Friday 9 November 2012

From Peace to Violence...in Hours.


We were driving into San Jose yesterday.

The Men were going to continue work on the house there while waiting for the next instalment of kitchen units from the carpenter...I was going with them to go to the Social Security (Caja) offices to query a rise in our contributions.

First we wanted to check out a DIY emporium for a cooker hood...a quest which made it clear that when developers acquire the rights to land they take no thought for the access thereto.
We finally made it after three dead ends and near heart failure as we thought  we would be going through the toll station twice.

Cooker hood aboard we headed for the centre.
Always a nightmare...this time it was Hitchcock.
Blocked...and not helped by a large bakery van doing deliveries in the lane ahead...it toook half an hour to get to the park by the Merced church on Avenida Segunda, the main traffic artery of San Jose.
There, all became clear...the flags ahead indicated that a demonstration was taking place and that the police had closed the road.

I asked Danilo to drop me there...it would be quicker to walk to the offices which were on that road...while the Men went on to the house.

I caught up with the march which turned out to be people working in and using several out of town hospitals campaigning for money for better services...money which their loudspeaker commentary alleged had been and was being swallowed by corruption by officials and politicians.
Mostly middle aged people, some women with children, only one union leader....a peaceful demo, heading, as I was, for the Caja offices.

The gates were locked on the main road side, but security staff were letting people in by the rear entrance overlooking the gardens so I took a ticket and awaited my turn.

The marchers were outside and the loudspeaker was giving it laldy....you needed to cup your hands behind your ears to have a conversation.

A security guard accepted the petition the march leaders presented, but they were not allowed into the building....and no one from the Caja board of management would meet them either inside or outside, dismissing a march as being no way to negotiate.

I think what was to follow could have been avoided if the Caja board had had the courtesy to meet the march leaders as the demonstrators would then have dispersed.
As it was, the marchers stayed on the road, blocking it completely and San Jose's traffic - which flows like treacle at the best of times - was almost at a standstill.

Query answered I went to have lunch with The Men and came back via the Caja offices just before 1.00 pm, surprised to be following a running file of riot police...plainly these were the reserves as their clear shields only bore a piece of packing tape with their number written on it in ink as opposed to the official 'Policia' shields borne by the front liners.

On Avenida Segunda the riot police had succeeded in pushing the marchers to each side of the road and were holding the line of the pavements. Pedestrians coming from side streets were allowed to cross and cars were starting to come through as the traffic police, the Transitos, brought up a winch lorry to haul the marchers' loudspeaker van away.

I've been at a number of demonstrations in my time and the atmosphere on the pavements...from marchers and onlookers alike... was one of good humoured resignation, broken by cheers and shouts of support for the man in the loudspeaker van who was, by this time, holding forth at length on the iniquities of named politicians and giving it as his view that the current government were trying to run the Caja into the ground as an excuse for privatisation.
He was playing the national anthem when the Transitos applied the chains to his van....and the cheers of support broke into gales of laughter as the winch lorry moved majestically forward and the chains parted, leaving the van where it was.

''Only in Costa Rica!'

I went off. Another winch lorry had succeeded in hauling the loudspeaker van away and people were beginning to disperse.
Everything was peaceful, traffic was beginning to move....the drama was over.

So how was it that some hours later the road was again blocked...riot police were charging demonstrators...and opposition politicians were involved in violent altercations with the police?

Because some officious policeman had rounded up eleven demonstrators for blocking traffic and this brought not only the original demonstrators, but students of the University of Costa Rica and passers by back onto the road to protest at police brutality.
The politicians said they were there to negotiate with the police and thought they had arranged the release of the eleven....the release agreement was denied by the police chief in charge of the scene and protesters started throwing the contents of roadside waste bins at the police.
There were more arrests, jostling, injuries until the street was finally cleared in the early hours of the evening.

How had this happened in a country where people will do amost anything to avoid confrontation?

Corrupt institutions have been a fact of life in Costa Rica for years....but now people are no longer relying on colluding newspapers and television for their information. They have mobile telephones...they have the internet...and despite the draconian criminal defamation laws they are using them to good effect.
Whistleblowers have emerged in government departments....which has brought about a law against divulging 'secrets'...not just those of national security, but the dirty little backstairs secrets of collusion on contracts, ministers 'forgetting' to pay their taxes....with a maximum penalty of ten years in the jug.
The law has been taken to the Constitutional Court, the Sala Cuarto, where it is hoped it will be thrown out...but it indicates the government's response to public disquiet.

The classic Central American government response. Crush it. 

35 comments:

  1. Depressing incident Fly.
    Is it power that does this? Corrupts. If they have it then they use it - but always 'against', never 'for'.
    PS Can you let me know if you can still access my blog? I had a bad incident with someone who followed it and have changed settings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is depressing....and the President announcing that the police were only doing thei duty in clearing the road is typical....had the police been better organised thet raffic chaos would not have happened inthe first place!

      Your blog has disappeared from my reading list. I'll try another way and get back to you.

      Delete
    2. I pulled up your site and it says access is by invitation only...

      Please....invite me!

      Delete
  2. I think you moved there just for the excitement! Is there a solution short of wholesale swapping out of officials' brains?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well a poll showed 57% of those questioned wanted a completely new set of political parties so there may be change by the time of the next election but one....

      I was quite chuffed to see a march on its way...took me back to 1960s London, trying to keep my feet out of range of the beetle crushers of 'C' Division...

