Don't post that!
Some of the little girls don't wanna hear any bad news. Just joking. Read that this morning and it is definitely a concern for the country.
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| Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels https://forum.costaricaticas.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39681 |
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| Author: | Senordos [ Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:13 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Article posted today on NPR, you can see the photos and listen to the story here: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/21/143957246/costa-ricas-peaceful-reputation-at-risk-from-cartels?sc=tw Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels by NICK MIROFF Costa Rica is Central America's most stable democracy, a peaceful country that abolished its army in 1948 and now draws nearly a million U.S. tourists a year to its national parks and beaches. But it's also right in the middle of the world's most lucrative cocaine trafficking corridor. As Mexican drug cartels push deeper into Central America, they've cast a dark shadow over Costa Rica's idyllic green image. Jim Damalas runs a tourist resort that taps into the green reputation. One of 60,000 or so U.S. expatriates living in Costa Rica, Damalas left a career in the Los Angeles advertising business to build an award-winning hotel outside the tiny town of Quepos, with sweeping views of the Pacific and its own rainforest preserve. The resort, called Si Como No, has every sort of green certification you can imagine, even tree bridges for the local monkeys to swing safely across the road. All of this — and Costa Rica's entire tourism-dependent economy — has been possible largely because of its reputation as a safe place that isn't like the rest of Central America. "People say in Costa Rica God's always watching over us. We don't have a lot of hurricanes, we don't have devastating earthquakes, we don't have devastating poverty; instead of having tanks and military, we have teachers and schools," Damalas says. But because there isn't a military and the police force has never had to be militarized, he says, "we are very vulnerable." Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, seen in Tokyo in December, says drug cartels are a greater threat to Costa Rica than the region's conflicts during the Cold War. An Unprecedented 'Menace' Recent polls show that crime and security are the leading public concern now in this country of 4.6 million people. The same laid-back attitude and openness to outsiders that draws tourists has also attracted Mexican cartels and their Colombia cocaine suppliers, who warehouse drug loads here and move them up the coastlines or overland toward the U.S. Local contacts are increasingly paid in raw product for their logistical help, so drug use has jumped, especially for crack cocaine, and Costa Rica's homicide rate has nearly doubled since 2004. "I do not remember in our whole history a menace [like] this menace with organized crime," says Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla. Chinchilla says Costa Rica's view of itself as a peaceful, law-abiding country in a poor, violent region is now being put to the test by a threat far greater than even the conflicts of the Cold War era. "During the '80s, you had forces fighting in the region, but they have a structure, they have an ideology, they were fighting for different ways of conducting the society — the problem was a political problem," Chinchilla says. "This has to do with the survival of the institutions. It doesn't matter if it is from the left or the right; it doesn't matter what kind of ideology your government has." Authorities here say recent arrests of police officers on corruption charges show the institutions are standing up to the power of the cartels, but Chinchilla and others acknowledge that the fight is only beginning. U.S. Involvement There is also a great deal at stake here for the United States as Washington's counter-drug role in the region expands. Costa Rica is still nowhere near as violent as Honduras or El Salvador, where the murder rate is more than six times higher, but there is a sense that the cartels' criminal expansion has to be checked somewhere. Costa Rican Coast Guard Lt. Rodolfo Murillo unfurls a map of the country and its long, jagged Pacific Coast. The walls are still bare at the agency's brand-new Pacific headquarters at Puerto Caldera, built with $3 million in U.S. funding. With the decline of local fisheries and new catch restrictions, Murillo says, the fisherman have turned to running million-dollar coke packages for the cartels. They pay well, he says, explaining how locals bring drug loads to shore or deliver gasoline out to sea for traffickers zooming north from Colombia in high-powered speedboats. The new docks here creaking in the waves have two berths for U.S.-donated interceptor boats designed to chase down the smugglers. The Coast Guard hasn't had any on the Pacific until now. But already officials say the smugglers are changing tactics to stay two steps ahead of authorities. They're hiding cocaine deep in the wells of fishing trawlers and building sophisticated semi-submersibles that cruise undetected far out at sea, well beyond the range of the new boats. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. |
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| Author: | Thirdworld [ Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Don't post that! Some of the little girls don't wanna hear any bad news. Just joking. Read that this morning and it is definitely a concern for the country.
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| Author: | DiegoC [ Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:43 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
It has been problematic for a long time and the central government has refused to recognize it. Perhaps that is due to the fact that they cannot do anything about it or perhaps they don't want to recognize it for fear of diminishing tourism. Head in sand syndrome or too busy admiring their press clippings from years gone by. I can think of several strong indicators in recent memory like the daughter of a high ranking government official who was caught in the cross fire of a gangland shooting near the San Pedro Mall; The unexplained assassination a couple of years ago near the Walmart (Hipermas in Guadalupe) where the murderer calmly walked up to the victim who was in a car and capped him one in the head two in the chest; Or the OIJ cop that was staked out on a gangland suspect who shot the OIJ guy dead with a round which penetrated the detective's vest. Not to mention submarines (semi-submersibles) captured off both coasts a cache of drugs left in a virtually unprotected hut in a southern Pacific town which was mysteriously stolen. And no governmental heads rolled. No, they were busy treating each other to wildly expensive meals in Pavas or taking government helicopters to weddings. That peace and tranquility nonsense evaporated years ago. |
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| Author: | 59Vette [ Fri Dec 30, 2011 12:59 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
On my last trip in October. An American friend of mine witnessed a hit on a Colombian. He heard the gunfire first. It came from a car and then the guys got out and walked up to the guy and pumped some more bullets in him. This happened just across the street of a major American hotel that the name slips my memory. Just to the west of Harry's Poas about 3 blocks and down the hill. He walked on down to murder site and he was told by someone it was drug territory related murder. Supposedly the cartel members are told not to harrass gringo's. They do not want the U.S. coming down on them. |
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| Author: | Thirdworld [ Fri Dec 30, 2011 8:44 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Don't worry guys. That new tax on corporation that they fast tracked through the legislature is going to take care of everything. All the proceeds are going towards security and fighting crime. 
