A.M. Costa Rica: Your English language daily news source

U.S. uses creativity to bring back perpetual tourist fugitive

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

There is more than one way to snag a fugitive.

The U.S. government had been in pursuit of Richard D. Pate since late 2005 when the 50-year-old man is believed to

Richard D. Pate in 2006 file photo

have entered Costa Rica. He was fleeing an allegation in Williamson County, Texas, that he sexually assaulted a child.

U.S. officials thought they had him in June 2006 when he was picked up entering Costa Rica from Panamá at Sixaola. He was jailed in Limón, and the U.S. government began extradition proceedings.

In November of 2006, the court in Limón released Pate from custody because it said that there was no identical crime in Costa Rica like the one he faces in the United States.

U.S. officials did not find out about this decision until January 2007, according to the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force in Texas.

Pate is believed to have returned to his home in Atenas confident that he would not have to face trial in the United States.

However, officials had one more trick up their sleeves. Investigators subsequently filed a federal unlawful-flight-to-avoid-prosecution complaint and warrant against Pate, seeking to have Pate’s passport revoked on the basis of the federal warrant, said the task force. As a result, U.S. State Department officials revoked Pate’s passport, giving Pate no status to remain legally in the country, the task force said.

Costa Rican law enforcement officials were then able to arrest Pate in Atenas and hold him as a violator of the local immigration laws. They did so Dec. 5. The Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería determined that Pate had no legal right to remain in the country and officials ordered his deportation.

Pate arrived at the Miami International Airport and was remanded into the custody of the Dade County Sheriff’s Office pending extradition to Williamson County.

Pate was living in Costa Rica as a perpetual tourist, an individual who renews his tourist visa by traveling outside the country every 90 days. Many fugitives choose this status because in order to gain other forms of residency a criminal background check is required.

Coast guard seeks ship's physician after Windstar tumble

By Elise Sonray
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The physician on a Windstar cruise vessel fell off the boat Tuesday morning about 25 miles (41 kilometers) out from Flamingo, Costa Rica, said Fuerza Pública officials.

The man, Manuel De León, was 30 years old and from the Philippines, said officials. “They think he fell somewhere between 4 a.m. and 6 .a.m. Tuesday,” said Manuel Silva, chief of the Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas in Flamingo. Silva explained that the event was recorded on the ship's security cameras. “It is not known if he jumped or fell,” said Silva. According to reports the man had not been drinking, said Silva.

The coast guard received the report from the MSY Windstar at 6 a.m.. A vessel with four coast guard officers began a search, at 7:35 a.m. with no results. At 1:30 p.m. an airplane from Servicio de Vigilancia Aérea began an air search of the Pacific.

“Their is a very remote chance that he is alive. It is a difficult situation,” said Silva. “He was not wearing a life jacket,” Silva added.

“This is the first occurrence of this kind on a Windstar cruise,” said a Windstar spokesperson.

“The ship's crew is conducting an extensive search.” The ship was on a chartered cruise, according to Windstar officials. It departed Monday evening from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua and was headed for Playas del Coco, Costa Rica, to arrive Tuesday, said Vanessa Bloy, Windstar director of public relations.

The MSY (masted-sail-yacht) Windstar was the first of the company's three yachts. It holds 148 passengers and was constructed in 1986.

The coast guard search stopped at 4:40 p.m due to the declining sunlight but will resume at 8:30 o'clock today, said Silva.

Arias backs counterpart, Álvaro Uribe, in his struggle with Colombian rebels

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

President Óscar Arias Sánchez strongly supported his Colombian counterpart Tuesday in a speech at the inauguration of a theme park. Arias said he hoped that the Colombian, Álvaro Uribe, is able to arrive at a just peace in his land.

"Each day Colombia reminds us that we are not able to fight for our own liberty without fighting for the liberty of all the rest, that we cannot permit that hate conquers a single corner of our holdings, that we cannot give a centimeter of democracy for a kilometer of security," said Arias.

For his part, Uribe said that Arias had captured the imagination of many in Latin America with his call for a reduction in military spending in favor of social investments.

Uribe launched a verbal attack against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the rebels who have been waging a 40-year insurgency in his country. Although he did not mention Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez by name, he clearly was responding to the statement by Chávez that the rebels should be treated as an insurgent group and not as terrorists.

Chávez has been involved in freeing two hostages that have been held by the Marxist rebels. The United States and several European countries consider the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias to be terrorists because they engage in hostage-taking, drug smuggling, military attacks and bombings.

The men were speaking at an agricultural theme park in San Mateo, near Orotina, that has been built by Colombian investors. The facility, Parque Nacional de la Cultura Agropecuaria, is said to house up to 200,000 animals.

