Thursday 15 November 2012

A Week is a Long Time on Avenida Segunda

 
A week ago, riot police were hauling demonstrators away in paddy waggons, politicians were slugging it out with police and human rights organisations were accusing Costa Rica of police brutality as a peaceful demonstration protesting at mismanagement of funds for hospitals and clinics turned into a violent confrontation between demonstrators and police.

Today there was another, bigger, demonstration with the same purpose, filling Avenida Segunda....but this time marked by music and mutual respect.

The police from the Fuerza Publica (the ordinary police) lining the road were all women.....the squad of men held in reserve in case of problems were kept well away and no riot police were to be seen.

Observers from the Defensoria de los Habitantes (Ombudsman's office) were stationed at key points along the route.

This time, the marchers and their petitions were received by the board of the Caja (Health and Social Security department).

The same sort of marchers as before...health service workers, but with more students this time, accompanied by clowns and musicians, exercising their right of peaceful protest.

The politicians embroiled in altercations last time presented flowers to the women police officers.
The march dispersed in the early afternoon.

Laura Chinchilla's government showed its hand last time.
The reaction of the Costa Rican people has shown them that it was the wrong hand to play.

24 comments:

  1. And this is just how demonstrations should be..much more effective.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, their message to the people doesn't get obscured...

      Delete
  2. Oh jolly good show all round - lady police with flowers good grief what next - maybe take your partners for the samba.
    The ordinary police? probably meaning what the English plain clothes peelers call The uniformed rozzers 'Wooden Tops'. All Coppers R Bs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ordinary police as opposed to security or riot units, traffic police, CID, etc.
      If someone had played it it might have been danced!

      Delete
  3. True nobility resides not in monetary wealth but in the wealth of the soul

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. I really must change my glasses before beginning to type...
      On ground A, the average Costa Rican must be pretty wealthy
      On ground B, the average Costa rican politician must be pretty poor.

      Delete
  4. Let's hope the gov has 'learned the lesson'. They have short memories though, clouded by 'self-interest' and 'desire for power'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If last week was a test ground for what public opinion will put up with it didn't give the results they were hoping for...despite all the smears in the press (expat included).
      I expect they'll put their heads together to see what else they can come up with...

      Delete
  5. We never hear anything about Costa Rica here in the UK.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We don't hear much here, Tom...not the real news...thanks to supine crony news media.

      Delete
  6. Tom. Itacostalotta to live in U/K, most should be busy putting their backs to the wheel instead of their sedentary lifestyle of computer gazing. living in hope, without much luck.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Have you seen the English Cricket score.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Not much news from anywhere else these days since all of the "foreign bureaus" were scrapped...but the cult of celebrity is alive and well, thanks to what passes for media these days...Best to you and Mr. Fly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The role of the media seems to be to put people to sleep...to disempower them by depriving them of any real news...we remember decent news media...what do younger people experience?

      Best wishes to you...and hoping for better times.

      Delete
  9. www.economist.com/node/15328544
    The interesting article above details results of scientific research into whether power corrupts - or just corrupts the corruptible.
    I've often mused on the fact that status positions attract 'the wrong person' - whilst also managing to corrupt those who might be considered a safe pair of hands. Politicians and parties that hold the reins for too long finally destroy themselves because the become convinced of their entitlement to power

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The concept of hypercrisy doesn't seem to have been thought through with much subtlety; it seems to me while the 'wimp' classification of the last paragraph might be said to arise from an exercise in hypercrisy, as defined by the authors to escape criticism of their article!

      Status positions, once entrenched, allow for succession to them only by the like minded...but feebler minded... at each remove, in politics and in main stream corporations.
      The institution run by these concept successors becomes less and less effective in carrying out the aims of the founders and replaces these by aims manageable by the less able successors.
      The institution loses its original 'value' in society and becomes more and more repressive, controlling and monopolistic in its desire to maintain power.

      Eventually someone starts making lamp posts again and we hang the buggers.

      Delete
  10. Glad that things seem to have settled down. Interesting that the route was lined with female police, presumably they did not expect too many problems or are the women there Amazon like?

    Costa Rica does not seem to appear on the map where our news is concerned, I wonder why. They are more interested in rubbish items going on locally! Have a good week Diane

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the idea of the women police was to indicate that there would be no violence on the part of the forces of law and order....
      There are some Amazons, bu most are petite and pretty.

      You can have a 6.9 earthquake here and nobody knows about it!
      Guy told me that in the week of our earthquake his local channel was absorbed by a problem of spreading duck manure!
      Still, having experienced duck manure, I can understand that local duck shit is a lot more relevant to one's daily life than a far off earthquake.

      Delete
  11. Even one peaceful demonstration is a step in the right direction, Fly. Perhaps your government is starting to learn...?

    ReplyDelete