Archive for December 1st, 2009
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Domestic workers in Costa Rica by way of their union, the Asociación de Trabajadoras Domesticas, are asking that the reforms to the Labour Law made earlier this year, be respected.
In June this year, legislators approved reforms to the Labour Code that guarantees domestic workers (maids) rights and placed obligations on employers to respect.
Some of the items that the domestic workers want respected are the a work day be not longer than eigth hours and to be paid overtime if required to work longer hours.
The minimum salary for “live-in” maid be not less that ¢115.435 colones monthly, plus meals and lodging. In addition, employers provide domestic workers with an insurance policy for injury at work.
The reforms to the labour law establishes these rights, but few are respected or enforced, according to the Asociación, even though the reforms establish economic sanctions against employers who do not comply.
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
The Public Security Ministry announced Monday that it plans to increase security at Juan Santamaría International Airport, Costa Rica’s biggest airport, located northwest of the capital in Alajuela.
In addition to adding 61 recently-graduated police officers, the ministry will deploy several undercover agents to the airport, although officials did not say how many.
The new protection, the ministry said, is to maintain the green star that the airport received from the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The ministry claims they earned the rating for Juan Santamaría’s safe security practices such as x-ray scanners and strict customs personnel.
In the past three weeks, officials have confiscated nine marijuana joints, two marijuana roaches and a 9-mm pistol with 15 bullets, according to the Public Security Officials. Airport officials have also inspected 382 vehicles and detained eight. The Transit Police have issued 96 citations in since Nov. 9 at Juan Santamaría.
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Jamaicans living in Costa Rica are facing more visa restrictions today as that country’s government responds to an upsurge in crime, allegedly linked to gangs from the island.
With the new regime, Jamaicans living in Costa Rica will be required to submit their cases to the Immigration Administration in downtown San José for special review.
Though not outlining the new measures in detail, Mario Zamora, head of Immigration Administration in Costa Rica, announced the restrictions recently in what he said was a reaction to major crimes committed by thugs from Jamaica.
While acknowledging that the majority of the Jamaican gangsters were not in Costa Rica legally and would not be caught under the new restrictions, Zamora said his administration still thinks the new measures are an important step in reducing climbing homicide rates.
“But the details of (each case) will be taken into consideration,” Zamora added.
The new rule comes into effect days after the Costa Rican government imposed a ban on new weapons permits to all foreigners and an exhaustive review of all existing firearm permits held by foreigners.
Targeting gangsters
Those measures were also said to target gangsters from Jamaica, although official figures show that of the approximately 2,000 foreign nationals or legal residents with firearm permits in Costa Rica, only four are Jamaicans.
The Costa Rican authorities say the clampdown is directly related to the fatal shooting of 20-year-old student Milena Madriz and police officer Randall Lopez.
According to authorities, Madriz, the daughter of the Dominican Republic ambassador to Costa Rica, was killed by a stray bullet on October 29 in a conflict between Jamaican gangs.
Thirty-year-old Lopez was killed on November 3 in a shoot-out allegedly with Jamaicans, who opened fire on the police with AK-47 rifles in San Antonio de Escazu, a mountain village north-west of San José. The AK-47 bullet pierced the policeman’s vest, which was not designed to stop that type of ammunition.
Not isolated events
Four Jamaicans have been taken into custody in connection with the two killings. A machine pistol and at least two AK-47 rifles were reportedly taken from the four.
Jorge Rojas, director of Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ), reportedly told a newspaper the two incidents involving Jamaicans were not isolated events.
“This country has a very open policy when it relates to receiving people. Some come to invest, others to kill,” Rojas said.
Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast is where the colonising Spaniards first arrived, but it is the Jamaicans, more recent arrivals, who have had perhaps the biggest impact.
In sections of the country, reggae has overtaken salsa, spicy jerk pork and chicken have replaced the usual dishes, and Caribbean English with a distinct Jamaican accent is heard as often as Spanish.
According to the Costa Rican media, the reputations of Jamaicans in that country started to take a hit in 2006 when gangsters launched a reign of terror in the country.
Gangs identified
Costa Rican investigators say they have identified two of the Jamaican gangs believed responsible for killings in Costa Rica, including the murder of Nehru Trace Haughton, who was gunned down in April 2007 in a taxi near the La Gallito in Goicoechea.
Lionel Perkins, who is in police custody facing two murder charges, is believed to be the leader of one of the gangs. Another alleged gang leader, McGordon Kirkpatrick, was killed in a shoot-out with the police.
A 17-year-old Jamaican youth was also detained recently and is in preventive detention.
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias says that peace in the Middle East could create what he calls a “new landscape” for mankind.
Arias spoke in Jerusalem on Sunday during a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Both men are Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Arias said he realizes the “most beautiful visions of peace” in the Middle East have not yet come true. But he says he hopes the dream he shares with Peres for regional peace will one day be realized and help create “a new landscape, forever more.”