      Delete
  3. Demonstrators on the whole (anywhere) are usually peaceful, because they want to get their point across in a way that will make people listen. It's only when police get involved with their sense of self-importance and power, that the trouble starts.

    Not the day you were expecting?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not at all!
      San Jose has a lot of demonstrations, from pensioners to animal welfare bodies.....but the powers that be, I think, felt this to be a direct challenge to authority, so sent in the police.

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. A good job I wasn't expecting paradise!

      Delete
    2. Paradise? C'est où, exactement? C'est quoi?

      Delete
    3. A French saying puts it in Paris...for women.

      Paris est le paradis des femmes, le purgatoire des hommes et l'enfer des chevaux.....

      The expats here are always gushing about how they have moved to paradise....before they start moaning about the mozzies...

      Delete
  5. A shame, Fly, as I think you thought Costa Rica might be a bit better than some of its neighbours in this respect. As for corruption, sadly power breeds it more or less everywhere, though over here it's probably a bit more discreet.

    ReplyDelete
  6. PS I had to Google "giving it laldy" - what a great expression. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is better in that the government doesn't have death squads, as in Honduras, and relies on the entrenched voting behaviour of the population to allow proper elections.....
      But people remember why the army was abolished after the civil war and are very uneasy at seeing the Nicaraguan border dispute being used as an excuse to set up elite squads.
      A most interesting period to be here!

      Giving it laldy is so expressive, isn't it! I'm glad you like it.

      Delete
  7. Sounds ugly.

    But the power of internet (and bloggers) will out I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It has caused quite a stir as being such an extraordinary reaction to a peaceful demo.

      I too think that the power of the net will provide an increasing challeng to the ruling elite.
      'El Infierno en Costa Rica' does a great job.

      Delete
  8. Why is it that politicians fail to grasp the simple truth that the will of a nation - its people - cannot be crushed, only made stronger by acts of tyranny?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's caused quite a stir - except among the gringo expats who are bleating about where to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving - as Costa Rica, in contrast to its neighbours, is not an openly repressive country.

      A shot in the foot, I believe....

      Delete
  9. Replies
    1. Not fishy enough, evidently...

      Lucky that kettling was not a technique of the sixties...'C' Division were quite hairy enough without that...

      Delete
  10. Crowds always scare me, and if I saw anything like a demonstration, peaceful or otherwise, I would be gone like the wind. Glad that you came out of it all OK. Keep well Diane

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All was fine while I was there...people were disgruntled that no one would come out to talk to them, but that was all, and there was laughter at the failure to tow away the loudspeaker van.

      I thnk the arrests were the start of the rot...it had been a peaceful protest and the marchers were not responsible for a traffic problem elsewehere, where a huge crane had crushed one of the Bailey bridges on the main road into the city...but there seemed to be a bit of a panic in the upper ranks of Plod...perhaps the President's husband was unable to drive to the club...not that he has a driving licence...

      Delete
  11. I am chuckling for the first time today. Thanks for that. The weekend was horrendous, but she was placed in a nice shady spot beneath a tree in her vet tech's back garden today. Just goes to show there are still decent and generous folk among us. I have been a waterworks today. Best to you and Mr. Fly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am so sorry about Angel, though I'm glad she has a good resting place.
      You gave her a good life...though that's not much comfort to you in the loss of a loved creature.

      Delete
  12. I don't like crowds, which is why I don't attend parades or concerts. Downtown is not my favourite place, either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After years in rural France a bit of hustle and bustle is rather welcome...will I grow tired of it...?

      Delete
  13. The internet is opening up knowledge in a way once impossible to know. Even the most restrictive governments struggle with this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It interests me that Costa Rica, with its image of a stable democracy in contrast to other countries of Central America, shows exactly the same response when challenged by citizens.
      Don't have dialogue....shut them up.
      Luckily not with death squads.

      Delete
  14. What a shame that it had to disintegrate into violence. What a bigger shame the ruling politicians have so little respect for those who voted them in, and why. It certainly wasn't so they would be ignored during a legitimate march with legitimate reasons.

    Corruption is so depressing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Long years in the banana republic of France prepared me for life here....another gerontocracy.
      Still, the status quo is starting to be challenged...

      Delete
  15. This sort of thing reminds me of the fifties when a RN Naval contingent was landed at the the request of the incumbent govt leader on a small caribbean island to aid civil power due to the political insurgents becoming out of control and committing serious offences including murder and arson.
    The officer in charge of the armed sailors, ordered a bugler to "Sound the Alert", then over a loud speaker the order was given "disperse or we fire" after reading the riot act. after repeating said orders and with no response, the next order was " the man in the red shirt waving the Red Flag; 'One round fire'.
    Soon after the persons in the green shirt and the yellow shirt who in, turn waved the red flag and were shot, the crowd reluctantly dispersed and apparently went home peacefully.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw a video of the start of the later problems where, to my great delight, one of the police chiefs addrressed the crowd through a loud hailer in the following terms

      'With the greatest of respect, we must ask you to retire...'

      Delete
  16. Or we will shoot half of you and the other half will be required to clean up the mess. Ve haf vays of not making you talk,as well.

    ReplyDelete
  17. It is a long, long path. And a pity that it takes just one stupid individual to make things so much worse.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am surprised by the vigour of the response of ordinary people to the use of riot police....sheer disgust.
      It makes me think that in Europe we accept the use of state force too easily...

      Delete