Covers of Cranberries and Alanis Morissette
Singers Heidy Ortuño and Marcia Mora, 9 p.m., El Observatorio, opposite Cine Magaly.

Miami-Costa Rica Collective in concert
Modern jazz, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Yuri Honing Trio in concert
Jazz, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

After almost 50 years of severed ties, Costa Rica will re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, President Oscar Arias announced Wednesday afternoon.

The move, announced via a press release, comes after Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno hinted earlier this week that a rapprochement was possible.

In the announcement, Arias said he had arrived at the decision “carefully” and “responsibly.” Times change, he said, and “ Costa Rica needs to change with them.”

“The hour of direct and open dialogue, official and normal relations, has arrived,” Arias said. Formal ties, he added, “permit us to address our agreements and disagreements speaking head on and with sincerity.”

Costa Rica has not had formal ties with Cuba since then-President Mario Echandi cut off diplomatic relations with an executive decree in Sept. 1961. On Wednesday, Arias signed a new executive decree to reestablish relations.

Prior to Arias' announcement, Costa Rica was one of only three countries in the Americas without diplomatic ties to Cuba, along with the United States and El Salvador. According to news reports, it is expected that Sunday's election of left-leaning presidential candidate Mauricio Funes in El Salvador would lead to restored relations of that country with Cuba.

Arias said the two countries would announce ambassadors in the coming weeks.

“For now,” he said, “as the oldest democracy in Latin America, as the little country of peace, we are extending our hand to the Cuban people, and are sending by sea and air an olive branch to begin again the good work of building friendship.”

In an urgent call to save Nicaragua from its grinding crisis of ungovernability and slide toward economic ruin, the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) Wednesday called for an authentic and inclusive national dialogue aimed at getting Nicaragua back on track to becoming “a country that is viable for investment and economic development.”

At the root of Nicaragua's current economic and political crisis, according to AMCHAM President Róger Arteaga, is the issue of last year's electoral controversy, in which the ruling Sandinista Front is accused of having stolen more than 40 mayoral seats.

The United States last week gave the Sandinista government 90 days to sort out the electoral mess or risk a permanent suspension of $62 million in Millennium Challenge development aid. Ortega responded angrily, saying the elections will not be “negotiated.”

Arteaga says he fears that if the U.S. cuts off aid, other European nations and international lending institutions could follow suit, spelling disaster for Nicaragua.

“The cause of the problem needs to be resolved,” Arteaga told The Nica Times.

That position was repeated yesterday by AMCHAM, which released a statement reiterating its demand for a vote recount and a mediated national dialogue to find a “minimal consensus for governability.”

AMCHAM urged the Ortega government to allow Managua Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes to mediate the dialogue, as he offered to do during last Sunday's Mass.

Arteaga also criticized Ortega's politically staged attempt last week to start a national dialogue by talking at a group of business leaders for several hours. Critics were quick to note that Ortega's idea of a national dialogue was not much different than his customary monologues.

A true national dialogue, AMCHAM insisted, has to be mediated and be representative of all sectors of society if the country is going to arrive at any meaningful accord to “overcome the crisis of governability that we suffer and recover the confidence of the international community.”

Agricultura Mecanizada Chapernal S.A., the corporation whose 2006 mining concession cost Costa Rica's former Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Minister Roberto Dobles his job, has been accused of illegally diverting water from the same river where it later received the concession, and was the subject of a criminal investigation

Agricultura Mecanizada Chapernal, where the former minister's uncle is listed as vice-president, has ties to a network of corporations where family members and business associates of both Dobles and his second cousin, President Oscar Arias, are listed as officers.

It is also one of seven corporations that formed the Sociedad de Usuarios de Agua Rio Aranjuez, a corporation whose name literally means the Rio Aranjuez Water Users Corporation. That corporation received a concession to use water from the Aranjuez River, which empties into protected mangrove swaps at the edge of the Gulf of Nicoya.

According to a report by a regional office of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET), inspectors who visited the Aranjuez River in April of 2008 found the river had been siphoned off into artificial canals leading to private farms. Below, the riverbed was “totally dry and rocky, without pools and without any sign of aquatic life,” the report said.

“The environmental damage caused by the (Rio Aranjuez Water Users Corporation)... is irreversible damage that deserves to be punished with the full weight of the law,” the report said. “The commission of this serious crime against this important ecosystem can be considered, environmentally, disastrous harm to all of the biodiversity in the area.”

This report is but the latest of several official investigations into the lack of water in the Aranjuez River and the water concession held by the corporation, including a visit by the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) in 2007.

Erick and Carlos Morice, two brothers from the area, say they have been filing complaints with authorities since 2006, but believe that nothing has been done because of the corporations' political ties.

In April of 2008, the Esparza-Orotina regional MINAET office filed the above-mentioned report with the Environmental Tribunal, but it is unclear if the court ever took action.

“The complaints make it to San José, and there absolutely nothing is done,” said Erick Morice.

Commuters may not have to wait much longer for a new way to travel to Costa Rica's capital city.

The train between Heredia and San José is expected to begin service in April, according to officials at the Costa Rican Railroad Institute (INCOFER).

Miguel Carabaguíaz, executive director of INCOFER, said the cars are on their way from Spain and scheduled to arrive in mid-April, though he couldn't specify a date.

The rails for the train are under repair. Carabaguíaz said they should be ready when the train arrives.

“We are almost done with the work on the lines,” he said. “I don't know the date, but service should start in mid-April.”

The Heredia train is a government initiative that began in 2008.

The project cost ¢2 billion (about $3.6 million, per the 2008 rate) and included the money to buy eight train cars – four trains of two cars each – and rehabilitate the lines that already exist between San José and the provincial capital.

One ride on the long-awaited train will cost ¢360 ($0.64), Carabaguíaz said, and will take approximately 30 minutes during rush hour – 20 minutes if the train runs express.

The train will use diesel fuel, but Carabaguíaz said INCOFER hired a Brazilian firm to study the feasibility and costs of installing an electric train in the future.

See the March 20 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.