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| Author: | Hangman [ Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:48 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
59Vette wrote: On my last trip in October. An American friend of mine witnessed a hit on a Colombian. He heard the gunfire first. It came from a car and then the guys got out and walked up to the guy and pumped some more bullets in him. This happened just across the street of a major American hotel that the name slips my memory. Just to the west of Harry's Poas about 3 blocks and down the hill. He walked on down to murder site and he was told by someone it was drug territory related murder. Supposedly the cartel members are told not to harrass gringo's. They do not want the U.S. coming down on them. Best Western? From your description, that sounds like the area in question. |
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| Author: | Livincr [ Fri Dec 30, 2011 10:56 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
if you think Costa Rica has problems...take a peek at the US.. I hope ya'll don't believe the problem rests with the thugs on the street who deal small amounts of illegal goods by the pound and are pursued by the local authorities. How about the international bankers, accountants, corporate layers and the afl-cio., all wrapped around bags and boxes of cash that can't even be lifted by one person. watch you back! |
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| Author: | PlaneCrazy [ Fri Dec 30, 2011 3:54 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
I'll take Costa Rica and it's relatively minor amount of petty crime and murders (usually involving people on the wrong side of the law) over more "popular" places like Mexico where over 15 of my fellow Canadians have been killed in the last 4 or 5 years. Still, even that pales to the 35,000+ Mexicans murdered in the same time frame. Costa Rica has lots of problems, but I still feel safer there then in many cities I have visited in the States or abroad. |
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| Author: | Hangman [ Sat Dec 31, 2011 10:56 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Livincr wrote: if you think Costa Rica has problems...take a peek at the US.. I hope ya'll don't believe the problem rests with the thugs on the street who deal small amounts of illegal goods by the pound and are pursued by the local authorities. How about the international bankers, accountants, corporate layers and the afl-cio., all wrapped around bags and boxes of cash that can't even be lifted by one person. watch you back! You must be one of those loser occupy protesters Lmao |
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| Author: | Hangman [ Sat Dec 31, 2011 10:58 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Srilm wrote: PlaneCrazy wrote: I'll take Costa Rica and it's relatively minor amount of petty crime and murders (usually involving people on the wrong side of the law) over more "popular" places like Mexico where over 15 of my fellow Canadians have been killed in the last 4 or 5 years. Still, even that pales to the 35,000+ Mexicans murdered in the same time frame. Costa Rica has lots of problems, but I still feel safer there then in many cities I have visited in the States or abroad. I'll take San Jose over Memphis any day. Lived there for 10 years and it can be a real war zone. http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tn/memphis/crime/ SR Memphis is overrun by monkeys |
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| Author: | Hjones [ Sat Dec 31, 2011 6:52 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Sr & Hm - I agree 1000%, I have lived coast to coast in the US and Memphis is the worst shit hole I have EVER seen. That includes Elisabeth, NJ! Hj Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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| Author: | Thirdworld [ Sat Dec 31, 2011 6:59 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Interesting logic that the subject always turns into a comparison. 
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| Author: | SinCity [ Sun Jan 01, 2012 2:24 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Hangman wrote: Srilm wrote: PlaneCrazy wrote: I'll take Costa Rica and it's relatively minor amount of petty crime and murders (usually involving people on the wrong side of the law) over more "popular" places like Mexico where over 15 of my fellow Canadians have been killed in the last 4 or 5 years. Still, even that pales to the 35,000+ Mexicans murdered in the same time frame. Costa Rica has lots of problems, but I still feel safer there then in many cities I have visited in the States or abroad. I'll take San Jose over Memphis any day. Lived there for 10 years and it can be a real war zone. http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tn/memphis/crime/ SR Memphis is overrun by monkeys more racist verbage by crt's # 1 bigot. I wish the hangman would put the noose on himself. my biggest disappointment in this board is that the administrator allows guys like this to spew their hate-filled trash. |
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| Author: | Hangman [ Sun Jan 01, 2012 9:40 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Think before you speak dummy... http://www.memphiszoo.org/primatecanyon |
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| Author: | Hangman [ Sun Jan 01, 2012 9:42 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Costa Rica's Peaceful Reputation At Risk From Cartels |
Hjones wrote: Sr & Hm - I agree 1000%, I have lived coast to coast in the US and Memphis is the worst shit hole I have EVER seen. That includes Elisabeth, NJ! Hj Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk It is terrible. Reminds me of an episode of the Wire. Careful though, because SinCity will call you racist for saying that Memphis is a 'shit hole', just because it happens to be overrun with ghetto crime. |
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