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28 Nov 2005 |
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Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, November 28, 2005
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UNESCO Distinction Shined
Over Oxcart Parade
More than 300 ox herders from across Costa Rica yesterday marched through the streets of downtown San José during the ninth yearly Oxcart Parade, an activity that launches the end-of-the-year festivities.
(Click for more)
Violence Detected Against
Unborn Babies
The public National Children's Hospital has identified at least 22 newborns in 2005 that suffered different forms of aggression before they were born.
(Click for more)
Four Suspects of El Pueblo
Murder Arrested
Costa Rican authorities yesterday arrested four men suspected of murdering a Colombian man at dawn yesterday at El Pueblo, a popular, touristy bar and disco conglomerate in San José.
(Click for more)
November 28
Exhibit and Documentary Fotografía: memoria del pasado y fuente de información (Photography: Memory of the Past and Source of Information)
Open Mondays-Fridays, 7 a.m.-2 p.m., through Dec. 19 at room “León Fernández Bonilla” of Archivo Nacional (National Archive), Curridabat, 900 m. south, 100 m.west of Plaza del Sol. Info: 224-2084 exts. 227-232.
5th Cycle of Independence Concerts
With musicians from Cuba, United States, Argentina, Costa Rica, tonight at 8 p.m., Universidad Latina auditorium, San Pedro. Info: 261-0987.
Edited By María Gabriela Díaz
Tico Times Staff
mgdiaz@ticotimes.net
UNESCO Distinction Shined
Over Oxcart Parade
By María Gabriela Díaz
Tico Times Staff
mgdiaz@ticotimes.net
More than 300 ox herders from across Costa Rica yesterday marched through the streets of downtown San José during the ninth yearly Oxcart Parade, an activity that launches the end-of-the-year festivities.
This year, the herders displayed their colorful oxcarts with more pride than ever, after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared their trade a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on Friday.
The distinction, last awarded in 2003 and 2001, was created to raise awareness about international heritages and is destined for oral forms of expression, music, dance, rituals, mythologies and cultural spaces, said a statement from UNESCOPRESS.
This year, offered for the third and possibly the last time, the distinction went to a total 43 masterpieces, said the statement.
According to ox herder María Luisa Castro, from Moravia, northeast of San José, the distinction gives the Costa Rican tradition of ox herding the significance it deserves.
“Ox herders built this country. They constructed some of our first buildings, and there are still many people who make a living from oxen,” she told The Tico Times yesterday.
Ox herders from around the country attend the parade each year, including those from Heredia, for whom the activity was dedicated this year because they traditionally walk from the northern province to the parade's starting point at La Sabana Park, on the western edge of San José, according to Castro, 37.
The ox herder explained the Heredia participants reached La Sabana Park on Saturday, and there they spent the night.
Ox herding, a Costa Rican cultural symbol, has been practiced in the country since the mid-1800s.
According to Castro, whose father was also an ox herder, the tradition, which she carries in her blood, is only going to grow.
“This year, my children marched in the parade instead of me. That's how it is, the tradition keeps going,” she said.
Violence Detected Against
Unborn Babies
The public National Children's Hospital has identified at least 22 newborns in 2005 that suffered different forms of aggression before they were born.
Ana Virginia Quesada, social work chief at the Children's Hospital, told the daily La Nación that prenatal aggression is the sixth cause of violence against children.
“Some time or other, we have all heard stories of women who used belts to conceal their pregnancies. This is a form of aggression,” she said.
According to Quesada, drug use by pregnant women is another form of prenatal aggression.
Children born of mothers who did not eat properly or used drugs while pregnant are usually born underweight, with drug dependencies, and with respiratory ailments.
Quesada explained these children are often born of abused mothers who never wished to get pregnant.
This year, for the first time, the Children's Hospital has included prenatal aggression in its statistics for violence against children.
The 22 abused babies represent 5% of the total 400 cases registered since October 2004.
Other causes of violence against children include psychological and emotional abuse (more than 100 reported cases), negligence (80), physical abuse (70), sexual abuse (70) and abandonment (50).
--ACAN-EFE
Four Suspects of El Pueblo
Murder Arrested
Costa Rican authorities yesterday arrested four men suspected of murdering a Colombian man at dawn yesterday at El Pueblo, a popular, touristy bar and disco conglomerate in San José.
The Public Security Ministry announced the South American was shot to death at 5:56 a.m. yesterday for unknown reasons.
Authorities identified the suspects as three Colombians by the last names of Cossio, 36, and Reintería, 48 and 26 (father and son). A Panamanian by the last name of Campos, who remains hospitalized with a bullet-wound in his hip, is also a suspect.
According to the Public Security Ministry, authorities intercepted the suspects who attempted to run off in a car in downtown San José and confiscated a nine-millimeter gun they carried.
--ACAN-EFE
