Children's Day: Erin Mone (left), Peace Corps Costa Rica Assistant Country Director, and U.S. Ambassador Mark Langdale (right) Friday danced and sang along with officials from the Child Welfare Office (PANI) and children from around Costa Rica to celebrate Children's Day with songs, games and art. The activity, held at a PANI center in San José, also highlighted the Art for Peace program Peace Corps and the office have been working on together for two years to encourage creativity in at-risk children.

Health authorities Friday launched a national campaign aimed at vaccinating 70,000 children ages 18 months and younger against chickenpox.

Forum on Suicide
In honor of World Suicide Prevention Day, 7 p.m., Paraninfo Auditorium, State University at a Distance (UNED), Sabanilla. Info: 524-0295.

Mundoloco Show
Featuring Senegalese drummer Badú N'Diaye, 9:30 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.

Maleku Cultural Exhibit
Inauguration of photo exhibit featuring the work of Maleku indigenous people and play by members of this community, 7 p.m., Spanish Cultural Center, Barrio Escalante, 257-2919.

By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net

Two high-ranking government officials Thursday admitted they suggested to President Oscar Arias in a recently leaked e-mail that the state manipulate voters and mayors to secure their support for the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), which will be voted on in a national referendum Oct. 7.

The e-mail, written July 29 by Second Vice-President Kevin Casas and National Liberation Party (PLN) legislator Fernando Sánchez to Arias and his brother, Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias, reads, “We have to make (mayors) responsible for the campaign in each canton and let them know, with severity, a very simple idea: The mayor who does not win his canton (for CAFTA) will not receive a cent from the government during the next three years.”

The document also recommended that the government “stimulate fear” among voters about the risks of not approving the U.S. trade pact – fear that jobs will be lost, that democratic institutions will be weakened and that leftist leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will gain influence.

Casas and Sánchez admitted to drafting the e-mail, and the President confirmed he received it, according to the daily La Nación. The document was leaked to the University of Costa Rica's (UCR) weekly newspaper, which broke the story Thursday.

Citizen Action Party (PAC) faction head Elizabeth Fonseca that day called on Casas and Sánchez to resign.

“What was published by the university paper gives us the most serious warning that we have a democracy in serious danger,” she said. “We are seeing a profound disrespect for democratic institutions…for the citizenry…for the weakest sectors of the country.”

Defending himself on the legislative floor Thursday, Sánchez said, “It was a draft,” and that drafts can contain “outlandish, crazy ideas.”

“What is really serious…is how that e-mail was simply stolen, taken from the computer…We cannot trust in the most basic (right to) privacy,” he said.

A truck carrying 331 kilograms of cocaine was intercepted by police Saturday in the central Pacific town of Esparza and its two drivers were arrested, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry.

The ministry's Drug Control Police received confidential reports indicating that the trucking route from the Pacific port of Puntarenas to nearby Esparza was being used to traffic drugs at night.

The truck, which belongs to a seafood company, was stopped at about 6 a.m. near Esparza. Inside it, police found bags containing a total of 331 kilos of cocaine. They also seized a semi-automatic gun and 28 bullets.

The two men arrested were identified by the last names Gómez, 26, and Sánchez, 45, both Costa Rican.

The packets of drugs were wrapped in latex, which was “visibly deteriorated by the humidity,” leading police to believe they could have been floating out at sea, the statement said.

Police suspect the Puntarenas-Esparza trucking route is being used by international drug traffickers to carry drugs delivered to the port by boat to a warehouse in Costa Rica, where they are eventually sent along to another destination.

This drug seizure marked the second in Costa Rica in as many days. On Friday, Costa Rican Coast Guard authorities found 40 kilos of cocaine in a Colombian boat seized on Dec. 22, 2006.

At the time, more than one metric ton was found aboard the 30-foot boat and the two Colombians and one Mexican who were aboard it were released by the prosecutor assigned to their case.

Since then, it has been sitting at the Coast Guard station in the northwestern Guanacaste beach of Playa Flamingo.

Police were draining the boat Friday after it had filled with rain and, hidden inside it, they found 40 one-kilo packets of cocaine, the statement said.

So far this year, police in Costa Rica have seized about 25 tons of cocaine.

-Tico Times

Health authorities Friday launched a national campaign aimed at vaccinating 70,000 children ages 18 months and younger against chickenpox.

Public Health Minister María Luisa Avila explained during a press conference that in Costa Rica, four in every 100 children die from severe severe cases of this childhood illness.

Eduardo Doryan, president of the Social Security System (Caja) said the vaccines will be widely available at public medical facilities in an effort to make it accessible to the country's entire population.

Young children will now receive the chickenpox vaccination when they get a series of basic vaccinations against other illnesses including diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, rubella and mumps, according to the daily La Nación.

Providing the chickenpox vaccination to these children will cost the Caja more than $1 million.