[dailyarchive/2005_03/exchange_rates.htm]
Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, March 01, 2005
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Construction Company Denies
Responsibility
For Equipment
Breakdown
“The construction consortium is not responsible,” said the Madrid-based consortium Obrascón Huarte Laín, S.A., in paid statements published in major Costa Rican dailies yesterday. The company has been accused of botching the new, $36 million Hospital San Rafael de Alajuela, in Alajuela, northwest of San José, where hospital personnel complain of a long list of problems including leaks, shoddy construction and machines that have broken down (TT, Feb. 18).
(Click for more)
Children's Rights Group
Rises from the Ashes
Four defenders of children's rights have picked up the baton where the once nearly omnipresent defender of children, Costa Rica's former Casa Alianza chapter, let it fall. They are four women, former Casa Alianza employees, who have shouldered the burden of that chapter's more than 1,000 legal actions against alleged violators of children's rights.
(Click for more)
New OAS Ambassador Announced
Javier Sancho will be the new Costa Rican ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS).
(Click for more)
March 01
Art Exhibit
David Chiarappa exhibits his wooden furniture and sculptures, March 1-16, Sophia Wanamaker Gallery, C.R.-North American Cultural Center, Barrio Dent. Info: 207-7554.
La Traviata
Giuseppe Verdi's opera showing today, March 3, 5- 7, at Melico Salazar Theater in San José. Ticket info at 207-2025 or http://www.mundoticket.com
Celebrating Silvio Rodríguez
Miguel Cabrera (guitar), Enrique Zamora (voice), Carlos Delgado (guitar) and Raymond (percussion) perform some of the songs of the celebrated trova player, 9 p.m. tonight at Meridiano al Este, in front of La Primavera Gas Station, Barrio La California. Info: 245-0658.
Edited By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Construction Company Denies Responsibility
For Equipment Breakdown
By Robert Goodier and newswire reports
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
“The construction consortium is not responsible,” said the Madrid-based consortium Obrascón Huarte Laín, S.A., in paid statements published in major Costa Rican dailies yesterday. The company has been accused of botching the new, $36 million Hospital San Rafael de Alajuela, in Alajuela, northwest of San José, where hospital personnel complain of a long list of problems including leaks, shoddy construction and machines that have broken down (TT, Feb. 18).
Since hospital authorities filed formal complaints last week, there have been two arrests and a hurried flight from the country by the consortium's representatives. The top brass of the Social Security System (Caja), the national supervisor of public hospitals, sat on his thumbs twice waiting for the company's representatives to show for meetings, authorities said.
“At all times this construction consortium has acted on the basis of good contractual faith, complying with all of its contractual obligations,” company chief Guillermo López-Cediel wrote in the statement.
“The construction consortium is not responsible for the operation of the new hospital in Alajuela, as its contractual commitments, duly completed, consisted in the construction and outfitting of the building.
“Whatever deficiencies there are that are derived from operation of the equipment are absolutely not grounds for legal action.”
Caja President Alberto Sáenz responded yesterday, “We do not agree with what they published in the papers today. The company must give us a building and equipment in good condition.”
The two may not be at an impasse, however. Sáenz told The Tico Times he received a phone call from the company's director of international affairs, Francisco Marín, who said he will fly to Costa Rica Wednesday and sit down with Sáenz.
After giving the company eight days to present a repair schedule, then waiting without response, the Caja turned the matter over to government prosecutors last week.
Then, just as the company's representatives inspected the hospital and prepared a report to be presented in a meeting with the Caja's president Alberto Sáenz and the hospital's executive director Francisco Pérez, the Prosecutors' Office turned up the heat and arrested the company's economic manager, Costa Rican Hernando Lazo, and the Caja's former assistant operations manager, Israel Moya. Both are now serving three-month preventive detention orders, said Judicial Branch spokeswoman Sandra Castro.
Moya had been fired a week before.