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Art Galleries ....
Imagen V show has a few gems but a pack of clinkers, too New media art is always a bit hit and miss with the potential to come across as a foundationless piece of pretension if it is not done well. The Bienal Iberoamericana Inquieta Imagen V, a competition for video artists from across Latin America, is a good example of this, containing a few pieces that engage well with the subject and make the most of their medium, but many that leave the viewer cold. Most of the works are video projections, some as short as a pistol shot and the flight of birds and some as long as a didactic letter that teaches about identity, isolation and fuschia flowers. Other media range from photography and animation to Internet blogs and ancient video games. Out of almost 200 entries from 13 different countries, 37 were chosen to fill the spaces of the Museo de Arte y Diseño, and some of them leave a viewer wondering what was so awful about the rejected works. The vast majority of entrants were Costa Ricans, and works were chosen for show to create a panorama of Spanish-American works that is accessible to both the public who have engaged with technolgical art before and those who are encountering it for the first time. Five works won cash prizes, including an undeserving triptec of photographs showing poor Nicaraguans searching through a dump to find articles that give some beauty to their lives. Not an original idea nor interestingly photographed, the series was praised for using the presence of children to humanize a degrading situation. One projection's entire focus is a sequence of slightly blurred changing Christmas scenes, seemingly chosen only for its fittingness to the season, and several others that were too bland to make any sort of impression on the memory. Read more - click here	Mistaken identity? No such thing, says new exhibition Costa Rica is a land of volatile volcanoes, orchids, coffee fincas, Catholicism and Ticos. Or you could say it's a country of wide seashores, football stadiums, fast food restaurants and beach towns overtaken by Gringos. Some are clichéd symbols of a tourist nation, while others are part of the country's changing culture, but all are involved in Museo de Arte Costarricense's new exhibition that challenges viewers to reconsider their own perceptions of the nation. Read more - click here Oriental engravings brighten up Semana Japonesa in Calderón Guardia Oriental engravings that have travelled half way across the world from Japan have ended their journey in Museo Calderón Guardia, where an exhibition of 75 works was inaugurated Thursday. Subjects from autumn trees to high-rise apartments chart the growing influence of the West and development on post-war Japan. Read more - click here Banco Central exhibit brings out the animal in art The Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica is running "La Animalística en el Arte Costarricense" in its temporary exhibition space below the Plaza de la Cultura. The collection presents the varying uses and depictions of animals by Costa Rican artists throughout history. The exhibition signage placed at the entrance said that the presented works depict animals from two perspectives. Read more - click here
Festivals ...
In review... Young rockers forge cultural links, even if no one was there to see it Cross-cultural dialogue is not confined to the United Nations. It can occur anywhere, with anyone, in any medium and Quepos proved this last weekend at Costa Bazooka, an international music festival. 18 bands from the United States, Costa Rica and Mexico jammed until five o´clock in the morning, beginning Saturday at 2 p.m. Mexican band Defecto The virgin music festival is the brainchild of Bruce LaPierre, a concert promotor from Boston. He recruited many of the American bands himself and said, "The best part about this whole thing are the friendships with the Costa Rican musicians. We´re intertwined now." Mauni Villa, a 21-year-old guitarist of San Jose´s own Akasha, also emphasized this. "We´ve made a lot of friends," he said. The talent was young, fresh, unfettered with record deals and excited about the opportunity to play an international scene. It wasn't uncommon to hear the exclamation "We just got our passports!" emanating from backstage. Over half of the band members of Street Circus Symphony, from Savannah, Georgia, and one member of Endway from Boston, Massachusetts, received expedited passports in 24 hours. "We didn´t actually believe we were going to be playing in Costa Rica until we were on the bus here from San Jose," explained Ben Bowne, bassist for Street Circus Symphony. To read more click here	Upcoming... January Welsh festival brings stars of the page to Colombia There is a town in Wales that is full of books. On every corner of every cobbled street there is a store with second-hand books spilling from its wooden shelves, and often several on the stretch in between. Each year, this little town in the foothills of the Black Mountains — usually a haven of peace for a quiet cream tea down by the river — becomes a pilgrimage for the literary, intellectuals and people who just love a good read as it holds Britain's greatest festival of books, the Hay Festival. Read more - click here February First International Blues Festival Texas blues bands are heading down to Santa Ana for an afternoon of live music. BBQ's and cold beers will accompany artists including Smokin Joe Kubek & Bnois King and Robbie Clarke & the Live Wire Blues Band. Two stages at Motorpsychos Bar and Grill will host a total of seven bands during the afternoon of Feb. 9. Tickets cost $25 and can be found by contacting www.bluesdevilsband.com. Identidad Art Festival Fifty artists will have the enviable job of displaying their work on a warm beach in Guanacaste this February, as part of the Identidad Art Festival. Hosted by Playa Conchal Reserve, the festival aims to revive the cultural values of the area, promoting local art as a tourist attraction. Painters, sculptors and musicians are all welcome to participate and show off Costa Rican talent to the high season tourists during Feb. 2-4. Interested parties should visit the site www.myspace.com/identidadartfest.
