Rains hit Guanacaste hard
and put some in shelters


Sections of Guanacaste got up to 65 mm. (2.6 inches) of rain over the weekend, and parts of Santa Cruz were knee deep in water.

Daniel Gallardo, president of the national emergency commission said that some 70 families had been put in shelters there. Boats were trying to establish contact with other communities that had been cut off by the flooding.

The Instituto Meteorólogico Nacional said that cloudy skies would continue today but suggested that the worst might be over. It predicted weather typical for the season, which means downpours in the afternoon.

The automatic station in Liberia registered 42.6 mms. (1.7 inches) of rain Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday and some 23.8 mms. (.94 inches) from 7 a..m. on.

The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias issued an alert for the area.

Rainfall was considerably less in the Central Valley and in Limón province. However, in Pavas nearly an inch of rain was reported Saturday.

U.S. citizen takes a bullet
and then endures crash


A U.S. citizen was one of three persons wounded Saturday night in Jacó when two men on a motorcycle opened fire. Then the man became a traffic victim when the ambulance carrying him to Hospital Monseñor Sanabria in Puntarenas collided with a car and overturned.

The man was identified by the last name of Grant. Two Costa Ricans also suffered bullet wounds although none was thought to be life threatening. Four rescue workers were injured when the ambulance overturned as it neared Puntarenas centro.

Meanwhile, in Limón on the Caribbean two U.S. citizens are recovering from bullet wounds. One was identified as Terry Harold, who was shot in the stomach. Harold told the Judicial Investigating Organization that he was shot by a man who tried to hold him up when he was in a park in the area known as Siglo XXI.

Attendants at Hospital Tony Facio said a second U.S. citizen also was there. They identified him as Henry Mckann, 57. They said he also suffered a bullet wound.

Rifles and pistols lead
to arrest of four men


Fuerza Pública officers detained four men, including one identified as a U.S. citizen, after shots were heard in San Jerónimo de Moravia, they reported.

Investigators reported that they found at least four weapons within the two cars used by the men. One weapon was an AK-47 rifle, they said.

The arrests took place in an area known as Calle Tornillal.  The U.S. citizen was accompanied by a Dominican and two Costa Ricans. He was identified by the last name of Steven.
Among the weapons also was a 9-mm. pistol and a number of cartridges, said police.

Another coastal quake


A short shock at 7:38 p.m. Saturday came from an earthquake estimated at a 4.1 magnitude about 11 kms. northwest of Quepos, said the Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica. The shock was felt from Puriscal to the Central Valley to Pérez Zeledón, said the observatory, an agency of the Universidad de Costa Rica and the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad.

Arias to attend forum
on peace plan Aug. 21


President Óscar Arias Sánchez will go to Nicaragua to talk about the Central American peace plan on its 20th anniversary.  Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo has invited him to a forum Aug. 21.

The event will be at the Universidad Católica de Managua where Arias also will receive an honorary doctorate. He also ready holds an earned doctorate in political science.  Obando y Bravo was the mediator for the peace plan that ended multiple wars.

There was no word if Daniel Ortega, the current Nicaraguan president who was also president 20 years ago, would attend. He did not come to a similar event last week in San José and called Arias a conspirator with the United States in an interview in Managua.


He reports bribe demand
by airport public official

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I have been an avid reader of your e-paper for several years and have relied on your reports.  I am an American living in Santa Barbara, California.  My wife is a naturalized American citizen and a Costa Rican citizen.  We have two daughters, ages 8 and 11 years, who are American citizens (born in the U.S.A.), and they are also Costa Rican citizens.  They travel to Costa Rica every summer for four to six weeks vacation.  They always travel as U.S. citizens carrying U.S. passports.

On Saturday they were returning to the U.S. on an American Airlines flight.  As they passed through immigration she and the children were questioned by the officer, (who refused to give his name).  He told her she did not have the necessary permission from Costa Rican immigration for my children to leave the country because they were also Costa Rican citizens.  She asked to speak to his supervisor, and he told her this would make matters worse.  The kids were crying and in the end he demanded a $100 bribe of which she paid $60 and was then allowed to leave the country.

I am sure your readers would be interested in this report and you may reprint it with my permission.  I will send copies to the American Embassy and Costa Rican Immigration as well.