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### Viewing cable 07SANJOSE361, COSTA RICA: NEXT ANTI-CAFTA PROTEST ON 26 FEB

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
07SANJOSE361 | 2007-02-23 19:28 | 2011-03-03 16:00 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy San Jose

Appears in these articles:
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotasDestacadas/Investigacion2697430.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotaPrincipal/Investigacion2697496.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotasSecundarias/Investigacion2697489.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotasSecundarias/Investigacion2697532.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotasSecundarias/Investigacion2697535.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/NotasSecundarias/Investigacion2701964.aspx
http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-03/Investigacion/Relacionados/Investigacion2701965.aspx

`

    VZCZCXYZ0053
    PP RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHSJ #0361/01 0541928
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    P 231928Z FEB 07
    FM AMEMBASSY SAN JOSE
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7320
    INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
    RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA PRIORITY 3931

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SAN JOSE 000361

    SIPDIS

    SIPDIS

    DEPT FOR WHA/CEN, WHA/EPSC AND DS/IP/WHA

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/14/2017
    TAGS: PGOV ELAB ASEC PINR CS
    SUBJECT: COSTA RICA: NEXT ANTI-CAFTA PROTEST ON 26 FEB

    REF: A. 06 SAN JOSE 2431
         ¶B. SAN JOSE 175

    Classified By: CDA Russell Frisbie per reasons 1.4 (b & d)

    -------
    SUMMARY
    -------

    ¶1. (C)  1. (C) The next anti-CAFTA protest is scheduled for
    Monday, February 26, with the locus of action likely to be
    San Jose.  Organizers promise a larger event than last
    October's protest, but predicting turnout is impossible in
    advance.  The GOCR has vowed to prevent disruption of
    essential services (not anticipated) and roadblocks
    (probable) while respecting the right of citizens to protest.
     Costa Rican security officials are confident they can
    prevent major disturbances.  With assistance from Post
    (rented busses) as well as Colombia (Post-funded training)
    and Taiwan (vehicles and equipment), the police have improved
    their ability to respond to the protests.  On the other side,
    labor union leaders privately acknowledge that the event
    probably will not be a decisive blow against CAFTA
    ratification.  A less antagonistic but equally determined new
    leadership - the National Front - has become the public face
    of the CAFTA opposition, seeking a "time out" to develop a
    national consensus on the GOCR,s entire development agenda.
    PAC leader Otton Solis has urged CAFTA opponents to take to
    the streets in a celebration of Costa Rican democracy.
    Assuming no violence, both sides will likely declare victory,
    but momentum seems to favor the GOCR.  Anti-CAFTA forces may
    try to mount further (and perhaps more violent) protests
    later, especially around the ratification vote.  END SUMMARY.

    ------------------------
    ANOTHER ANTI-CAFTA MARCH
    ------------------------

    ¶2. (U) Both sides are squaring off for the next anti-CAFTA
    protest, scheduled for February 26.  Led by the "National
    Front of Support for the Fight Against CAFTA," an umbrella
    group drawn from university students and faculty, labor
    unions, and members of various social organizations, the
    protesters plan to focus most of their action in San Jose.
    They plan to assemble at the old national soccer stadium and
    march through downtown to rally at the Legislative Assembly.
    The organizers hope to far exceed the 6-9,000 person crowd
    assembled for the last protest, October 23-24 (Ref A).  As in
    the October protests, a few additional marches and attempted
    road blockages may take place around the country.  The GOCR
    has made it clear, including in stern television
    advertisements featuring Minister of Presidency Rodrigo
    Arias, that the public's right to protest peacefully will be
    honored fully, but no disruption to essential services or
    roadblocks will be allowed.

