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Midday Violence: Two Men Dead, One Hostage Wounded |
Wounded hostage being escorted into
an ambulance! |
The scene outside while police
scuffle and shoot the man inside! |
Moments after Thompson was shot by
police! |
The wounded man, who later died in
hospital, is placed into an
ambulance under tight police
security! |
A man unleashed a tragedy in the heart of downtown San José that left two
men dead, a wounded policeman and a shaken up hostage.
That was the scene a few blocks south of the Central Park in downtown, when
a man identified as Lorenzo Gílberth Thompson Shang, of Panamanian origin,
but believed to be Jamaican for his dark complexion and 'rasta' hair - known
on the streets as "Wahapen" - took the life of the co-owner of the Hotel La
Flora on Avenida 8.
According to eyewitnesses on the scene, the man then fled from Hotel with a
butcher knife in hand. Alert Municipal Police offers saw the man running
with a knife and gave chase.
Their efforts where frustrated by several fruit vendor stands that are
common in the area. The man then ran into a "macrobioatica" store, where he
took the the store clerk as a hostage.
According to a police report and eye witnesses insidecostarica talked to,
this all started at about 11:30am when Thompson attempted to rob, Mario
Cortés Lacayo, co-owner of the hotel where he had checked in earlier in the
morning. In his attempt to rob Cortes of 40.000 colones, Thompson
stabbed Cortes several times with a butcher knife, killing him, then running
from the scene.
The man, with police in chase, ran into a store on Avenida 6, one block
north of the hotel, and took the store clerk Manuel Rojas as hostage.
Members of the Fuerza Publica were on the scene within minutes, followed by
agents of the OIJ (Organismo de Investigacion Judicial), who after assessing
the scene decided to wait for hostage scene negotiators before taking any
action.
The man held his hostage with a knife for more than an hour while police
tried to negotiate the surrender of the man and the release of the hostage.
The man was, according to police, appeared to be under the influence of
drugs and was nervous and unwilling to surrender his hostage.
At about 12:45pm, a little more than an hour after it all started, police
decided to take action after the man was showing signs of being more violent
and lightly injured the hostage, who required medical attention.
In the scuffle, Thompson was shot twice by police agents, who according to
the Director of the OIJ, Jorge Rojas, said police had acted properly and had
exhausted all attempts at a peaceful solution to the situation.
The man tried to run of the store, wounded by the gunshots, and fell on the
sidewalk in front of the store as he ran into the police special services
bus that had been parked in front the storefront to contain the situation.
The man later died in hospital.
A police officer was also hurt in the scuffle as he received minor cuts to
his hands from the knife the man had been holding and used in the murder, as
he tried to take the knife from the man.
Thompson of 33 years of age was known to police as he had been arrested some
11 times earlier for various crimes, mainly for robberies. The man was
sentenced in June of 2002 to 15 years in prison and was to sent to the La
Reforma prison, in San Rafael de Alajuela. His sentence was for various
crimes.
According to records by the Justice Ministry, the man went missing from the
La Leticia de Pococí, prison in Limón, last December. He had been
transferred there earlier in the year. Policea nd Judicial officials could
not explain why the man was free and on the streets.
1,239 pounds of cocaine
The police found 570 kilos (1,239 pounds) of
cocaine that were hidden in a trailer truck with Salvadoran license plates.
The vehicle was in the premises of an abandoned mine near Esparza, in
western Costa Rica.
Even though no one was arrested in the operation, the police has evidence
linking at least three men with the drug, one of them a Guatemalan driver
who had been arrested here in 1997, also because of his involvement in drug
trafficking.
Larger inflation
The price of oil and several imported raw
materials resulted in a hike of overall prices in Costa Rica in January,
which took inflation to 1.7 percent for the month, the highest in the last
33 months.
However, analysts expect a lower inflation in the coming months, therefore
allowing for the possibility of attaining the 9 percent top inflation for
this year set by the Government.
More European Visitors
According to the Costa Rican Board of Tourism (ICT
in Spanish), the number of Europeans visiting Costa Rica increased by 17
percent from May 2002 to May 2003.
Tourist sector sources consider that this increase results in part from the
fact that there are now more flights linking Costa Rica and Europe, two
daily ones and one three times a week, and likely to increase in the coming
months.
They also point out the praise as a tourist destination that this country
has been accorded in Europe, particularly in several magazines that chose
Costa Rica as the best Ecological Tourism and Adventure Tourism destination
in Costa Rica.
However, when the overall figure for tourists is seen, the United States and
Canada remain as the largest sources of visitors to Costa Rica.
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Bird flu attack in Asia put Latin American nations into motion
Latin America, separated by the Pacific Ocean from Asia, has sprung into
action following the bird flu attack in some Asian countries, with Brazil
imposing a ban on integral rice import and Chile planning to increase
poultry export.
The Brazilian government declared on Friday to suspend imports of integral
rice from Asian countries to prevent bird flu.
The executive secretary of the Agricultural Ministry, Jose Amauri Dimarzio,
said it was a preventive measure adopted because Asian rice might have been
contaminated by aquatic birds flying over crops.
