Casa Alianza, the child advocacy organization, said it has asked the Geneva-based U.S. Committee against Torture to investigate the Academy at Dundee Ranch because of "complaints about cruel and inhumane treatment of children." 

Casa Alianza included with its request a narrative by an ex-director of the ranch.  That person is believed to be Amberly Knight, who has charged that the mostly North American youngsters at the ranch were given substandard food and forced to kneel for prolonged periods on concrete floors.

Casa Alianza declined to release the text of her narrative. It is not immediately clear what the result of such a U.N. investigation would be. Casa Alianza said that under international treaty U.N. personnel would be able to perform an inspection. 

Ranch owner Narvin Lichfield and his Costa Rican wife, Flora Herrera, are facing allegations of depriving the youngsters of their liberties. He was arrested Thursday night after two days of investigations at the location near Orotina. 

The estimated 200 youngsters who were at the Academy at Dundee Ranch are troubled individuals who had been sent to the ranch for a form of behavior modification practiced there. The parents paid about $30,000 a year for the program. At least half of the youngsters have left or been taken elsewhere. 

Many of the youngsters have behavior problems, have used drugs and alcohol or have other undesirable vices. The school, one of eight operated by the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools in St. George, Utah.

Casa Alianza cited unspecified news reports that said the academy does not have permits from the Ministry of Public Education nor the Ministry of Health.  About 100 of the teens at the ranch had expired tourist visas, officials have said.

Parents who sent their troubled youngsters to the facility have to sign a contract. Presumably the 

A group of youngsters fled the facility Tuesday when a public prosecutor told them they had rights under Costa Rican law and could not be kept there against their will. The youngsters are not fully accounted for.

Casa Alianza has been helping Susan Flowers, a non-custodial parent who had a 15-year-old girl at the camp. Ms. Flowers has been active on the Internet and in contact with officials and the news media in reporting on alleged abuses at the ranch. Being non-custodial means that a judge in the United States gave her husband full custody of the child, and it was the husband’s decision to send the girl to Costa Rica.

Ms. Flowers has said her husband won full custody because she did not have the money to oppose him in court.

The Academy at Dundee Ranch is a former hotel. It features, among other amenities, a swimming pool.

Rosalia Gil, minister of the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, appeared on television Sunday night and said, essentially that Costa Rica does not maintain behavior modification facilities like the one in Orotina nor do officials have experience with such facilities. Therefore, officials hope that the facility is removed to the home nation of the youths there.

Bruce Harris, regional director of Casa Alianza, responded by e-mail to a question about what parents should do if their teen were out of control. 

"Rather than dealing with a teen when s/he is out of control, " said Harris, "if there is sufficient care taken with the younger child before he becomes a teenager, then there would not be as many problems."

"If there is a teen with a problem  we would need to know what exactly are the problems before offering advice as to what to do," he said, adding, "Teens generally reflect family and emotional issues."

Would you want your teen to be doing cocaine or worse with his shiftless friends or kneeling on a concrete floor gaining discipline at Dundee Ranch?

It doesn’t matter that a lot of the North American parents have contributed to the problem with bad relationships and vicious divorces. A number have voted with the checkbooks to entrust their teens to institutions like those of  the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools.

Coming now to second-guess the parents is the local fiscal, the Costa Rican child welfare agency, a non-custodial parent and Casa Alianza. They apply the governmental version of the thermonuclear bomb.

Not only do they close the place, but, according to a parent, the fiscal tells the kids that if they are over 15 they cannot be held against their will. The concept of in loco parentis is not in his lexicon. The crack dens of Jacó are that way, youngsters!

Some of the teens still are missing, according to most recent reports.

The facility is destroyed. Half the estimated 200 youngsters have gone elsewhere. The rest will soon. The owner and his wife are facing charges.  Some 90 persons have lost their jobs or soon will.

The charges leveled at the school are not very persuasive. Much of the complaints come from a former director who has turned on her former employer and from a non-custodial parent. We 

The child welfare agency, the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, is critical of the food, the training of the staff, the physical plant. 

This is the same agency that can find Costa Rican kids sleeping on the sidewalk within a block of its main office. You would think that they would have a little more understanding.

Dundee Ranch has a swimming pool, and some Costa Rican schools do not have books. 

Nevertheless, we have to assume that all parties in this disaster mean well. If that is the case, the differences are of philosophy. The do-gooders here are horrified that someone may whack a youngster or place them for lengthy periods on a concrete floor to meditate on their faults. Have they never heard of Catholic school?

