Central America. Tico Times/Jeffrey Arguedas

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Pavarotti in Concert
World-acclaimed tenor performs Sat., Jan. 31, 7:30 p.m. in the National Stadium, west side of La Sabana Park, tickets $12-1,200 in Credomatic, offices of Banco San José. Info: 295-9747, www.costarica.credomatic.com

Editus in Concert
Award-winning Editus performs "Siempre Vol. II," Sat., Jan. 31, 5:30 p.m., Villa Caletas Hotel, 2.5 km after the main entrance to Punta Leona on the road to Jacó. Info: 637-0505.

Festival Chunches del Mar
Artists exhibit works inspired by a month of beachcombing, with a party including music, dance and an auction, Sat., Jan. 31, Hotel Luz de Mono in Montezuma. Info: 642-0010, festivalchunchesdemar@luzdemono.com.

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President to Send Bill Punishing
Violence Against Women to Congress
By Fabián Borges
fborges@ticotimes.net

Presidency Minister Ricardo Toledo yesterday announced the government plans to send the Bill to Penalize Violence Against Women to the Legislative Assembly to be voted on in the coming days.

"The executive had said it would send the bill back to the Assembly if the deputies reached an agreement on it or if a majority was willing to discuss it," Toledo said. "This afternoon, we received a letter from deputies interested in the bill."

Yesterday, President Abel Pacheco received a letter signed by Social Christian Unity Party deputy Gloria Valerín -- one of the bill's main proponents -- and 32 other deputies asking him to send the bill back to the floor of the Assembly.

Deputies say they are committed to discussing the bill and making the changes necessary for it to be approved by every legislative faction.

The bill penalizing violence against women calls for men arrested for domestic violence to enroll in programs to control violent behavior or recover from drug or alcohol problems. Though the bill was first proposed in 1999, Congress has not passed it. Recently, the government retracted the bill, promising to send it back to Congress when deputies were willing to seriously discuss it.

"The executive branch is seeking preventive measures that will allow police to arrest individuals who have been caught beating their wives eight or ten times and have threatened their lives," Toledo said. "Police can't act. Often, they must let suspects go because there is no law."

Acting Women's Affairs Minister, Health Minister Rocío Sáenz, said she was pleased with the deputies' decision.

"Domestic violence is an issue of great concern for the government," she said. "The bill was being delayed by the positions of certain groups. We are very pleased the bill will be discussed. It is of great importance for the country, particularly after recent events."

So far this year, there have been nine domestic violence slayings. In response, on Tuesday the government decided to appoint a special commission comprised of eight different agencies to tackle the problem (TT Daily Page, Jan. 28).

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Environmentalists, Deputies
Protest Harken Settlement Negotiations
By Steven J. Barry
sbarry@ticotimes.net

MASKED: Fabián Pacheco, son of President Abel Pacheco, donned a gas mask and joined about 20 environmentalists and congressional deputies in a protest against settlement negotiations with Harken. Tico Times/Steven J. Barry

Congressional deputies and environmentalists gathered in front of the Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) headquarters yesterday to protest the government's negotiation of settlement payments of millions of dollars to Harken Energy for cancellation of the company's contract to explore for oil off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

Fabián Pacheco, son of President Abel Pacheco, led the gathering of about 20 people in chants and wore a gas mask to call attention to the environmental damage caused by oil exploration.

"This is an act of extortion," he said. "Something we are not going to accept."

He said a representative of Harken, former U.S. Senator Robert Toricelli was visiting today to discuss reinstating the company's oil exploration contract, which was cancelled by the government (TT, Oct. 10, 2003).

Limón congressman Edwin Patterson attended the protest and said he wished they could have gathered more people, but it was organized with extremely short notice.

He said a measure completely outlawing oil exploration and mining in the country is being debated in Congress right now. Patterson said Harken is aware of Pacheco's personal conviction against oil exploration in the country.

"With CAFTA, they're going to make this thing more dangerous now, with this oil exploration and gold mines," Patterson said. "We hope we can do something to stop it."

"Historically, we sell nature," Patterson said. "It's contradictory to say 'Oh, ok, we're going to explore oil and have tourism and have diversity.' It does not make sense."

Members of the Costa Rican Federation for the Conservation of the Environment (FECON) and the environmental group Yiski also attended the protest.

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Some CAFTA Texts Made Public
By Fabián Borges
fborges@ticotimes.net

The first part of the Central America Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States, which Costa Rica finished negotiating on Sunday (TT Daily Page, Jan. 26), yesterday was made available to the public online.

It's available in English at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Web site and in Spanish at the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Ministry's (COMEX) Web site.

"We have made the first part the treaty's text available to the public," said head Costa Rican negotiator Anabel González. "The 22 normative chapters are available…. The market-access texts (what Costa Rica finished negotiating last week) will be available after they have been revised."

COMEX announced the texts had been made public during the formal presentation of CAFTA's results to the Costa Rican public yesterday at the Radisson Hotel in San José.

The event attracted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 government officials, business leaders, academics, journalists and Costa Rican citizens interested in the trade pact.

It also attracted representatives of groups opposed to the treaty. During the event, members of the Costa Rican Electricity and Telecom Institute (ICE) and Social Security System (Caja) labor unions passed out flyers calling CAFTA "a government hoax" and threatening its approval by the Legislative Assembly would result in a "massive social confrontation."

Costa Rican negotiators hope that by making the texts public they will be able to put to rest claims that they were not being transparent about what was being negotiated.

During all of 2003, negotiators refused to allow the Legislative Assembly and other interested parties access to the CAFTA draft texts, arguing that making them public would weaken their negotiating position.

The government's refusal to make the texts public prompted a coalition of 27 lawmakers, 14 labor unions, the Archbishop of San José Hugo Barrantes, and former Costa Rican presidents Rodrigo Carazo (1978-1982) and Luis Alberto Monge (1982-1986) to demand a moratorium on CAFTA last year (TT, Sept. 26, Nov. 28, 2003)

Calls for the text got stronger as the negotiations moved forward, particularly after it was revealed last December that at least 15 senators in the U.S. Congressional Oversight Group had access to the draft texts (TT, Dec. 12, 2003).

González and Foreign Trade Minister Alberto Trejos will present CAFTA's results to the public again on Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel at 10 a.m.

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