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Molotov cocktails, burning of U.S. Flag, and violence mar Labor Day protests (VIDEO)

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May 2nd, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) Violence marred Costa Rica’s traditional Labor Day (May Day) marches yesterday.

 

Twelve people were arrested in clashes with police, when protestors began hurling Molotov cocktails at more than 40 members of the security forces.

 

Authorities say that all of the arrested face charges of attempted murder, aggravated resistance, property damage, and aggravated assault.   Authorities said that several of those involved were students from the University of Costa Rica.

 

Outside of the Legislative Assembly, a group of protestors burned a U.S. flag and an effigy of “Uncle Sam,” while the flag of the Palestinian territories could be seen flying in the background. Others hurled stones at police.  A cameraman with local TV news station, Repretel, was also reportedly attacked.

 

Security Minister, Mario Zamora, said that the protests outside the Legislative Assembly were a “preview of what [the group] intends to do on Friday during the visit of President Barack Obama.”

 

As a result, Zamora is called on prosecutors to impose precautionary measures against the group.  Authorities have described the protestors as “anarchists.”

 

Meanwhile, another group of protestors on Second Avenue marched to oppose the visit of the U.S. president.

 

“We want to say to Doña Laura a resounding ‘no’ to Obama’s visit,” a member of the group of union leaders and educators said.

 

“[Obama] comes to increase the expropriation of our people, we oppose Obama’s visit, the visit is a trap, because we see it as being part of the [United States’] backyard.”

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  • georgechapogas

    would like to hear more from Costa Rican’s thinking this sort of activity is part of the right to protest. they rioted in Seattle yesterday with many of the same issues. i think most Americans would want them all jailed or worse. i would guess American Universities are as bad as all Universities around the world teaching this sort of violence is ok in reaction to the system that pays their checks but they hate anyway. countries may change, people really do not.

    • Derryl Hermanutz

      I wouldn’t put too much significance on these protests. These are 20 year old kids trying to cash in on the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall St “cool” feeling of sticking it to the man. Remember the 1960s? Those kids are now the elder leaders of their nation. The saying goes, if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 then you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40 then you have no mind. It’s easy to “want” the world to be a better place, and it’s easy to demand that “the man” make it better. But that’s a lot easier said than done, especially now that global bankers and corporations do more of the “ruling” than do the elected governments of the nations.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ken-Morris/100001033121747 Ken Morris

      I’m with Derryl. This is all normal, and normal for Costa Rica. I’d worry about a country that didn’t have protests on Labor Day (Can anyone say North Korea?) as well as about a generation of young people that didn’t protest. However, I also worry a little bit about the flareups of violence. These aren’t typically Tico, and there frankly seems to be both an infiltration of foreigners into the protests and some sort of copycat impulse in the aftermath of the Boston bombing. Then when the authorities call the protesters “anarchists,” we have a recipe for escalation.

      • georgechapogas

        ken, what i worry about is the pervasive belief in santa klaus economics. it is not like these protests are about being free. they are about free stuff because they can mist a mirror. regaleme. they honestly believe they can extract from a world economy that they do not have to contribute to, or put better they want to extract more than they give and call it “fair” and “justice”. i have said before there is a strong line between protests and riots. you wanna believe in riots, fine, enjoy what it yields.

      • georgechapogas

        also, if you look into the Stratfor intelligence reports you can learn a lot about terrorist camps on Venezuelan islands, the Islamist learning Spanish living with Spanish families and if you frequent frontiers you will see a pretty noticeable increase in groups of middle eastern men floating through. i don’t think CA is their prime target, but neither was Boston and they hit it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Barbara-Allen/1362651533 Barbara Allen

    Really George? Students learn to *think* in universities and are well aware that they are paying too much for a diploma that will get them nowhere today. They, not ‘the system’, pay the professors salaries, unlike in Cr, where my dental specialist paid 1500. yr for his education…hum, just 1 advantage of socialism, which is a dirty word in America. And those students know that’s their huge student loans are just the tip of the iceberg their future is sitting on. So they protest and rightly so! And if you were 20 again and in their shoes, you would too. And since you sound like a typical right-wing American who thinks JAIL is the answer to our sick society’s problems and the growing dissention from our corp bought government, you would be VOILENT too! Especially if we were being occupied by another country.

