Achievements

On May 1st, the current President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sánchez gave a speach, his last official speach as President of this small, beaten country, talking about the Achievements of His Administration. After making the TV Stations and the audience wait over an hour, he took the stand and spoke in his characteristic slow, tired, artificial tone. Each of this words ignited the blood of many citizens. Shamelessly a series of achievements were listed, many of which were either lies or where ominiously eclipsed by outrageous failures and abhorrent abuses.

Costa Rica, in many of the social networks, is currently divided between those who celebrate these achievements and glorify this man, and those who keep pointing their fingers at the gaping fails left behind. Needless to say that I am one of the finger pointers.

Truth must be told, though, right at the begining: I didn't wait for Mr. Arias to finish his speach. There's only that much lies and distasteful speaches I can take, so I found anything else far more productive, and changed the channel. (It shall be noticed also that the national channel, Channel 7 - Teletica -  known for backing up this Administration every step of the way, didn't broadcast this speach, and allegedly sent it to an alternative channel owned by them  - channel 36 - that's not available for many Cable TV subscribers.)

The points I will touch here will be the once I remember.

Environment - In here the President talked about the thousands of trees His Administration had planted, and boasted about his efforts to make of Costa Rica a Carbon Neutral Country by 2021. From the begining he brought with himself a project known as "Peace with Nature" - being "peace" his trademark word due to his Noble Prize - which holds a lot of rethoric and spotted little ideas. In the face of this there's Crucitas, a place located near Cutris of San Carlos in the province of Alajuela, and barely five kilometers (roughly 3,5 miles) from the San Juan River, which belongs to Nicaragua. In here His Administration decided to give the permission to Infinito Gold, a Canadian gold mining company, to open a mining pit. An open sky mining pit. Perhaps it is important to notice that this area is a Protected Area, a Biological Channel where the Great Green Macaw lives, a bird that lives only on a tree know as Almendro Amarillo (don't know the English name of it), a tree that takes 50 years to grow to be fit to offer nourishment and housing to these endangered birds. The deforestation already started. The land is being bared and it doesn't matter because the company promised to plan more trees in another area. I mean, sure the great green macaw can wait 50 years, right? After all, what's 50 years between friends?

The area is also criss-crossed with many underground water sources, and well, not to mention this not-so-small Nicaraguan river that flows into the Caribbean Sea, so since the gold mining uses cianure, what will happen? Nothing, says the Canadian company's engineer, because they have state-of-the-art technology and will build a pool to contain the cianure. Yeah, only this engineer was also the head of another open sky gold mine in the South of the country, in Bellavista and it went pearshaped inspite of the state-of-the-art technology. The pool leaked cianure to the soil and the water and now nothing lives there. Even the scenic value of the land went lost. So what kind of warranty can we have in the case of Crucitas? What support when biologists and geologists speak against the project and when a laws to defend the environment are revoqued to allow this atrocity? The risk is great not only for Costa Rica, which can find 40% of its water supplies contaminated with cianure, but also Nicaragua, who is in inminent danger of poisoning, not to mention the effect on the Caribbean Sea, where the San Juan pours its flow.

Achievements in the Protection of the Marine Resources - Without any specific case mentioned, as far as I listened, the President boasted on His Administration being the one that has done the most for the protection of the marine resources. Well, I this I have something to say here, since the thesis I'm working on with my mate kind of led us into some investigation. On one side, there's the case of the National Park Las Baulas, a park established in 1990 to protect the Leatherback turtles (called baula in Spanish). Though this park has been included in the project "Peace with Nature" of Arias, it has been target of many attempts to eliminated it. In 2007 environmentalist had to defend it since the Government wasn't proceeding to reclaim over 46 hectareas of land for the park. This year this Administration sought to demote the park to just a Refuge claiming to have no resources to back up a National Park in this case. Where is the achievement?

Then there are the "Áreas de Protección Marina", or Sealife Protection Areas, of which I know some thanks to the thesis. These areas are designated to protect sealife, and in many cases promote responsible and sustainable fishing from the local fishermen. The institution in charge of them, INCOPESCA, simply can't face them, nor the funding or the guarding of them, even the controling. According to the data open to the public in at the General Contralor of the Republic, over 60% of the institution's budget goes to paying wages. The remaining funds go mainly to create a digital database. The few working Sealife Protection Areas function somewhat thanks to the volunteer job of the locals and the pieced up together will of people and private businesses here and there. The Coastguard Service has no means to attend them, not to mention many if them are increasingly occupied in fighting crime, stopping the constant, abundant flow of drugs that dock in our beaches.

