Another policeman is held,
but one is let go in Limón


Investigators have set free one policeman and detained another in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. The arrests involved the murder of two young men in the Sixaola area early Saturday.

Released was a Fuerza Pública officer with the last names of  Cortez Madriz. But a policeman with the last name of Jiménez was detained. Both arrests are believed based on the testimony and identification of Ricardo Armando Dixon Obregón, 25, one of the two men who survived the killings.

This is the case in which police said officers of the Fuerza Pública arrested and then turned over to a rival drug gang four men early Saturday.

The case is a public relations disaster for the Fuerza Pública because it suggests that local officers were deeply involved in the Caribbean drug trade.

Gerardo Lázcares, vice minister in the security ministry, and Erick Lacayo, director general of the Fuerza Pública, were traveling to the Provincia de Limón today to personally inspect the situation.  The Judicial Investigating Organization is handling the case, but the entire Cahuita station of the Fuerza Pública has been suspended and replaced with officers from San José.

The investigation is expected to probe deeply into the history of the police operations in the area, including the murder of one Fuerza Pública officer at the Tuba Creek checkpoint a year ago. Five persons were put on trial in that case, but they were found innocent.

Big hike in coca production
report for areas of Colombia


The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is urging comprehensive, large-scale and ecologically-friendly agriculture and forestry schemes in coca growing areas after a new survey shows a marked increase in cultivation in the Andean region.

According to the 2007 Andean coca survey, released Wednesday, the total area of land under coca cultivation last year in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru was 181,600 hectares, a 16 per cent increase over 2006 and the highest level since 2001.

The increase was due to a 27 per cent rise in Colombia, and smaller increases of 5 per cent in Bolivia and 4 per cent in Peru.

“The increase in coca cultivation in Colombia is a surprise and shock: a surprise because it comes at a time when the Colombian Government is trying so hard to eradicate coca; a shock because of the magnitude of cultivation,” said  Executive Antonio Maria Costa, director of the Office on Drugs and Crime.

The survey also points out that nearly half of all cocaine production and one third of the cultivation come from just 10 of the country’s 195 municipalities. “Just like in Afghanistan, where most opium is grown in provinces with a heavy Taliban presence, in Colombia most coca is grown in areas controlled by insurgents,”  Costa noted.

However, even with the rise in coca cultivation, cocaine production in Colombia — the world’s biggest producer — remained almost unchanged in 2007, according to the survey.

The findings highlight the need for greater investments in alternative livelihood programs, stressed the director. Coca cultivation in Bolivia, for example, rose in regions such as La Asunta and the Yungas de La Paz, which have seen little investment in development. At the same time, regions like Alto Beni that have received support for alternative livelihood schemes have been able to reduce coca cultivation, he said.

The U.N. report adds that price increases for products such as coffee, palm oil and cocoa, which are being grown under alternative development programs, have convinced many farmers in Peru not to replant eradicated coca fields. In Colombia, the agency is supporting the Forest Wardens Families Programme in assisting farmers who make a commitment to voluntarily eradicate coca, while promoting reforestation.

Embassy veteran's address
in state of continual change


Some retired U.S. military veterans are a little confused because the U.S. Embassy keeps changing the address for their mail. Such veterans and military retirees are entitled to receive their mail through the embassy at an APO address.

Mel Goldberg, vice commander of the American Legion Post 16, said that he spoke with an embassy worker who told him that the embassy address was being changed at least one more time. Goldberg's advice to veterans was to do nothing until the embassy mailing address is finalized. The older address still will function with mailings until October, he said.

Eventually the embassy will have a new APO address at which time mail users can make the change.

Suspects in vehicle theft found


The Fuerzas Pública said its officers detained two men who are accused of stealing a car belonging to tourists on Playa Sámara on the Nicoya Peninsula. The suspects were located in Heredia by a company that has installed a tracking device on the vehicle, police said. Two 9 mm. pistols were found in the car.