Martin Trial
Draws Near Close
Amid heavy security brought on by death threats
received by the victim's mother, lawyers made final
arguments Wednesday in the trial of three Costa
Ricans accused of killing University of Kansas
student Shannon Martin.
A three-judge panel hearing the case refused to
allow testimony by a final, unidentified prosecution
witness because that testimony was based on hearsay.
But they permitted a video of Martin's autopsy to be
shown in court.
Only the defense, prosecution and the judges were
allowed in the courtroom during the presentation of
the video. Martin's mother, Jeanette Stauffer, said
she did not want others to see her daughter's
condition following the autopsy.
Rafael Zumbado, 48, Kattia Cruz, 28, and Luis
Alberto Castro, 38, are charged with homicide in
Martin's death. The case is not being heard by a
jury and will be decided by the three-judge panel.
Prosecutors also expressed regret that they have not
been able to find another potential witness, a taxi
driver who allegedly picked up the suspects after
the killing. A gas station employee said he saw
blood in the taxi after the suspects got out.
The judges scheduled a final court session for
summations and closing arguments for Nov. 24.
On Tuesday, Stauffer - who traveled to Costa Rica
for the trial - received death threats at the hotel
where she is staying along with other family
members, said Raul Quesada Galagarza, head of law
enforcement authorities for all of southern Costa
Rica.
Extra police were assigned to guard the court
following the threats, and Stauffer was also
protected by private security guards.
Quesada Galagarza said a caller threatened to kill
Stauffer, but would not say if the threat was heard
by Stauffer directly or by someone else.
Martin, a 23-year-old student from Topeka, Kan., was
stabbed to death on May 13, 2001, after she left a
nightclub in Golfito, about 100 miles south of the
Costa Rican capital, San Jose. Martin was in the
country to gather specimens for a biology project.
On Friday, a key witness in the case, Rosibel Munoz,
was forced to give her testimony behind closed doors
because of death threats. Shortly before Munoz was
scheduled to testify, the courthouse office of the
prosecutor received a call saying, "If Rosibel
testifies, we'll kill her."
Stauffer, who had offered up to $50,000 to anyone
who could provide information about the killing, has
traveled to Costa Rica constantly since her
daughter's death and vowed to remain in Golfito for
the duration of the trial.
Stabbed 15 times, Martin's body was found along an
airport access road about 100 feet from the home of
the Costa Rican family she was living with.
Coffee Producers
Express Interest in Russian market
The potential of
the developing markets of such countries as Russia
and China is utterly attractive to coffee producers.
They are prepared to intensify contacts with them in
order to increase the world consumption of coffee,
Dr. Nestor Osorio, Executive Director of the
International Coffee Organisation (ICO), stated in
Costa Rica on Wednesday.
Speaking at the current SINTERCAFE international
meeting in San Jose, Dr. Osorio said, "We take an
optimistic view of prospects for cooperation with
those countries".
More than 400 executives of coffee producing
companies, as well as those of processing and
trading firms from 26 countries, including Russia,
are attending the meeting.
Dr. Osorio recalled a coffee advertising campaign
that had been conducted in Moscow on the ICO's
initiative. Coffee consumption in Russia grows
annually by 13-15 percent and is increasingly
popular with young people, he said.
Free Market
Babies...
By Bruce Harris,
Casa Alianza
Textiles, agricultural products, and publicly held
companies are just a few of the themes currently
being negotiated between the United States and
Central America.
Countries in Central America have understood the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as
their promised entry onto the list of preferred
trading countries with the most powerful State on
the planet.
But there exists an important export that is by no
means rare but nonetheless remains outside the
framework of current negotiations. We are, of
course, speaking of the Guatemalan baby market
which, for many years, has brought tremendous
profits to a few wealthy lawyers and which, without
a doubt, already represents an important component
of the gross national product (GNP) of Guatemala.
This baby market has many advantages. It’s
profitability, for example, is enviable: the more
laws and restrictions to protect the child that
exist, the more its value increases.
The cost of production is minimal: this market
springs from bellies of the poor and disenfranchised
in Guatemala. Desperate mothers hand their babies
over for a little money, putting their fingerprints
on documents that they can’t even read. In other
cases, their babies are simply snatched away from
them in the streets.
Qualified workers abound: the brokers are
“respectable” Guatemalan lawyers who buy low and
sell high. Some of them are prepared to fight anyone
who seeks to damage this lucrative market and to
destroy any instrument of human rights or
international convention that seeks to protect
innocent babies.
There are no restrictions on the waste products from
production – no one has yet invented how to recycle
diapers…
It is an unjust business fomented by injustice and
disrespect for children’s human rights — commodities
that have little effect on production costs and need
not be imported. Unfortunately, there is plenty of
supply. In more than a decade, the Guatemalan
Congress has been unable -- or hasn’t cared enough
-- to pass a law that regulates adoptions.
Men and women who, with all their hearts, want a son
or daughter to raise and for whom money is not a
major obstacle have shaped the demand of a gigantic
consumer market. And, erroneously, these would-be
parents are willing to blindly trust the veracity of
what is told to them by the Guatemalan lawyers they
hire.
Three years ago, 69% of the international adoptions
from Guatemala went to families in the United
States. In 2002, that figure rose to 85% - one of
the few monopolies Uncle Sam has overlooked in the
CAFTA negotiations. While European countries and
Canada limit adoptions from Guatemala out of
legitimate concerns about corruption in adoptions,
the America’s free market views this as an
opportunity to increase the number of babies going
to the land of Disney.
Although the majority of adopted children are cared
for by people who want to complete their lives with
the presence of a child, this does not erase the
cruel reality that they choose their children from
Internet and from catalogues, choosing the
characteristics of their child — male, newborn,
healthy, not too dark — instead of allowing the hand
of God to choose the best family for the baby.
In this world of consumerism and “free” trade
negotiations between a giant and dwarfs, perhaps
Guatemala has, finally, found a product in which it
has a market advantage.
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