Poverty and lack of proper programs drive many fishermen to break into these areas to fish and be able to feed their families. But you gara think, that when the Government pays you $85 a month so you don't fish during the fishing prohibition months (some 4 months a year), and only the gas to get out of your island cost you $49 (because the Government doesn't go to your island to give you the money), one trip, how can you feed your family on the remaining $36? For a month? It's not right, but I see their point. Then since the paying isn't working, the Government is seriously considering the elimination of the "aid" (but keep the fishing prohibition on) So again I ask, exactly where's the achievement here?

Poverty - The President talked about His Administrations achievements in fighting poverty, and I just can't keep out of my head the last paragraph from the topic before. I've seen these people, I've seen the way they live, their conditions, know their fears, how the Government is bullying them into leaving the island they call home claiming they have no right to the land, but giving them nothing in return. The President, however, bursts against those who call his Administration a Neoliberal one, claiming that no Neoliberal Administration destinates over 60% of its budget to fight poverty. Good, so lets see all those achievements there, because you can well destinate X% of your budget to something, it doesn't mean it gets spent there. Lets just remember the case of the donations by Taiwan to build 150 houses for a very poor community in Pavas, San José. We are talking here about a quite handsome amount. The Housing Ministerium spent all that money in hiring advisors and planning the houses, for which they should have their own budget and their own staff, because, after all, it IS the Housing Ministerium, and when it came to build the houses, not a dime was left. There I see a budget, a large one, and see no aid to the poor.

I'm sorry, but the first years of This Administration were peppered with scandals of donations being misled to pay for "counseling" and quite expensive advisors, and the very own President and his brother, the Prime Minister weren't out of it.

Now, we must admit that there were aids for housing. Yes, Housing Aid was handled out during the Referendum where the fate of the CAFTA was being decided. The President, in his quality of President of the Nation made tours across the country, used public funds to promote the CAFTA, used every single occasion he had to promote this Agreement, to speak ill of those who went against it, and then, often in the same tours and speaches, he handed out the Housing Aids. If this is an achievement, it is one tainted with the ink of corruption and tastes a lot like bribes.

Education - In here the banner is the Avancemos program. This program basically gives money to the students, so that they stay in school. Reportedly a lot of these "scholarships" go to people who don't need it, and it is well known it goes mainly to people who support the President's party. I personally know cases of quite humble people who work in order to support their families, who wish to study and make a great effort to do so, so that they can get a better chance in life, people who have requested this aid and got it turned down over and over because when the Social Worker goes to their home they are not there. This inspite of the interested party clearly stating that he or she works in this and this schedule, or is at school at this and this hour. So again, where's the achievement here?

Money to Rise Wages at the ICE - This one made me cry out loud in outrage. The President had the NERV to say that His Administration gave money to the ICE to rise the wages of the workers. This is a BLATANT LIE. There's an Austerity Plan in place since 2008 that forbids all and any promotions in the company, even the paying of extra hours. All promotions were frozen, and even promotions for which there's budget have been frozen. This plan, of course didn't stop the company from hiring over 500 workers last year to quite high positions, none of which where allowed to be filled by inner employees. It didn't stop the spending in representation and publicity, but it did stopped wages, it did stop these alleged rises the President so happily talks about.

Infrastructure - The President boasted about the achievements in infrastructure, roads and so his Administration procured. This in and Administration that threw money at private concesions that built tollboots and charge 20 times more now than before for the same road, road that collapses like no road hs collapsed before under heavy traffic. And it collapsed for days. And how about the bridges that broke, those that took closing and spending and fixing only to be broken again in 24 hours because it was so poorly done. Yeah, the big mockery. And how about we add to that the bridges that fell, those that killed people, those that were recorded in videos hundresds of times and evaluated by the Engineers' College, which sent urgent notices years before warning about the critical situation and urged the Government to take action before they collapsed. These warnings even put indicated the year in which, if nothing was done the bridges will collapse. And they did, and yet nothing was done except shamefully placing signs warning about not crossing the bridge AFTER the bridge had fell. Okay, I'll try to be clear about the matter here: PEOPLE DIED. So, where's the achievement?