    Fyi, the Ticos don’t want the same kind of ‘democracy’ down there, or lack thereof. They are caring and generous enough to be socialistic, which means: to SHARE. A concept that, regretfully, has not taken taken hold in the US.

    Our military complex is already swarming the streets of San Jose. So, they know Uncle Sam is looking for another country to occupy and control, now that we’re scaling dn in the MEast. But, Buena Suerte in getting them OUT!! Violence doesn’t scare us, we live and die by our GUNS and AGGRESSION.

    Yes, it’s a shame that people don’t change becuz it sounds like YOU and a LOT of Americans need to. Btw, haven’t you heard the old wise adage, Money can’t buy you love??!!!! Well, hate to tell you but that’s the mantra the Ticos live by, thus the violent protests!

    • georgechapogas

      we are violent so they have violent protests. ok barb. you make a lot of sense. caring is socialistic??? socialism is theft barb, how is theft caring? wow, whatever you are on, stop immediately…lolol

      http://ph.news.yahoo.com/photos/protester-burns-cardboard-face-us-president-barack-obama-photo-235250999.html

    • thismachinekillsfascists

      Well put. Unfortunately, the audience here is from the TV generation. These people get their news and views from the talking-heads on TV. Their worldview is the same as that of the people who own the media, which is based on lies, lies and more lies. These people are protesting to save ALL of our asses from this fascist system that is eating up all the worlds resources and killing any innocent men, women and children who get in their way. What more evidence would you need other than Obama’s kill list and the 5 ILLEGAL wars he has started. This fucker oversaw the murder of Ghadafi, who was the beloved leader of a sovereign nation in Africa. What kind of asshole things that Obama is nothing short of a mafia figure-head?

      When I read these jerk-knee comments that reflect CNN and Fox and CBC and BBC, etc, it makes me want to cry that so many people are so fucking ignorant. Imagine that in this article they write “authorities believe they are anarchists”! What the fuck? I am an anarchist but a pacifist, as are all anarchists. That sentence just perpetuates the myth that we are violent so that the ignorant sheep masses will continue to live in the “left-right” paradigm; left is socialist and right is conservative and everything else is evil.

      Most of the violence that we see in these protests is black-ops, false-flag stuff. And if you don’t want to believe that, just bend over and I have a nice banana for you. Just look at the Gulf of Tonkin lie that gave the sociopaths in control of the US govt. and the military industrial complex at the time, the support from the ignorant jass asses to go to Vietnam and kill millions upon millions of people. That attack in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened, and that is a documented historical fact. MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF DEAD INNOCENTS BASED ON A LIE TOLD BY THE GOVERNMENT AND LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.

      WAKE UP JACK-ASSES! The shit is hitting the fan, and you are the ones taking it all right in the kisser.

      • georgechapogas

        you sound like the guy the cops are looking for. i hope they find you.

  • Andrew Kinney

    Barbara you aren ‘t too sharp are ya?
    Give me one example of where socialism has worked.

    If these property destroying, molatov cocktail throwing hooligans are so proud to demonstrate “tico style”, why do they cover their cowardly faces?
    Because they are a bunch of pussies.

  • georgechapogas

    gotta love all the tico quotes in nacion y diaria about how this will help tourism. pobrecitos.

    http://ph.news.yahoo.com/photos/protester-burns-cardboard-face-us-president-barack-obama-photo-235250999.html

  • Parritaman

    The problems in Costa Rica are not caused by the US government, it’s the Costa Rica government imposing outrageous import taxes on their citizens, plus having very low minimum wage laws.

    • georgechapogas

      right on the import taxes, wrong on the labor laws. wages are a result of skill and scarcity of labor. labor laws cause less hiring therefore more unemployed which does repress wage growth. the way to create a just upwardly mobile ladder to climb is to enforce laws on fraud and theft and eliminate labor law entirely except for forced labor. minimum wages, and all the other labor rights are a dead negative. ask any employer. they all hire and fire by the book.

      • georgechapogas

        also it helps a lot to keep start ups and self employment simple sucking up more labor forcing wages up with skills

      • Parritaman

        Here in the southern zone the wages are so low that people from Nica must be imported to do the jobs. A cleaning woman earns $14. for a full eight hours work. The cost of a bag of rice is $14. The Ticos we know are very poor, and it appears there is no hope in sight for them.

