About 100 pirate taxi drivers kicked off a disturbance Wednesday in Tibás, but youngsters in the area quickly took over and kept police battling rioters through the evening.

The taxi drivers who are not licensed began the protest to complain about an agreement between the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transporte and the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos. The agreement calls for 600,000 colon fines for persons running taxis illegally. That’s about $1,420. The Autoridad sets the rates for public services. The ministry supervises the tránsitos or transit police.

The agreement also calls for impounding pirate taxi vehicles.

The protest was on the road that connects La Uruca with the Leon XIII section of Tibás north of San José.

Luis Fernandez, the regional director of the Fuerza Pública, said that the teens who joined in the protest were mostly involved in vandalism. The crowd of about 50 mid- to late teens engaged in a standoff with police for hours. The youngsters threw rocks and the police fired teargas shells.

The riot degenerated into attacks on local businesses, and at least one, a restaurant, was robbed during the melees.

Police in riot gear with shields avoided direct confrontations with the bulk of the youngsters. 

There were some injures to police from rocks thrown by the crowd. Bystanders were hurt, too.

Police are expected to round up many of the youngsters after tempers cool because most of the rioters were clearly pictured on television footage shot at the scene.

The agreement between the ministry and the rate-setting agency came after licensed cab drivers began a series of rolling protests this week in which they demanded a crackdown on illegal operators.

Licensed taxi drivers in bright red vehicles are distinguished by the yellow triangles with their license number painted on both front doors. The numbers should match the license plate number. Licensed taxis (except those on airport or hotel runs) also carry an electronic meter, a "maria."

Pirate taxi drivers may have vehicles that resemble licensed operators or they may simply be in a passenger vehicle of whatever color.

Obtaining a license is difficult in Costa Rica, and pirate taxis frequently charge less and service areas where drivers of licensed taxi decline to travel.

The licensed drivers paraded their taxis from La Sabana to Casa Presidencial in Zapote Monday and Tuesday, which is why officials acted so quickly to crack down on pirates.

The government’s case against a priest and a businessman for the murder of a popular radio commentator received a setback Wednesday.

A man who had been called the government’s star witness changed his story. The man is Jhon Gilberto Gutiérrez. Last Nov. 11 he signed a declaration that said he had been an intermediary who helped set up the slaying.

The government claims that the Rev. Minor de Jesús Calvo Aguilar and businessman Omar Chaves relied on Gutiérrez to find the triggermen.

The victim, Parmenio Medina Pérez, was gunned down by men in an adjacent car in broad daylight not far from his home July 7, 2001. His murder received widespread international exposure in journalistic circles.

The shooting took place near Medina’s house in San Miguel de Santo Domingo de Heredia.

Calvo founded and Chavez supported Radio María, which raised large amounts of money from the Catholic faithful for various causes. Parmenio Medina, who had his own weekly satirical radio show on another station, denounced the religious station for financial irregularities and for the conduct of the priest.

Tuesday Gutiérrez recanted and Wednesday he went on national television from his prison to say he did not know Chaves and only saw Calvo on television. He also said he did not meet with the men in the Hotel Balmoral downtown where the alleged deal took place.

Lawyers for both Calvo and Chaves said they would submit motions to have the preventative detention of their clients reconsidered. 

But Guiselle Rivera, the fiscal or prosecutor in charge of the case, said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon that there still was plenty of evidence to hold Calvo and Chaves.

Meanwhile, Gutiérrez went to court to report he had fired his lawyer and to ask for a public defender.

The arrests Chaves Dec. 26 in the Central Valley and Calvo the next morning in Liberia were initiated by Francisco Dall'Annese, the new fiscal general or chief prosecutor of the country. Both suspects had been questioned at length about the assassination of Parmenio Medina and both have denied involvement. The case is the highest profile criminal case in the country.

Presidents Day break
second to St. Valentine

Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 11th U.S. president who steered the Union to victory in the Civil War.

The birthday of George Washington is Sunday, Feb. 22. He was the first president of the United States and commander of the colonial forces during the Revolutionary War.

But the date you really need to remember if you are a man is Saturday, Feb. 14, St. Valentine’s Day. Just like on Groundhog’s Day, Feb. 2, any man who forgets to honor his significant other on Valentine’s Day faces at least six more weeks of winter.

Another date of note is Monday, Feb. 16. This is Presidents Day in the United States, providing many workers with yet another three-day weekend. It is a merge of Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays that used to be public holidays.

In keeping with the tradition of respecting both U.S. and Costa Rican holidays, the U.S. Embassy will be closed Monday.

Last two suspects
captured on Nicoya

Two Colombian nationals who fled law officers when their boat came aground in Malpaís Monday have been captured on the Nicoya Peninsula. That brings to five the total of the men who jumped from the boat at the climax of a pursuit by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter.

The men were on a boat some 60 nautical miles from Costa Rica in the Pacific, and coast guardsmen tried to stop them because they were drug-running suspects. The 40-foot fastboat carried a number of bundles that the men dropped into the sea. Most were recovered.

The men who fled into the Nicoya hills and later were captured are identified by the last names: Moreano Torres and Londoño Bedoya

Murdered driver
found near airport

Police found the body of a murdered taxi driver shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday when a motorist reported a suspicious vehicle at the mouth of the highway that leads to Alajuela from the Interamerican Highway. The location is not far from Juan Santamaría International Airport.

The Judicial Investigating Organization identified the man as Genaro Alvarado Esquivel, 56. He was a driver for Coope Margarita in Heredia. The man was in the back seat of the cab and had a bullet wound in the back of the head, investigators said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — President, Jean Bertrand Aristide says his country's political opposition is responsible for violence now wracking the impoverished Caribbean nation. At least three people died Wednesday in clashes between police and rioters, bringing to 46 the number of people killed since last week, when armed gangs seized several towns in the northwest part of the country. 

Speaking to foreign reporters at Haiti's Presidential Palace, Aristide says the opposition is backing the armed gangs who seized the city of Gonaives and other nearby towns over the past week. "Unfortunately what is happening in Gonaives is unacceptable. An opposition, using terrorist actions, through thugs, to keep hostage about 153,000 people," he says. "This is not acceptable."

Police say they are making progress clearing armed gangs from towns near Gonaives, Haiti's fourth largest city, which is about 100 kms. or 60 miles north of here. However sporadic violence continues in the town of St. Marc, 70 kms. (42 miles) north of the capital, where police claimed to have routed armed gangs on Monday.

Haiti's second largest city Cap Haitian is without power and there are reported clashes between police and government supporters against anti-government protesters. Aristide says despite 

"When I say we prefer to go slowly, it is to say we will be willing to go fast and make mistakes," says Aristide.

Members of a broad coalition of opposition business leaders, politicians and representatives of civil society groups, have criticized the violence now underway in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti. Opposition leaders say some of the armed gangs now controlling Gonaives are former Aristide allies who have turned on their former patron.

Haiti's current political crisis dates to legislative elections in 2000 which international observers called flawed. Since then the opposition and the government have been unable to agree on new legislative elections, leading to political paralysis.

Haiti's opposition charges that Aristide's government is guilty of human rights abuses, corruption and mismanagement, and have done nothing to alleviate Haiti's extreme poverty, charges Aristide and his supporters strongly refute. 

Opposition leaders have called on Aristide to step down, but on Wednesday Haiti's President repeated that he has no intention of leaving office before his term expires in February 2006.