Alex Leff's Notebook:

Costa Rica's Oscar Arias to mediate in Honduras crisis

Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias will serve as mediator this week in negotiations to broker an agreement between Honduras’s two presidents: deposed leader Manuel Zelaya and the man named to succeed him, Roberto Micheletti.

The talks are slated to begin Thursday in Arias’ San José home, the Costa Rican leader said in a press conference this afternoon also held inside his elegant residence.

Arias has said he’s willing to mediate the Honduras standoff but only if both parties agree to negotiate. Today he got the green light from both Zelaya and Micheletti, plus an added thumbs up from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with whom Zelaya met today in Washington, D.C.

“Both sides of the Honduran conflict have accepted… have invited me, rather, to be a facilitator, a mediator in order for both sides to sit down and negotiate,” Arias said.

It will be the second opportunity for Arias to prove his mettle as an international peace broker, after assisting in negotiations that ended the region’s 1980s civil wars, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. It’s also the chance of a lifetime for the politician, ending his second term of as president next year.

Considering his reputation, Arias is the “natural person to assume this role,” said Clinton according to Washington Post.

Speaking from experience, Arias made a plea for patience.

“Once seated around a table, a miracle has to occur to create a lot of trust, to have a lot of humility, to understand that in a negotiation one doesn’t always get what one would like. You have to be willing to make concessions. There has to be patience because this takes time, and for this I have asked each, that this isn’t a matter of a day, but they have to be available to stay here Thursday and Friday, I hope perhaps in two days this issue can be resolved. Hopefully we can reach an agreement that’s satisfactory for both sides.”

Zelaya has been flying from city to city through the region since his military dragged him from bed in a predawn raid on June 28 and sent him flying in his pajamas to Costa Rica. Having garnered remarkable international support for his cause to return to power, Zelaya’s due to return first to Costa Rica Wednesday night to engage his rival the following day. Hopes are high the process will end the Honduras debacle, one of Latin America’s worst political crises in years.

The task won't be easy. Micheletti said he would have Zelaya arrested if the ousted leader sets foot in Honduras, although the interim government has made this difficult. Military vehicles and tanks lined up along the Tegucigalpa airport runway on Sunday to block Zelaya's plane from landing.

All eyes in Central America will be on Costa Rica to see if its outgoing leader can once again rise to the occasion and succeed in mediating a solution.
 

Costa Rica's Oscar Arias to mediate in Honduras crisis

Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias will serve as mediator this week in negotiations to broker an agreement between Honduras’s two presidents: deposed leader Manuel Zelaya and the man named to succeed him, Roberto Micheletti.

The talks are slated to begin Thursday morning in Arias’ San Jose home, the Costa Rican leader said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon also held inside his elegant residence.

Arias has said he’s willing to mediate the Honduras standoff but only if both parties agree to negotiate. Today he got the green light from both Zelaya and Micheletti, plus an added thumbs up from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with whom Zelaya met today in Washington, D.C.

It will be the second opportunity for Arias to prove his mettle as an international peace broker, after assisting in negotiations that ended the region’s 1980s civil wars, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. It’s also the chance of a lifetime for the politician, ending his second term as president next year.

Considering his reputation, Arias is the “natural person to assume this role,” said Clinton according to the Washington Post.

Zelaya has been flying from city to city through the region since his military dragged him from bed in a predawn raid and sent him flying in his pajamas to Costa Rica. Having garnered remarkable international support for his cause to return to power, Zelaya is due to return first to Costa Rica Wednesday night to engage his rival the following day. Hopes are high that the process will end Honduras's debacle, one of Latin America’s worst political crises in years.

The task won't be easy. Micheletti said he would have Zelaya arrested if the ousted leader sets foot in Honduras, although the interim government has made this difficult, lining up military vehicles and tanks Sunday along the Tegucigalpa airport's runway to block Zelaya's landing.

All eyes in Central America will be on Costa Rica to see if its outgoing leader will again rise to the occasion.