    ----------------------------
    UNIONS: SIZE DOES NOT MATTER
    ----------------------------

    ¶3.  (SBU) PolCouns and Poloff met with public employees,
    labor union leader and outspoken CAFTA critic Albino Vargas
    and two associates on February 7.  Vargas, as feisty as ever,
    repeated his familiar mantra:  Since the GOCR has refused a
    true national dialogue, CAFTA must be "decided in the
    streets."  The Agreement is illegitimate, anyway, because it
    was negotiated "in secret" by the former administration.
    And, the Arias Administration has no right to "impose" CAFTA
    on Costa Rica because a) Arias "stole" the 2006 election and
    b) Arias should not have been allowed to run again in the
    first place.  When asked why he continued to boycott meetings
    with Arias and other union leaders, Vargas insisted the
    President never listens to their concerns.  When asked about
    the impact if the protest turnout is lower than expected
    (based on just-published CID-Gallup data showing that only
    six percent of those polled supported the protests), Vargas
    insisted "numbers don't matter".  Although he dismissed the
    CID-Gallup figures as biased, Vargas acknowledge that the
    February 26 events probably will not b decisive.  He expects
    the GOCR will claim victoy no matter the tunout.

    -------------------------------------------
    NATIONAL FRONT: NEW FACE FO THE OPPOSITION?
    -------------------------------------------

    ¶4.  (U) The National Front, led byEugenio Trejos, Dean of
    the Technology Instituteof Costa Rica at Cartago, has
    increasingly become the public face of the opposition, part
    of a clear effort to play down the role of the more
    antagonistic unions.  In a long meeting with PolCouns and
    Poloff on February 21, Trejos said he and other Front leaders
    had met with a wide range of protest organizers and GOCR
    officials, including Public Security Minister Fernando
    Berrocal, to urge that the events be peaceful.  Trejos was
    optimistic that ex-presidents Luis Alberto Monje (PLN) and
    Rodrigo Carazo (PUSC) would join the protests to lend them
    more gravitas.  Trejos was fairly confident that the San Jose
    events would remain peaceful, but he warned that the Front
    could not "guarantee" calm everywhere, especially in the
    hinterlands, and particularly if the police "provoked"
    violence.

    ¶5.  (U) Trejos echoed the legitimacy concerns about the Arias
    Administration raised by Vargas.  Insisting that the GOCR,s
    38-seat working coalition in the Assembly was weak, he said
    the best case scenario for CAFTA opponents would be to peel
    away one or two of those legislators, so the GOCR would have
    to halt CAFTA, "listen to the people," and seek a new
    national "consensus," not only on CAFTA, but on the GOCR,s
    entire development agenda.  Trejos said a national referendum
    would be the ideal vehicle to help build the consensus, but
    admitted that it wasn't clear a referendum related to CAFTA
    was constitutionally feasible.  A team of opposition legal
    experts are studying the issue, he said.  For CAFTA
    opponents, the GOCR,s pushing ahead to ratification would be
    the worst case scenario, according to Trejos.  A ratification
    vote in April might provoke real violence, he warned.  The
    contest at hand, he maintained, is about the "60% of the
    population that has not really made up their minds" about
    CAFTA.  Like Vargas, Trejos also dismissed the recent
    CID-Gallup results (that 62% of those who are familiar with
    CAFTA support it.)

    --------------------------
    GOVERNMENT: READY BUT WARY
    --------------------------

    ¶6.  (SBU) The GOCR seems ready for the protests.  The
    intelligence service is confident it knows who the real
    troublemakers will be, but is still wary.  In a detailed
    pre-protest strategy session convened by Minister Berrocal on
    February 3 (the first such planning session in our memory),
    police officials were worried that the February 26 events
    might be more disruptive than those of last October.  Radical
    elements outside of the organized anti-CAFTA groups, for
    example, might block roads in defiance of the GOCR,s
    warnings.  Alternatively, a group of students perhaps aided
    by opposition legislators - could "peacefully" take over the
    Assembly building, forcing the police to remove them, at the
    risk of looking "too aggressive."  Security and screening has
    been tightened at the building to prevent this.  NOTE:
    Poloff will also attend the final pre-protest strategy
    meeting on February 23.

    ------------------------------
    USG (AND COLOMBIAN) ASSISTANCE
    ------------------------------

    ¶7.  (C) As in the case of the October protests, mobility is
    the chief concern of the police.  With approximately 450 riot
    police available in San Jose, but only 160 of those
    fully-equipped (and recently refresher-trained by
    Embassy-funded Colombian police instructors), the police may
    need to move resources quickly to potential traffic choke
    points and protest hot spots throughout the capital.  The
    Ministry of Public Security thus asked Post to rent buses for
    their use, using available INL funds.  Post will provide 10
    buses, for February 26 only.  (The police do not believe they
    will need the buses after that.)  Berrocal believes that
    managing the image of the demonstrations is crucial and that
    the government will win this showdown if security officials
    are not provoked into violence with protesters.  Berrocal is
    so determined that he told national police commanders that
    "if blood must be shed, let it be our blood first."  Berrocal
    has announced publicly that police will not be armed during
    the protests.

