Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, September 27, 2005
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President Tours Flood Zones,
International Aid on the Way
With large swathes of the Pacific coast and Central Valley buckled down in emergency mode after four days of downpours flooded nearly 100 communities, President Abel Pacheco toured the flood zones yesterday by helicopter.
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Costa Ricans Admit
They Discriminate
Eighty-eight percent of Costa Ricans admit their country discriminates against Nicaraguans, according to a recent poll released yesterday by Universidad Nacional (UNA).
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ICE Unions March
On Legislative Assembly
Hundreds of workers from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), along with their supporters, marched on the Legislative Assembly yesterday to protest the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) and the opening of the telecommunications industry – currently monopolized by the state-run ICE – that is required under the agreement.
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September 27
Electro-Acoustic Workshop
By Otto Castro, today, 2-5 p.m., Videoteca, Contemporary Art and Design Museum, CENAC. Info: 257-7202.
Verdi's Requiem
Performed by Mozart Choir, tonight, 8 p.m., National Theater.
Docudrama on La Penca Bombing
On Channel 7, in two parts, tonight and Oct. 4, 9 p.m.
5th Bienarte Visual Arts Biennial
With videos from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, today, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., at the Gold Museum auditorium, underneath Plaza de la Cultura. Info : 243-4219.
Edited By Rebecca Kimitch
Tico Times Staff
rkimitch@ticotimes.net
President Tours Flood Zones,
International Aid on the Way
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
With large swathes of the Pacific coast and Central Valley buckled down in emergency mode after four days of downpours flooded nearly 100 communities, President Abel Pacheco toured the flood zones yesterday by helicopter.
“I came to encourage you, to tell you we're not going to abandon you,” Pacheco said to a dozen flood victims in one of the most heavily inundated towns – El Silencio, in Parrita, on the southern Pacific coast.
“Nobody will be unassisted. The people, who are what matters most, will receive medical help, water, food, blankets, mattresses and everything necessary,” he said.
Pacheco made the trip after canceling his plans to attend the Fifth Summit of Heads of State and Government of Central America and Taiwan, held yesterday in Nicaragua
International aid has already begun to take the pressure off the government coffers. The government of Taiwan announced it will contribute $150,000 to the emergency relief effort, a small dent in the estimated ¢10 billion ($20.6 million) the disaster may cost.
More than 300 houses are damaged or swept away, and 27 bridges and 53 stretches of highway are damaged. Some communities are still incommunicado; Red Cross and National Emergency Commission (CNE) officials are working around the clock to open communication channels and care for the hundreds of displaced people in shelters.
Though early reports indicated four people had died in the floods, the Red Cross clarified later that they died in rivers, but as the result of accidents unrelated to the flooding.
Pacheco linked the rescue effort to his pet piece of legislation still pending in the Legislative Assembly, the Permanent Fiscal Reform Package, which “would have given more resources to the state to help the victims,” according to a statement from the Ministry of the Presidency.
The Red Cross is accepting donations of non-perishable foods, water and personal hygiene products, as well as money, which can be deposited in the following bank accounts: Banco Nacional, 100100-7 (colones), Banco de Costa Rica, 176-003-3 (colones) and Banco Popular, 5000-7 (colones).
Costa Ricans Admit They Discriminate
By Rebecca Kimitch
Tico Times Staff
rkimitch@ticotimes.net
Eighty-eight percent of Costa Ricans admit their country discriminates against Nicaraguans, according to a recent poll released yesterday by Universidad Nacional (UNA).
From taxi drivers to college students, Costa Ricans often express beliefs that Nicaraguans take jobs, don't pay taxes into the health-care system and are responsible for crime in Costa Rica.
“We Costa Ricans have attitudes of xenophobia towards Nicaraguans,” said Vilma Pernudi, one of the authors of the survey. “We are aware of this discrimination, but who among us has stopped saying jokes, has stopped blaming Nicaraguans?”
The survey is part of a greater study on immigration and society being conducted by UNA's Institute of Social Studies on Population (IDESPO). The study doesn't patently conclude Costa Ricans are racist, but rather points out subtleties behind their discriminatory tendencies, with the goal of understanding the impact on human rights.
Nearly all of those polled – 95% – say the number of immigrants in Costa Rica is very high (76%) or high (19%).
“This opinion could be hiding negative attitudes towards immigrants,” Pernudi said.
The poll also revealed that 65% of Costa Ricans think Nicaraguans living here are worse off than Costa Ricans, while 17% think they live better than Costa Ricans and an equal number think their living conditions are equal to Costa Ricans'.
Yet the majority of those who believe Nicaraguans are living better than or equal to Costa Ricans say they are able to do so because they receive government support here, not for reasons particular to Nicaraguans themselves, Pernudi points out.
Only a quarter the respondents who said Nicaraguans are living better than Costa Ricans attribute it to hard work.
“When we talk about Nicaraguans doing better than or equal to Costa Ricans, we talk about external factors, not personal efforts,” Pernudi said.
Yet, despite some discriminatory tendencies, the majority of those polled said Nicaraguans provide a very important economic support to Costa Rica and should have basic rights. Sixty-six percent said Nicaraguans should have equal rights to public health; 60% said they should have the right to work in conditions equal to Costa Ricans; and 55% said they should be able to organize themselves in groups or associations to defend their rights.
Costa Rican attitudes toward Nicaraguans are spread across a wide scale, explained Luis Ángel López, another of the study's authors.
“Maybe Costa Ricans are willing to live with Nicaraguans, but aren't willing to have a Nica in their family… They may say Nicaraguans have the right to education, but not the right to school scholarships,” he said. “In the end, those who feel the most threatened are those with the most severe attitudes.”
The survey of 600 people was conducted Aug. 24-28 by telephone and has a margin of error of 4%.
ICE Unions March
On Legislative Assembly
By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff
lbaxter@ticotimes.net
Hundreds of workers from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), along with their supporters, marched on the Legislative Assembly yesterday to protest the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) and the opening of the telecommunications industry – currently monopolized by the state-run ICE – that is required under the agreement.
The protest also criticized the dissolution of the mixed commission that was studying a bill to strengthen ICE in order to face the increased competition that CAFTA would bring if ratified.
Beginning at 10 a.m. from Sabana Park in western San José, ICE workers from the various unions that compose the Internal Workers Front (FIT) marched through the city sporting the yellow T-shirts and umbrellas that are ubiquitous in their marches. In front of the Legislative Assembly, in downtown San José, union leaders mounted a tall platform on the back of a flatbed truck loaded with speakers and rallied the workers decrying CAFTA, calling attention to the importance of cell phones in Costa Rican development.
Ricardo Seguro, head of FIT, told the newswire ACAN-EFE, “We have mobilized an important number of workers who are conscious of what CAFTA means for ICE.”
Legislator Edwin Patterson, of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), walked among the protestors.
“I came to support the people and to listen to the various sectors,” he told The Tico Times, adding that if a society doesn't give its people an opportunity to be heard, it is fair that they protest.
The law to strengthen ICE is required in the text of CAFTA for the free-trade agreement to take affect.
The protestors delivered a letter to the president of the Legislative Assembly Gerardo González, of the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), in which they ask for the return of the mixed commission and the ICE law it was studying, because, according to FIT, some legislators are drafting a new law that would not adequately fortify ICE, ACAN-EFE reported.
Yesterday's march followed on the heels of a demonstration Sept. 20, which coincided with a press conference at which President Abel Pacheco said the time is approaching for him to submit CAFTA to the assembly (TT, Sept. 23).
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