Papagayo hotel told
to stop blocking beach


The Sala IV has ordered the Hotel Occidental Gran Papagayo to install moveable posts instead of the current concrete pillars that residents say obstruct the route to the public beach in the Gulfo Papagayo.

A decision of the court announced Tuesday said that an ambulance had trouble reaching an accident victim because the hotel has blocked the only public route to the beach with three concrete posts that prevent even a baby carriage from passing. The accident victim claimed that the hotel has basically taking over the public beach with the approval of the Municipalidad de Carrillo and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. The court ordered that the concrete markers be removed and replaced with ones that can be moved in case of emergencies.

The decision said that hotel guests have a more spacious way of reaching the beach.


INTERPOL gets an array
of new police tools


Costa Rica's INTERPOL agents will have night vision goggles and a raft of other goodies, including a couple of bicycles, thanks to a donation from the Central American Regional Security Initiative via the U.S. Embassy.

The total donation is valued at $54,000, said the Judicial Investigating Organization which now hosts the international Police Agency since last November. The donation includes 16 computers, a high-powered Nikon camera lens, a FAX machine assorted locators, and even a device for breaking down doors.

Among other duties, INTERPOL agents are those who pick up the U.S. fugitives who end up in Costa Rica and those foreigners facing U.S. warrants.


Cocaine production down
in Colombia, up in Perú


The cultivation of the raw material for cocaine has declined significantly in Colombia, the world’s leading producer of coca, but the situation in Perú remains worrying with the amount of the narcotic grown there consistently rising, the U. N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported Tuesday.

Overall, crop surveys show the amount of coca grown in the four Andean countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru dropping by 5 per cent from 167,000 hectares in 2008 to 158,000 hectares in 2009, according to the agency.

In Colombia, coca cultivation declined by 16 per cent to 68,000 hectares, a drop of almost 60 per cent since the peak production period a decade ago.

“The drug control policy adopted by the Colombian Government over the past few years – combining security and development – is paying off,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. agency. Cocaine production in Colombia fell to 410 tons, a 9 per cent year-on-year reduction, the agency added.

The UNODC said cultivating coca in Colombia has become riskier and less profitable for organized crime, noting that coca farmers barely earn over $1 a day. The total farm value of coca production has dropped by 21 per cent, to below half a billion dollars, which is 0.2 per cent of Colombia’s gross domestic product. Coca plots are becoming smaller, more dispersed and less productive, thus increasing the demand of local communities for alternative legal sources of livelihood, the agency said.

Colombia’s action against coca cultivation and cocaine production has been matched by effective anti-trafficking policies, it added. Cocaine seizures within Colombia reached 200 tons in 2009, a significant percentage of the cocaine produced.

In Perú, coca cultivation has continued to rise for the fourth year in a row, having gone up 6.8 per cent to 59,900 hectares last year, compared to 56,100 hectares in 2008. Some 55 per cent more coca is now grown in Perú than a decade ago, although this year’s total is still half of what it was two decades ago, according to the agency.

“If the current trend continues, Perú will soon overtake Colombia as the world’s biggest coca producer — a notorious status that it has not had since the mid-1990s,” Costa warned.

There was little change in coca cultivation in Bolivia with the land under coca increasing by 1 per cent to 30,900 hectares, twice the size of the area a decade ago, the agency said.

“More eradication and greater support for development, not least for alternative livelihoods, are needed in the Yungas and Chapare regions,” Mr. Costa said. “Urgent action is also required to repair the environmental damage caused to regions that have been severely affected by mono-cultivation of coca crops,” he added.

The agency said market forces seem to be making coca less profitable. In 2009, Bolivia’s coca farmers earned 10 per cent less for the coca leaf – $265 million in 2009, down from $293 million in 2008.

“There are limits to what the Andean governments can do if people keep snorting cocaine. It is therefore up to governments in coke-consuming countries – mostly in Europe and North America – to take their share of responsibility and reduce demand for cocaine,” said Costa.