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Last week another U.S. father was in Costa Rica seeking a son for whom he had legal custody of. Unfortunately, the father so far has struck out, forcing him to hired a private investigator.
This is just another case of a U.S. parent running out on a divorce decision and abducting their child. The case originated over a year ago in Boise, Idaho and the mother is believed to have fled to Costa Rica with the child. It is believed that hundreds (some say 1000s) of abducted children reside in Costa Rica.
The problem any parent faces is Costa Rica’s does not abide by interstate enforcement of custody and visitation orders. In other words, the right off the bat any parent had three strikes against them, first strike is the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, but like many countries, embassy personnel take a back seat and fail to act on information about abducted children when a parent tries to seek their help.
The second strike, Óscar Arias Sánchez administration has ignored and will not enforce any international child abduction treaties obligations and the third strike, Costa Rica is well known to, and accepts refugee applications from those mothers/fathers fleeing U.S. justice. So all a parent has to do is claim some sort of legal problem with the US and they can enter.
Another problem is that Costa Rican officials are quick to believe lies/tales of spousal abuse and seldom try to get full information by contacting investigators or judges in the United States.
While interstate enforcement of custody and visitation orders, may prove difficult, international enforcement compounds those difficulties. Absent in Costa Rica is a Child Abduction Treaty, where an order issued by, lets say, a United States court, may be enforced and one that does not run into road blocks based on the foreign country’s own law or on principles of comity (legal reciprocity). The treaty used by the United States and a growing number of other countries is the Hague International Child Abduction Convention.
The purpose of the Hague Convention is to secure prompt return of children wrongfully removed from or retained in any nation party to the treaty (contracting state), and to ensure that custody and visitation (access) rights are effectively respected in other contracting states. The Hague convention may not be used to establish or to relitigate custody. The convention applies to children under the age of sixteen and provides both substantive and procedural rules pertaining to enforcement of custody rights.
The Hague Convention may only be used and enforced where there is an existing court order for custody like the one parent has. However, its procedures may be used to regain custody where a child was taken prior to the time a court issued the custody order.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction [known as the Hague Convention] is the main international treaty that can assist parents whose children have been abducted to another country. As of August 2007, approximately 80 countries have adopted the Convention and Costa Rica is not one of them. It offers considerable assistance in the case of children abducted to signatory countries, and just in Canada alone, over 400 Canadian children have been returned under its arrangements.
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Start purring, Broadway lovers: “Cats,” the iconic musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is coming to Costa Rica in December.Twenty-one of the original “Cats” cast will perform in the Costa Rican debut of the beloved musical, bringing with them 60 costumes, 25,000 prop items and a 38-member crew. The visit is part of a Central and South American tour that will also include Colombia, Venezuela and Panama.
Five performances will be offered Dec. 16 to 20 at the Palacio de los Deportes in Heredia, north of San José. Ticket prices and points of sale are expected to be announced in mid-October.
Based on T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” – Webber set Eliot’s verses to music – the show ran on Broadway for 18 years and in London for 21, setting long-run records in both cases. The musical’s most famous song is the now standard “Memory.”
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Private security guards in Costa Rica almost double the number of police officers in Costa Rica. According to the Dirección del Servicio de Seguridad Privada del Ministerio de Seguridad, there are 20.000 registered security guards to 13.000 members of the Fuerza Pública (police).
A total of 803 licensed private companies offer private security services in all areas of the country, an increase of 202 over last two years. In 2007 there were 601 registered private security companies, growing to 722 in 2008.
Those numbers do not include the multitude of unlincensed and unorganized security companies and individuals who offer private protection to a few homes on a street.
Fernando Camacho, vicepresidente de la Asociación Costarricense de Empresas de Seguridad (ACES), estimates that there are at least 700 companies not registered with the Dirección, operating without any kind of permit.
Camacho added that the private security force could grow by another 6.000 in the coming year with the growth of insecurity.
And private security does not come cheap.
Camacho said that a private, armed security service on a 24 hour bases could cost as much as ¢1.6 million colones (us$2.700) a month.
A local, unarmed and unregistered private security service can cost a homeowner an average of ¢25.000 colones (us$43) a month. This type of service is quite common but comes with inherent risks as the officials are generally not trained and at best can only stand by to watch criminals do their thing.
Private security, according to Camacho, is a us$70 million dollar a year business and growing.
According to the latest poll by Unimer for the La Nación, 25% of Costa Ricans admit to insecurity being their main concern, a figure that was only 2% five years ago.
Juan Luis Sánchez, director del Servicio de Seguridad Privada del Ministerio de Seguridad, feels that private security guards perform an indispensible function in providing vigilance that, for the lack of funding, the Fuerza Pública cannot perform.
Sánchez admits that the police cannot be keeping an eye on parking lots or supermarkets or empty office buildings at night.
For Erick Lacayo, the director of the Fuerza Pública, private security is a complement to the police function with a specific objective of securing the needs of a particular client.
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