Ex-Presidents' Jail
Time Upheld Again
By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff
kstanley@ticotimes.net

Once again, the Judicial Branch has confirmed the preventive detention orders for former Costa Rican Presidents Rafael Ángel Calderón (1990-1994) and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (1998-2002), who have been living in individual cells at the La Reforma penitentiary, outside of San José, while the Prosecutor's Office investigates corruption allegations against them.

Despite appeals by the defense attorneys of both men in recent weeks, the Second Circuit Court of Goicochea confirmed Calderón's order on Friday and Rodríguez's yesterday, according to statements from the Judicial Branch.

Rodríguez is accused of accepting illegal payments from global telecommunications firm Alcatel, which obtained a multimillion-dollar contract during Rodríguez's term. Calderón faces allegations of masterminding the distribution of a multimillion-dollar “commission” on a medical equipment purchase by the Social Security System (Caja).

Calderón's release is scheduled for March 22. Rodríguez's is scheduled for April.

Actor Leonardo Di Caprio
Arrives in Costa Rica

Actor Leonardo Di Caprio, from the United States, arrived in Costa Rica on Sunday, where he is visiting a beach on the Pacific coast, Channel 7 TV news reported yesterday.

EFE wire service confirmed Di Caprio's arrival in Costa Rica through a source that obtained exclusive footage of the actor's arrival in the country with his girlfriend, Brazilian top model Giselle Bundchen, at Tobías Bolaños Airport in Pavas, west of San José.

After his arrival in Costa Rica, Di Caprio traveled to Malpaís, on the Nicoya Peninsula.

Di Caprio, who starred in the film “The Aviator,” directed by Martin Scorcese, consolidated his fame after “Titanic.” Next April, he will start rolling “The Departed,” another Scorcese film about the Irish mafia.

--EFE

Ratification of U.S. Trade Agreement
Polarizes Opinions in Costa Rica

The Central American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States has divided opinions in Costa Rica, as business groups press for its ratification and social sectors threaten to take to the streets to avoid it.

In between both extremes, President Abel Pacheco affirms that he will not send the treaty to Congress until the legislators approve a fiscal reform plan, which they have been discussing for more than two years without achieving the necessary consensus for its approval.

The principle business chambers and political sectors headed by the presidential candidate for the National Liberation Party (PLN), Nobel prize winner Oscar Arias, are pressing on the necessity to ratify CAFTA and not be “left behind” compared to the other countries of the isthmus.

Well-known public figures such as ex-President Rodrigo Carazo and various academics and intellectuals have recently joined the social sectors. They reject the ratification of the agreement because they say it was negotiated “only for a few people.”

“The government doesn't necessarily react to pressure, all groups have the right and the liberty to show their support for or against certain projects,” Minister of Commerce Manuel Gonzalez told EFE wire service yesterday.

According to the official, “what the government must do is make the decision that is best for the country. We do not react in order to favor a particular sector,” he clarified.

Business leader Marco Vinicio Ruiz said “the fiscal plan must be separated from CAFTA” and that it is necessary “to sign and meet our responsibility with the region and the United States.”

The fiscal reform plan proposes an integral restructuring of the tax system, and legislators from various parties, particularly the opposing Libertarian Movement, have rejected some of its specific proposals.

The general secretary of the National Association for Public Employees (ANEP), Albino Vargas, warned that “they will have to protest on the streets” because CAFTA stipulates transformations in the social state which the people reject.

Vargas cited the breakup of the state monopolies on energy, telecommunications and insurance as examples that are included in the negotiation of the agreement.

Independent political analyst Luis Guillermo Solís said, “Costa Rica is too divided for the discussion of the treaty during the electoral year.” General elections will be held in February 2006.

“The electoral year imposes a series of realities to the political agenda which means that a discussion of this caliber becomes even more complicated. The country does not have the necessary serenity or opening to attend the discussion with the parsimony it requires,” Solís added.

“The discussion of CAFTA will necessarily polarize the country,” he said, adding that there also exists the danger that “the Costa Rican elections only theme will be the discussion of CAFTA.”