The Caja representative could have activated the $3.4 million warranty that expired in December 2004, authorities allege, since reports of equipment breakdowns started rolling in as early as September. But the Caja did not act on that warranty and was unsuccessful trying to execute another $236,000 warranty for the building that expired Feb. 24, because representatives couldn't locate the original document.
The loss of that document is one of the things under investigation, authorities said.
Children's Rights Group
Rises from the Ashes
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Four defenders of children's rights have picked up the baton where the once nearly omnipresent defender of children, Costa Rica's former Casa Alianza chapter, let it fall. They are four women, former Casa Alianza employees, who have shouldered the burden of that chapter's more than 1,000 legal actions against alleged violators of children's rights.
In a nod to its previous incarnation, the phoenix organization preserves part of its name, calling itself Alianza Por Tus Derechos (Covenant for Your Rights).
Smothered by scandal, the Casa Alianza closed its doors in Costa Rica last year after its director of 15 years, the British-born Bruce Harris, admitted he paid for sex from a 19-year-old Honduran man. In his contentious and larger-than-life career, Harris had opened the Costa Rican offices and championed the protection of children at Casa Alianza's children's homes throughout Central America (TT, Sept. 24, 2004). Costa Rica's offices became the regional headquarters of the operation, and when they closed late last year, left behind reams of unfinished business.
In the wake of that departure, four former Casa Alianza employees officially announced yesterday the opening of the new organization, founded on their initiative, using their funds and operating under their unpaid labor while looking for sponsorship from international organizations.
“We are going to take charge of all the complaints and accusations citizens had brought to our attention in the Casa Alianza, and we will lend our legal services free of charge to minors who are victims of crime,” said Rocío Rodríguez, executive director of the new organization, in a statement.
“We will focus all our efforts on prevention and on the unbiased and opportune aid of those who need it. This is a commitment that we want to take on, that we are ready to carry to its conclusion because we are convinced that the human rights of minors are our priority,” Rodríguez said.
The new organization maintains ties with the Casa Alianza, sharing information on children's issues, but it receives no economic aid.
Already prancing to the lead of the charges against authorities accused of being soft on crime, Rodríguez said the sentence levied against convicted pimp for underage prostitutes Sinaí Monge last month was “regrettable.” Judges sentenced Monge to eight years in prison after prosecutors called for 16 (TT, Feb. 25).
Rodríguez said Casa Alianza had made three formal accusations against Monge's brothel in the last three years leading to her arrest.
Documents on cases such as Monge's and others are available to the public in the Alianza por Tus Derechos' documentation center.
The new organization's first project will be leading courses in children's rights both for children ages 7-18, as part of the curriculum in schools, and for parents.
As they did in Casa Alianza, international volunteers fortify the work of the Alianza por Tus Derechos. Three help now, two Costa Ricans and one North American, and more are needed, Rodríguez said.
Those who want to call attention to abuses or who are interested in volunteering can reach the Alianza at 524-1327, 524-2329, fax 524-1109, alianza@alianzaportusderechos.org
Javier Sancho will be the new Costa Rican ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS).
During the ceremony in which Bonilla presented his credentials to interim OAS Secretary General Luigi Einaudi, Sancho said the fundamental themes of Costa Rica's foreign politics are democracy, human rights and hemispheric security.
“We Costa Ricans see the Organization of American States as the most legitimate and representative organization to protect democracy. Below its keen supervision and with the support of all, democracy will continue consolidating and perfecting in the hemisphere,” he said in an official statement released by the Foreign Ministry.
Sancho also said through the OAS, Costa Rica would work to strengthen the Inter-American System of Human Rights.
Sancho replaces former Costa Rican ambassador to the OAS Walter Niehaus, who resigned last year to work as an aid to former OAS Secretary General Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. Rodríguez's term lasted less than a month last September because he resigned amid accusations of corruption (TT, Oct. 15, 2004). Rodríguez, who was President of Costa Rica 1998-2002, is now being held in preventive detention in a jail northwest of San José.
Sancho, 56, is married and has three children. He is a career diplomat, with experience as an ambassador in various countries and on various diplomatic missions, according to the Foreign Ministry.
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