Governability - Here the President clearly expressed his regret at the power of veto minorities have.  Here he means in the Legislative Assembly, which is like the Senate of Costa Rica. After single handedly picking out the people from his party who would be in his Administration, and so make sure they would all "follow his line", thus provoking distress in his party, where his own comrades protested for the trampling of the democratic process, he complains about an Assembly that had something like a 50% of representation of the opposition. They fought to keep the balance. They fought, and fought admirably hard to defend the nation. This is his regret and these he calls "ungovernable". This coming from the same President, the same man who said he believed and practiced the Tyrany in the Democracy. This from the President who allowed  his staff to compose a memo during the Referendum of the CAFTA known as the "Memorandum del miedo" (The Fear Memorandum), which detailed the strategies to get the CAFTA to pass in the Referendum with schemes such as calling the oppositors "communists", create fear in people about losing their jobs, put all of the party's people to work for the approval of the CAFTA halting the sessions of the Legislative Assembly if needed; strategies all that were widely implemented even though when asked in National Television, the President denied and played down.

Security - For this topic the President talked about the rise in the number of police agents as an achievement in security. He blatantly ignored that this hasn't halted the rise in criminal activity across country, where now we are experiencing more violent crimes than before, where shootings happen in broad daylight. The cases come in shapes and forms our tiny country saw only in movies before. Just in statistics 50% of the population has been victim of crime and over 60% of the population with higher income and enterpreneurs have been victims of crime. The cases of violent crimes have increased, and armed robbery is quite common now. A university student is gunned down at 5 pm in a busy street not half a mile away from the university on broad day light, in the middle of a traffic jam, while she and her killer are on foot. Jamaican criminals and police officers engage in the afternoon in a gunshot fight in a prominent business and residential area close to a lot of Government Institution headquarters. People in their cars are gunned down in the morning, gunfights break in the afternoon in traffic jams from several cars, instant kidnaps and carjacks multiply. Women pushed into cars, raped, forced to empty all of their cards and then finished with a shot to the head, elderly kidnapped the same way, robbed and beaten, pedestrians kidnapped forced to empty their cards... this has a name and I have told you already about it: "the Millionaire Promenade". Again and I must be boring you by now, sounding like a broken record, but where's the achievement?

Topics I ignore if were touched are the Fight Against Corruption, where I can bring up cases such as the dicotomy between the Etics Code created by the President and his brother, the Prime Minister, which indicated that no one who has been condemned of a crime or even is under subpoena as an accused part in a trial, can be employed as a public employee. If a public employee, while holding that title is subpoenaed as an accused part in a trial, said public employee must be separated from its office. The CEO of the ICE, the State owned telecommunications company of Costa Rica has been subpoenaed in a trial where he must face charges of public funds deviating regarding a costly helicopter trip he did, using funds of the company, to drop by the wedding for the daughter of a friend. The subpoena came and the President and his brother refused to separate the CEO from his position.

Corruption in the Government with the donations by Taiwan and China spent in hefty advisor services by friends and family, secret negotiations, Free Trade Agreements which details were never explained to the people. Like a Free Trade Agreement with China, to whom only God and Arias knows what can we sell, who will flood our market, BUT gave us a National Stadium, built with Chinese workers, so not even that little investment went to the workers of Costa Rica.

And finally, though there's so much more to point out, it's the topic of the Workers, their Rights and their Warranties. Lets talk about the right to get organized in Unions, which has not only disappeared in the private sphere, but where the harrassment, threatening and firing of workers even considering the organizing of one is a common place. Workers placing a complaint before the Labor Ministerium are fired. Harrassing, abusive superiors that scream at their subordinates, force them to work more, to take risks go without even a slap on the wrist. Safety and sanitary conditions are disregarded, and the death of workers is either hidden or dismissed. Here I will not list all the things I have talked about in other entry, you can just look them up or remember them, but I'm refering to all those cases. (Public or Private, March 1st, 2010)

Add to this there's the case of the SINTRAJAP Union, the Union of Port Workers of Costa Rica, which has been blatantly and outrageously violated by the President's Administration, and which case compelled 25 Congresists of the United States of America to issue a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to take action. In the words of the congressmen 

"We are troubled by the reports of these recent steps taken by the Costa Rican government and ask that you express these concerns immediately to your counterparts in Costa Rica.  These actions are leading to a serious climate of repression and alarming human rights situation." 

(quoted from the Congressional letter to Secretary Clinton, http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2010/04/25-members-of-congress-ask-clinton-for-help-as-chaos-erupts-on-costa-rican-docks/)

It wasn't named while I watched the speach, but here I ask, where is the achievement, and where is also the achievement in the image of Costa Rica in the world?