Violin and piano
Violinist Steven Moeckel and pianist Paula Fan UCR's music school, room 107, free, 7 p.m. 

Art show: 'Contextos Urbanos'
Urban theme plays big in joint exhibition by Sebastian Mello and Luciano Goizuela at Galería Amón, in Barrio Amón. Through March 29.

Electro-world concert
Mundo Loco presents Ensamble Etnico and Dj Kabuto and Koji at Jazz Café, San Pedro. www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Information gathered from slain Colombian rebel leader Raúl Reyes' computer led police to a home in Costa Rica last week where they found a safe with $480,000 believed to belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

No arrests were made during the raid on the house in Heredia, just north of San José, and no charges were pending against the couple who resided there, the Associated Press reported.

Francisco Gutiérrez, a university professor who heads an international doctoral program, and his wife Cruz Prado, also an academic and former union activist, agreed to store the safe in 1997, telling reporters last Tuesday that Reyes and another FARC leader, Rodrigo Granda, had visited their home using false names and posing as negotiators for peace in the Colombian conflict, according to AP. The couple said they were led to believe the Colombians were in Costa Rica to speak to representatives of the U.S. State Department.

The couple insisted they had no idea the safe contained $480,000 until authorities seized the money on March 14, and Prado said she believed it only contained documents.

“They (Reyes and Granda) stayed with us several days,” Prado said, according to AP. “Later, he (Reyes) asked us if a third person could leave something at our house and we said yes.”

She was also shocked, she said, upon the discovery of her guests' real identity in 2004. “We were very scared to see who we had been dealing with, but this (box) wasn't ours and we couldn't get rid of it, so we didn't tell anyone,” AP quoted her saying.

The raid occurred as Colombia has been working with Interpol to uncover ties between the country's 40-year-old rebel group and other nations.

The tip-off on the cash in Costa Rica came from an e-mail correspondence allegedly between Granda, FARC's international relations man believed to be living in Cuba, and Reyes, the guerrilla group's No. 2 in command who was killed along with at least 20 of his soldiers on March 1 when Colombian troops attacked a rebel camp just inside Ecuadorean territory, sparking a regional crisis. Colombia's military came into possession of three FARC computers found at the camp.

-Tico Times

Dozens of serious accidents occurred in Costa Rica as residents took to the coast en mass during the Easter holiday break.

The number of fatalities reached 34 as of yesterday morning, according to Nacion.com.

The total – which includes two murders and two drownings over the weekend – rose from the 28 reported Saturday by Red Cross.

Red Cross only reports “on site” deaths. As further accident victims could pass away in the hospital and more fatalities might have occurred during yesterday's journeys home from the holidays (after this article was written), the final count after Easter Holy Week, or Semana Santa, will likely rise further still. Red Cross reported sending a total of 78 people in serious condition to hospitals.

As of the Saturday report, Red Cross workers had rescued 49 people in seaside and mountain areas, and on highways and roads.

Costa Rican Red Cross President Miguel Carmona called for greater “caution and respect for the law.”

This year's Red Cross death count was not far from last year's 31 or from the 27 deaths recorded in 2006.

By Rob Bartlett
Tico Times Staff | editorial@ticotimes.net

Spanish singer Rosario Flores and Argentine group El Choque Urbano are set to perform in Costa Rica as part of the 11th International Arts Festival (FIA), taking place in multiple venues in San José, Alajuela and Puntarenas from April 11 to 20.

Alongside other events, the festival will see a “Boulevard of the Arts” created in San José's La Sabana Park. This “Festival within the festival” will be a focal point for the week's activities.

“I am convinced that the more we evolve as a society, the more our arts will develop, and vice-versa,” said President Oscar Arias, who attended the March 13 press conference for the presentation of next month's FIA program.

The festival sets out to showcase the best of Costa Rican theater, poetry, music and visual arts alongside 70 international artists and performers from 20 countries around the world.

In a controversial move, FIA has chosen China as its specially invited guest country. “President Arias personally invited China,” Aurelia Garrido, vice minister for culture, told The Tico Times. “Cultural exchange is a way to encourage dialogue and to get to know each other better.”