    ¶8. (C) COMMENT:  The Colombian police instructors, provided
    with the very helpful assistance of Embassy Bogota and the
    Colombian Embassy here, greatly boosted the confidence of the
    police anti-riot personnel.  Poloffs observed this firsthand
    during a visit to the National Police training facility in
    Guanacaste.  Adding to the police's confidence was the first
    tranche of security assistance provided by Taiwan.  An array
    of 125 motorcycles, 60 pick-up trucks and other equipment was
    received in a public ceremony on February 22, deliberately
    timed to be a signal to protesters.  END COMMENT.

    -----------------------
    IMPACT ON THE ASAMBLEA?
    -----------------------

    ¶9. (SBU) CAFTA opponents have maintained pressure on
    legislators, even in advance of the big day on February 26.
    On January 23 and February 12, union leaders including Vargas
    tried to disrupt proceedings in the Assembly by noisily and
    personally threatening legislators from the visitors,
    gallery.  After trying to reason with the protesters,
    Assembly President Fernando Pacheco called the police,
    leading to a brief, but well-publicized scuffle as the
    gallery was cleared.  CAFTA opponents, including Trejos,
    decried this use of "excessive force."  Meeting with the
    Ambassador on February 16, PLN faction chief Mayi Antillon
    said the noisy union leaders had overplayed their hands by
    being "too disrespectful."  She acknowledged, however, that
    some individual legislators - such as Jose Manuel Echandi of
    the PUN -- were concerned for their safety and would be
    allowed to be "absent" on February 26.  (Echandi also
    requested police protection near his residence.)  Antillon
    acknowledged that the protests, if widespread enough and
    violent at all, could make some members of the GOCR,s
    working coalition "waiver" a little.  She remains confident,
    however, that the Asamblea can complete the first
    ratification vote by April.  Once that is done, she predicts
    that the opposition will lose most of its steam.

    --------------------------------------------
    THE PAC,S OTTON SOLIS:  WILL HE OR WON'T HE?
    --------------------------------------------

    ¶10.  (U) And what about PAC party leader Otton Solis, who
    vowed to join the protests when the CAFTA bill was voted out
    of committee last December, and who has taken a higher
    anti-CAFTA, pro-CBI profile since his January visit to
    Washington?  In a lengthy radio interview on February 6,
    Solis said his PAC party was not organizing anything, but
    would join the protests if they were convoked under "correct
    terms," i.e., as "day for Costa Rica." He has since been coy
    about his own participation, and whether PAC would take any
    responsibility for keeping the protests peaceful.  Minister
    of Government Arias insisted to the  media that if Solis
    joined the march, then his participation (as leader of the
    main opposition party) should be "a guarantee that the march
    will be peaceful."   In a TV commercial aired on February 22,
    however, Solis urged those concerned about CAFTA to take to
    the streets on Monday in a peaceful celebration of Costa
    Rican sovereignty.

    -------
    COMMENT
    -------

    ¶11.  (SBU) Both sides seem ready and determined for Monday's
    events.  Assuming no violence, both sides are likely to claim
    victory.  Momentum seems to favor the GOCR, however, based on
    the increased discipline and confidence in the Assembly (Ref
    B), the better organization and higher confidence of the
    police, and the CID-Gallup polling data (generally in support
    of CAFTA, against the protests and unfavorable to the more
    notorious union leaders).  The opposition cannot keep holding
    "rehearsals."  But, if the GOCR does not blink in the
    Assembly (and we don't think it will), then the anti-CAFTA
    forces may try to mount further (and perhaps more violent)
    protests later, especially around the ratification vote.  The
    CID-Gallup data also shows that most Costa Ricans expect more
    turbulence before CAFTA is ratified.
    FRISBIE

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