In downtown San José, just west of the Cementerio de Obreros, sits a forgettable lot of urban real estate where the municipality and the Public Works and Transport Ministry park garbage trucks and heavy equipment. But on this same spot 73 years ago, an internment camp was erected by the government to hold hundreds of German-Costa Rican prisoners after the United States and Costa Rica entered World War II in December 1941.
The documentary film “El Codo del Diablo” sets out to reveal a hidden history of Costa Rica by revisiting a terrible crime that unfolded in Limón in 1948.
You may wonder why 117 years warrant such festivities. For Inés Revuelta Sánchez, the theater’s new managing director, this anniversary is a special one: Revuelta wants to reintroduce the National Theater to Costa Rica.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, 1986, a young Sandinista soldier named José Fernando Canales Alemán sighted a Fairchild C-123K cargo plane in Nicaraguan airspace near the Costa Rican border. He fired a Russian-made shoulder mounted SAM-7 surface-to-air missile and brought down the plane. One man survived. His name was Eugene Hasenfus, and his subsequent capture by Sandinista forces led to the unraveling of a complex web now called “The Iran-Contra Affair.”
“Pastor” is a very moving idea, and revisiting the bloody history of El Salvador is a worthy enterprise. Unfortunately, the production is an endless series of leaden dialogues in nondescript locales.
The National Museum recently opened a curious new exhibition, “Conquistas Sociales en Costa Rica.” While “conquista” in this context can be translated most accurately as “achievement,” visitors will appreciate the victorious tone the exhibit gives to Costa Rica’s conquests of injustice and inequality.
Thousands of students from 18 San José schools marched along Avenida Segunda Monday morning to celebrate Costa Rica's 193 years of independence. Cantons across the country also had their own parades.
The image only shows up for Google users current in Costa Rica. The four other Central American countries celebrating Independence Day this Monday -- El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras -- also received their own doodles.
U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement Sunday to mark Costa Rica's 193rd anniversary of its independence, along with the rest of Central America. In his message, Obama highlighted Costa Rica's "strong partnership" with the United States, a relationship he said is based on the shared goals of "protecting human rights, freedom of expression, and our environment, especially our oceans."