        • georgechapogas

          i understand your concern. but mandating wages does not help anyone. if you mandate higher wages it goes through the chain making product prices higher while at the same time increasing the unemployed. if some cleaning women could make more buying and selling, cooking and selling without all the government hassle you would have fewer cleaning women to choose from and they would choose the best patron. not gonna happen over night, and will never happen in a social democracy where labor laws and price setting and tax law prevail. the french are getting a good dose of over kill right now. choose a path that works long term and that is hands off. people that want to better themselves can. i come from a very poor family. my dad was the first to be educated and wacked me on the head every day and said wanna end up like him, pointing to someone doing menial work for nothing, keep up the screwing around in school. that is what works. mom needs to boot the kids out of the hammack.

          • Parritaman

            Costa Rica can no longer claim to be the happiest place on earth. The elite families who control the Costa Rica government, and impose the rediculous import taxes, will never allow the Ticos to live comfortable lives. We are expats living in Costa Rica, but we are making arrangements to leave as soon as we can. Looking at the poor Ticos who live outside our gated community day after day is burning holes in our hearts, and we can’t afford to help them all.

          • georgechapogas

            i know a lot of poor tics that have made their lives better and a lot that have thrown them away. if you think “elites” create everything and make everyone poor i cannot help you.

          • Parritaman

            The elite families that control Costa Rica’s government are directly responsible for the high import taxes being charged.

          • georgechapogas

            the answer to price fixing is not more price fixing.

          • thismachinekillsfascists

            Exactly! And that elite is directly connected to the elite in the US. You don’t have one without the other. The corrupt US government and elites launder their money, and traffic their drugs, and in return the Tico elite get to make themselves wealthy while the rest of the population suffers.

          • georgechapogas

            what next the Illuminati.

          • thismachinekillsfascists

            I agree that we shouldn’t mandate minimum wages. But we should get all the big gringo corporations that benefit from corporate welfare in the US, out of Costa Rica so they people here can start on a level playing field and begin to grow their own economy free of hegemonic rule and influence.

          • georgechapogas

            so people here can pay ten times what they pay now for stuff? imports keep prices down, that is why even with the taxes it is imported. duh. look i am against welfare for all people, all entities, on all planets but i think a lot people have the idea that utopia exists and corporations who everyone’s retirement depends on are evil when most people have not a clue what a corporation actually is. the reason any welfare, corporate or individual, exists is because governments are permitted to write laws to tell people how to live, how to run their business, take their earnings, all in the search of utopia that turns to poop (sorry tim). if government could run shit (oops) paradise on earth would exist. they certainly have had enough shots at it. but guess what, it don’t work, will never work and we are exterminating ourselves trying to order everyone to act how they need so they can be happy. if someone else needs to change so others can be happy is that not the definition of insanity?

      • mhogan

        Because of free trade agreements, CR had to cut out duties but they cleverly made amends by instituting Import SALES taxes and increased tramites and associated costs. Pure deception. Does the Administration believe we are this gullible? Unfortunately, as big government would have it, they have the POWER and love to enforce it at will.

        • georgechapogas

          the government class lies to say they help the poor by borrowing 40% of what they spend. it is not the rich but government that causes poverty here. that many in government make themselves rich with no work, obama, clintons etc, is not the blame on the rich but on government, social democracies make everyone but public employees poor.

    • thismachinekillsfascists

      The government here is corrupt. No question about that. But the people who run the show here don’t shit on a toilet unless the US embassy gives them the key to the bathroom.

      • georgechapogas

        utter BS!

  • thismachinekillsfascists

    The fact is that Obama is a war criminal. His drone war in Pakistan is enough to send him to the Hague to face an International tribunal. How that doesn’t sink into your little pea-sized brains, astounds me. Obama is killing innocent children by the hundreds, and the argument on this post is capitalism vs. socialism? WTF? The people who are protesting in the streets are doing so because all of you have been sitting on your fat pompous asses watching TV and believing everything you were taught in school and believing everything you are told to believe in the mainstream media. While I don’t condone violence, I can certainly understand where their frustration comes from.

    • georgechapogas

      yeah yeah yeah, i hate the guy, but he is not going to the Hague.

  • http://profiles.google.com/jimmac1256 Jim Mac

    For the first time in my life….I am proud of Costa Rica.

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