He said that last year the Brazilian government sanctioned the import of
500,000 tons of rice with husks.
Although the risk of contagion was minimum, the government would demand the
disinfection of the product before entry to the country, Dimarzio said.
Chilean poultry companies, on the other hand, are ready to increase chicken
exports to Asian markets as a possible increasing demand is felt, the local
daily, Diario Financiero said on Friday.
The United Nations indicated Thursday that the disease was not under control
and had the risk of spreading to other countries, even outside the Asian
region.
This situation might favor Chile because it is free of the disease, and has
health licenses to export to Japan and Hong Kong, which are partially
supplied by the Chilean poultry companies, Ariztia and Agrosuper.
Ariztia sends 50 tons of chickens to Japan and about 80 tons of byproducts
to Hong Kong a month, and can increase its shipments to300 tons over two
months, said its general manager, Ismael Correa.
However, Agrosuper, the producer of Super Chicken, is cautious about a jump
in the demand because it has a long-term export policy rather than an
occasional strategy.
It has so far sent to the Asian market about 7,400 tons annually including
different types of poultry and byproducts.
Costa Rican Health Minister Maria del Rocio Saenz said on Friday it was not
possible for the bird flu disease to reach his country.
In an interview published by the daily Diario Extra, Saen said she had met
with Agriculture Ministry officials to confirm that nopoultry imports were
coming from Asian countries affected by the outbreak.
She said: "We are on alert for any possible mutation."
The minister said bird flu was initially a poultry disease spread by the
excrement of infected birds, but the first mutation occurred when it passed
to human beings.
Bird flu appeared several weeks ago in different Asian countries and has
already claimed more than 15 lives.
US Denies Travel Visas to Grammy-Nominated Cuban Musicians
The United States refused to grant visas to world-renowned Cuban musicians
who were invited to Sunday's Grammy music awards, Cuban officials said.
Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club, seen here in
2003, was denied a visa by the US authorities.
Ibrahim Ferrer, the 76-year-old singer from the Grammy-nominated Buena Vista
Social Club, was dumbfounded to learn that, according to the Cuban Music
Institute, the United States invoked a law that applies to terrorists, drug
dealers and dangerous criminals to deny him a visa.
"I don't understand because I don't feel I'm a terrorist. I am not, I can't
be," he said at a news conference.
Ferrer has won three Grammys in recent years and has traveled to the United
States in the past.
The other celebrated musicians who were denied visas were guitarist Manuel
Galvan, pianist Guillermo Rubalcaba, percussionist Amadito Valdes, lute
player Barbarito Torres and singer Eugenio Rodriguez.
The Cuban Music Institute called the US action a "new offense against Cuban
culture and people."
"This policy is really hypocritical," said Abel Acosta, vice minister of
culture and president of the music institute. "It's the most arbitrary in
the world. They give visas to whom they want when they want to."
The Grammy-nominated musicians applied for their visas on December 24 at the
US Interests Section in Havana.
The artists were interviewed by US consular officials on December 29 and
were told of their visa denial Wednesday.
Last year, Cubans who were nominated to the Latin Grammys in Miami were also
denied entry visas.
The United States broke diplomatic ties with the communist island more than
40 years ago.
No Deal in FTAA Talks
Deputy ministers from 34 nations in the Americas failed to reach agreement
Friday on a framework for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, stymied by
differences on the contentious issue of U.S. farm subsidies.
"The negotiations have reached an impasse ... we have not agreed on any
text," Argentine negotiator Martin Redrado said after four days of meetings
in this colonial city 65 miles southeast of Mexico's capital.
The talks in Puebla followed November meetings in Miami when negotiators
came up with an outline for an accord that was dubbed "FTAA-lite," a
two-tier approach in which all countries would sign on to basic trade rules,
while those that chose to could open their markets further.
World Trade Organization talks in Cancun collapsed in September over the
same farm-subsidies issue.
In the Puebla talks, the Mercosur nations — led by Brazil and Argentina —
demanded measures like compensatory tariffs to protect their markets from
the price effects of domestic U.S. farm payments. U.S. officials insist the
farm topic should be negotiated within the WTO.
The Mercosur countries dropped twin demands for an end to all farm
subsidies, and a 15-year phase-out of tariffs on all products. They
reportedly offered to allow tariff or quota protections for about 10 percent
of goods, something the United States had wanted.
"This is not a new Cancun, because (the negotiation process) will continue,"
Redrado said.
But Redrado said that without an agreement on agriculture — and implicitly a
U.S agreement to abandon most farm subsidies — there would be no FTAA.
The negotiators agreed to attempt a new round of talks in 30 to 40 days to
try and resolve their differences.
"We see this as a failure for them," activist Alberto Arroyo of the
Continental Social Alliance said of the talks. "This is very similar to what
happened in Cancun, as regards agriculture."
Despite the lack of a final agreement, negotiators did decide to stick to
their 2005 deadline for a final accord, and agreed that smaller,
less-developed countries would need special help to compete in a hemispheric
pact.
Agricultural subsidies have been a sticking point in free trade negotiations
around the globe. The Mercosur nations say subsidies rob their farm sectors
of foreign markets and make their own farmers unable to compete
domestically.
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