Security minister drawn
into Rodrigo Arias case


José María Tijerino, the security minister, was drawn into the Rodrigo Arias Sánchez controversy Wednesday.

Emilia Navas, the former chief prosecutor for financial crimes and corruption, recalled receiving a telephone call from Tijerino over the plan to formally question Arias.

She was testifying before a legislative committee.

However, the woman said that Tijerino called her after the plan to question Arias, the brother of the former president, had been canceled.

Lawmakers already knew that the formal questioning, called an indagatoria, had been canceled by order of Lillian Gómez, who was fiscal general or chief prosecutor at the time. That was after Jorge Chaverría, the current fiscal general, called her and asked her to postpone the session until he could study the facts. That call was made after Chaverría had been appointed by supreme court magistrates but before he took office.

Lawmakers are studying the Arias adminsirtation handling of money provided by the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica. The money was used to pay a long list of political operatives designated as advisors. The real purpose appeared to be to obtain compliance or at least silence from some for approval of the free trade treaty with the United States. Some of the individuals opposed the treaty.

The investigation continues under Chaverría, and lawmakers were delicate in their discussion of the case.

Tijerino was said to be interested in the case because Rodrigo Arias had thought the investigation had been shelved, lawmakers were told.

Others at the session Wednesday were Juan Carlos Cubillo Miranda and Cristian Fernández Mora, both prosecutors, who with Ms. Navas made the decision to continue with the investigation even though the questioning of Rodrigo Arias was put off. The events happened in October.

The case has wide political ramifications. Rodrigo Arias is a candidate for presidency in 2012.

In formal action Wednesday, the special committee studying the case voted to ask the Banco de Costa Rica to provide copies of all the checks involved in paying out the funds provided by the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica.

Action on bridge sought


The Defensoría de los Habitantes had asked the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad, the highway agency, to fix a bridge over the Río Pejibaye in the canton of Jiménez in Cartago. National route 225 passes over the bridge.

The Defensoría cited what it said by the bad condition of the bridge.

The Defensoría suggested in the meantime to restrict the bridge to vehicles weighing four tons or less and to install a bailey bridge.

Wikileaks revealed details
of U.S. free trade campaign

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Regarding your assessment of the impact of the cables obtained through Wikileaks has made on the news in Costa Rica, I have to agree that this impact has been ho-hum.

Yet, everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room revealed in these cables. This elephant is the number of the cables that focus on U.S. embassy’s efforts to persuade Costa Rica to pass the free-trade treaty. A rough count shows that over two-thirds of well over a hundred cables dealt with one or another aspect of U.S. strategy to promote passage of this treaty.

Granted, it is no news that the George W. Bush administration wanted Costa Rica to approve this treaty, as neither is it any news that U.S. officials intervened in Costa Rica on numerous occasions to promote its passage.  President Bush also had the legal, if not the moral right, to direct the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica to pursue his preferred policy agenda.

Nevertheless, when it is appreciated that support for this treaty in both the U.S. and Costa Rica was fairly evenly divided, Americans might wonder why their embassy went to such lengths to insure its passage.

Indeed, the embassy is notorious for providing shoddy services to American citizens and didn’t even get around to telling anyone actually living in Costa Rica that it believed the peanuts here could be dangerous (perhaps for fear that announcing this would risk support for the treaty among peanut growers), yet it prioritized the passage of a treaty that many Americans as well as Ticos opposed.

The big news revealed by these cables is that the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica was thoroughly politicized in pursuit of a narrow economic agenda during the Bush administration.   Thanks to Wikileaks, Americans can ask themselves if this is what they want from their government abroad.