Food...
Festive season proves troublesome even for established restaurant Being a chef in a busy kitchen must be a pretty stressful job, but around Christmas stress is something any successful restaurant should factor in as inevitable. On a second visit to well-reputed French restaurant Le Chandelier, it soon became obvious that the staff were poorly equipped for the onslaught of Christmas party diners on a Tuesday night, leaving the usually decent food to deteriorate into a procession of almost inedible starters and bland entrees. Set in an old San Pedro house with brick ceilings and wooden beams that was converted into a restaurant around 15 years ago by Swiss owner Claude Dubuis, Le Chandelier purports to offer French cuisine that has been developed over generations of experience. Click here to read the full review	A great meal is not all in the presentation With a vaulted glass ceiling, palm trees lining the pathway and posh lighting, one would not expect Saga restaurant to be settled behind a dull parking lot in Escazú. Although this restaurant may look out of place, it doesn't deviate much from the norm in Escazú, an area many would classify as suburban sprawl. The majority of the cuisine at Saga seems to fit with the setting: classy presentation, yet lacking any profound flavors. Although the restaurant boasts itself as an “international food restaurant” on its Web site, much of the inspired cuisine is lacking the depth which would be found in authentic dishes. There is no direct theme and the menu seems somewhat scattered. Click here to read the full review
Dramatic Arts...
Minotaur theme wins contemporary dance festival The search for happiness within ourselves rather than in superficial external objects was the theme of the winning dance at the 24th Festival de Coreografos this weekend. A bull-headed dancer took the centre of attention of Antonio Corrales' piece “Solo sueña un minotauro,” presented in front of an international board of judges Sunday. The judges said that the composition stood out from the other nine contemporary dance acts for its "good choreographic approach, good line, good idea, excellent lighting design, continuity with symbols and finally poetry.” Corrales was both the choreographer and the dancer of the piece, which is the first entry he has made into the competition as a choreographer. Four other acts were also chosen to participate in the opening night of next year's festival: “Imágenes imaginadas para imaginar, serie I,” by Rogelio López, “Mil kilómetros” by Nandayure Harley, “MIA ZOI,” by Iréni Stamou and “4 a.m.” by Silvia Ortiz and David Hernández.	Symphonic Conductor is a big supporter of music education A mugging at gunpoint could have robbed Costa Rica's Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of its new conductor just as he was beginning the job, but the conductor, Chosei Komatsu, did not turn his back on San José, and now the next generation of musicians is feeling the benefit. Eating ice cream in the same hotel outside which he was mugged in 2004, the sweet-toothed conductor recounts how the media assumed that he would flee the country immediately. "I told them I would fulfill my job," he said. "Musical education conductor Chosei Kamatsu can help to abate the rising violence in this country. I want to put violins instead of guns into the hands of the children." Last month Komatsu saw a big step forward, as the government of his home country, Japan, finally agreed to a $500,000 donation to the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and the Instituto Nacional de Musica. The money, which Komatsu asked for when he was appointed in 2003, has gone towards replacing 25-year-old tubas and other important instruments for the orchestra, as well as getting better facilities for the educational institute. Komatsu said he knows that it is important to get children interested from a young age, as he first became determined to follow a career in conducting as a 4-year-old watching Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan in action on television. Read all of our interview with Chosei Komatsu here
Books ...
New book dwells on the social aspects of food Food is not just a selfish pleasure or a way to stifle hunger, but is central to the evolution of art, according to a new book published by Museos del Banco Central. Artworks by Costa Rican painters are the main content of the hardback book, “Imagenes para Comer,” which follows the representation of food in art since still life painting became popular in the Renaissance. Full-color pictures of both traditional and modern works are far more common than recipes, as the author Marjorie Ross only provides seven recipes within the book. All are traditional Costa Rican dishes showing influences from different sections of the community, such as corn fritters, white beans and chorizo and fruit salad. The book focuses on the meanings that food has within society, and how these are portrayed by art. Click here to read more	Front cover of art cook book

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