Unions Threaten
To Strike Again

The National Civic Movement, a group of unions and associations that paralyzed the country in August with strikes and roadblocks, announced yesterday its members plan to take to the streets again next week.

Arguing that the government has not complied with an Aug. 31 agreement that ended the eight days of civil unrest (TT, Sept. 3), leaders from truck and taxi drivers' associations, the National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP), and other labor unions said they would begin a strike Oct. 11.

ANEP Secretary General Albino Vargas said the government has not taken steps to open the monopoly the Spanish-Costa Rican firm Riteve SyC has on mandatory vehicle inspections. Officials have also neglected to form a commission to address the rising cost of living in Costa Rica, he said.

Next week's manifestations will also be a protest against the rampant government corruption that recently has been revealed by local press. The National Council of rectors has called for a massive march against corruption on Oct. 12, beginning at 9 a.m. at Parque la Merced in San José.

National Civic Movement leaders would not reveal the details of the protests they said would begin Oct. 11. They said the demonstrations will be “a little of everything” and include tortuguismo , in which trucks and cars slow traffic by driving at a crawling pace, but will not include road blocks.

At the end of August, semi-trucks blocked ports, border crossings and southeastern and northwestern access to the San José metropolitan area (TT, Aug. 27).

Trial of Suspected
Pedophile Underway
By Steven J. Barry
Tico Times Staff
sbarry@ticotimes.net

The trial of suspected pedophile Arthur Kanev, the first U.S. citizen to be extradited to Costa Rica from the United States since the two countries signed an extradition treaty in 1982, began yesterday in the central Pacific port town of Quepos, Judicial Branch spokeswoman Sandra Castro said.

Among the charges Kanev faces are providing drugs to minors, corruption of minors and having sexual relations with willing children ages 12-15, according to Prosecutor Miguel Abarca of the Quepos Prosecutor's Office (TT, April 30).

Castro referred specific questions about the trial to the court in Quepos, where Kanev is being tried. However, representatives of the Quepos court referred questions back to Castro. Though they declined to be identified, court officials said the trial, which had been scheduled for the last week of August, would likely last about three weeks.

The internationally infamous suspect was first arrested in Quepos in 1999 for allegedly possessing 280 photographs of nude, provocatively posed children ages 11-16 (TT, Jan. 8, 1999). When released on bail, Kanev fled the country, said Alejandro Cedeño, Consul General of the Costa Rican Embassy in Washington, D.C., the office that processed Kanev's extradition (TT, May 28).

In December 2000, Kanev was interviewed on the U.S. TV-news magazine program “20/20,” when the program ran an exposé on corruption of minors in Costa Rica. Kanev told an ABC reporter he had “no qualms” about what he had done in Costa Rica (TT, Dec. 15, 2000).

Kanev, a former dentist, eluded authorities for more than two years, but was arrested in Florida in July 2003 after his photo was shown on the U.S. TV program “America's Most Wanted.”