Group Formed To Reject TLC
A group of militant members of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) - ruling party - will form a united front called the Frente Liberacionista against the Tratado Libre de Comercio (TLC) - free trade agreement with the United States.

The group will become a formally united front at 10:00am this morning at a meeting in the Edicifico Cooperativo, located at the rear of Mall San Pedro. Among the group will be former presidential candidate, Rolando Araya, and other political figures like Fernando Soley and a number of former PLN deputies.

The group, in a statement to the the PLN deputies in the Legislature, asks them to withdraw their support of the trade deal which is expected to be before the Legislators in the coming days.

According to the document, signed by a number of PLN members, they have come to the conclusion that the TLC will bring severe social implications, causing a negative effect in the distribution of wealth in the country.

Oscar Campos, a former PLN deputy and former president of the Cámara de Productores de Arroz (rice growers association), assures that the group is formally organized and its objective is to inform the public about the TLC. "The official position of the PLN on the trade agreement is not full. Many of us members are against the trade deal and this organization will have roots all over the country, because we believe that the talks on the TLC should not be only among the elite", said Campos.

Campos added that the newly formed group does not represent any political platform for Araya, who announced that is making a come back in politics after failing to win the presidential seat to Abel Pacheco in 2002.

Campos said that the group is not a move towards the reappearance of "Ayarismo", since they have invited other public figures like Mariano Figueres (brother of José María Figueres Olsen and son to José María Figueres Ferrer or Don Pepe, who is considered the father of Costa Rica) and others from the "Arismo" camp and waiting on the word of former president Luis Alberto Monge.

Rolando Araya is brother of San José mayor Johnny Arya. Johnny Araya has publicly supported president Oscar Arias, visiting him at his home after the presidential elections last February, bringing an end to rift between the two. Former president Monge, who is Johnny Araya's father-in-law, however, has been very vocal in his opposition to the re-election of Oscar Arias and the free trade agreement.

For the president of the executive committee of the PLN party, Francisco Antonio Pacheco, who is also the president of the Legislative Assembly, the forming of the group is nothing new that a splinter of the party is taking a different direction than the mainstream.

"I have been hearing rumours of this for the last four years. It (the PLN) is a democratic party and there are always dissidents who have different thinking than the official. No one is surprised that Rolando Araya has differing ideas that the rest of the liberacionistas", said Pacheco.

According to Pacheco, the PLN resolved at the Daniel Oduber conference to give its full support to the TLC, supporting the process of opening the country.

Pacheco added to say that he doubts that any of the 25 PLN deputies will withdraw their support and move against the commercial deal with the United States when the vote is on the floor later this month.