The more pragmatic Dundee school officials recognize that they are the last resort for many of the youngsters. The students already have had their share of shrinks, counselors and probation officers in their home country. 

Time was when you could send male youngsters like this to the U.S. Marine Corps to have their life straightened out. These days even the Marines don’t want to bother with losers.

The school is at fault if officials there have not complied with Costa Rican immigration procedures and obtained student visas for the youngsters. The government said about 100  were not legal. 

But from the very beginning, this campaign was not about paperwork. It was about philosophy, that someone interested in filthy money would dare to set up a corrective school when child rearing should be in the domain of the government.

This is a big week for the tourism industry where seminars and exhibitions during the day give way to parties at night.

It’s the week for Expotur, which will be opened formally by President Abel Pacheco Tuesday at 
7:30 p.m. Hotel Melía Cariari, according to Casa Presidencial.

The actual event will be at the Hotel Herradura and Conference Center west of San José enroute to Juan Santamaría Airport.

Seminars start today, but Wednesday and Thursday are the days that vendors man booths to show their wares to visitors. Both vendors and potential users of tourism products, mostly travel agents, pay to participate in the event, which is sponsored by the Asociación Costarricense de Profesionales en Turismo.

The event comes at a time of stress for the tourism industry. Many San José hotels are up for sale, reflecting a tightening of tourist budgets, primarily in the United States and Canada. Total tourists are reduced, in part by concerns generated by the coalition war in the Iraq. 

When Pacheco speaks Tuesday he doubtlessly will stress his government’s opposition to sex tourism.

U.S. citizen needs
blood donations

Keith Harris Lindsey, a U.S. citizen, is supposed to have an operation Tuesday at Clinica Biblica in San José and because of his medical condition friends are trying to locate 10 units of O-negative or A-negative blood.

A family friend, Beverly Penner, said Sunday night that Lindsey is a long-time associate of the Canadian club and that he and his wife have helped with a lot of charitable work.

Would-be donors should visit the clinic’s blood bank no later than today, said Mrs. Penner, adding that donations of other types of blood also would be welcome.

Rains come back
to Central Valley

A bit more than four inches of rain fell Saturday and Sunday at the government weather station in Barrio Aranjuez. Some 69 mms. were registered.

The weekend rains followed an unusual three days of clouds but little rain in the Central Valley. Afternoon downpours are highly likely from now until Christmas.

Heavier rains are believed to have fallen elsewhere in the country.
 

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Nestor Kirchner was sworn in Sunday as president and pledged to rid the country of rampant corruption and cure its economic problems. Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil were among the heads of state who participated in the inauguration. 

Calling for cultural and moral changes in Argentina, Kirchner promised to address the serious internal issues that plunged the country into crisis. 

After taking the presidential sash from his predecessor, Eduardo Duhalde, Kirchner, Argentina's sixth president in a year and a half, greeted deputies in the National Congress before leading a parade down the famed Avenida de 

The president, a center-left politician from Patagonia, has his work cut out for him: Argentina must renegotiate billions of dollars of foreign debt, work to secure a new deal with the International Monetary Fund and put a stop to the increase in unemployment and malnutrition. 

Kirchner has been critical of the United States and the monetary fund and is often compared to several leftist leaders in Latin America, such as Brazil’s da Silva. 

The past 18 months have seen political and economic chaos in South America's second largest country. Now that political order has been restored, Kirchner must face the hard decisions fast or risk pulling Argentina further into economic crisis. 

CUZCO, Peru — Latin American leaders have closed the annual Rio Group summit here with the signing of a resolution promoting regional democracy and economic stability.

Leaders of the 19 member nations signed the so-called "Cuzco Consensus" Saturday, during a closing ceremony at an historical Incan site. The document is the product of two days of talks focusing on ways to tackle economic hardship, social unrest and political instability. Costa Rica was represented by Roberto Tovar, the foreign minister.

Speaking at the closing ceremony Saturday, Peru's President Alejandro Toledo also voiced support for

Toledo said the presidents of Brazil and Mexico will present the idea at the June meeting of leaders of the seven most industrialized nations and Russia, in a bid to win their support.

Friday, several Latin American leaders proposed a resolution calling on the United Nations to help combat drug-related violence in Colombia and other Andean countries.

A Peruvian newspaper reported the Cuzco summit also resulted in an agreement between six South American countries to rebuild the historic Inca trail that once criss-crossed the Andean mountains.