Don't worry, be Costa Rican

Costa Ricans sure are a happy bunch

The "ticos" (colloquial for Costa Ricans), just topped a new list of the happiest people on the planet compiled by an independent research group in Britain.

The country scores 76.1 out of 100 on the New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index (HPI), which measures life expectancy, satisfaction and a country's environmental footprint. The index was released Saturday.

This is the second index the group has done. In the original HPI, published in 2006, Vanuatu, an archipelago in the South Pacific, was graded the happiest, Colombia came second and Costa Rica third.

Now, apparently, Costa Ricans are getting some satisfaction.

“As well as reporting the highest life satisfaction in the world, Costa Ricans also have the second-highest average life expectancy of the New World (second only to Canada). All this with a footprint of 2.3 global hectares,” reads the HPI.

Also, this index seems to just love Latinos. According to this year’s ranking, the world’s 10 happiest countries are all — except one — in Latin America and the Caribbean. Following Costa Rica, they are the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala, Vietnam, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Brazil and Honduras. Nicaragua came in 11th.

The index punishes bigger, wealthier nations, turning on its head the idea that a nation’s GDP brings the brightest smiles. Of the 143 countries surveyed, the United States ranked 114th, sandwiched between Madagascar and Nigeria. The researchers placed their native United Kingdom 74th, just after Slovakia and before Japan and Spain.

The research group argues on the index’s Web site, “governments have been concentrating on the wrong indicators for too long. If you have the wrong map, you are unlikely to reach your destination.”

So why, you might ask, despite decades of social, political and economic hardship, are Latin Americans racking up the happy points?

The report explains, “Survey data reveals two key features of Latin American culture. One is the presence of relatively unmaterialistic (sic) aspirations and values, compared to countries with similar economic conditions. Latin Americans report being much less concerned with material issues than, for example, they are with their friends and family. Secondly, social capital is particularly strong in the region. Civil society is very active, from religious groups to workers' groups to environmental groups.”

African countries such as Zimbabwe ranked among the least happy in the world. 

Cuba says no, gracias to OAS

Following the historic about-face by the Organization of American States (OAS) to allow Cuba to rejoin, Cuba’s government has officially rejected the offer. Cuba claims to “repudiate” the hemispheric club of nations and what Cuba considers the group’s supporting role in United States hostility toward the revolutionary island.

“Cuba welcomes with satisfaction this expression of sovereignty and civic-mindedness … ” displayed by the OAS consensus to strike down Cuba’s 47-year suspension, the government said in a statement posted in English Monday on the website of state-run newspaper Granma.

“However, Cuba once again confirms that it will not return to the OAS,” the statement said.

The OAS barred Cuba in 1962 because of Fidel Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union and China.

Re-entry of the island nation recently became a rally cry for many OAS governments, though some disagree under what conditions, if any at all. During a recent OAS powwow in Honduras, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed for the condition that Cuba first agree to make progress toward democracy and human rights before being allowed to rejoin the club. But when Clinton left the meeting a day early, the outlook was grim as to any likely consensus over lifting Cuba’s suspension.

And then, on the final day of the meeting, it happened: The OAS voted to let Cuba back in, if it should choose to accept.

Honduran President Mel Zelaya hailed the decision as the “end of the Cold War” and a “wise rectification” of the OAS’s stance.

However, judging by Cuba’s reply, the war isn’t over. Though the consensus dealt a blow to Washington’s imperialism, according to the statement in Granma, Cuba refuses to conceive of “the outlandish illusion of returning to an organization that does not allow reform and that has been condemned by history.”

For its part, the United States moved to deflect the perceived defeat. Its conditions would indeed be met because in order to enter, Cuba would have to abide by the “practices, purposes and principles” of the OAS, a U.S. government official told The Tico Times.

With conditions and not, it’s clear that Cuba's rocky road to re-engagement will be laden with Cold War words and reminders as some nations confront a government for the first time since shunning it almost a century ago. Costa Rica and El Salvador — the last holdouts in the Americas except the U.S. — have already pledged to re-establish diplomatic relations.

It will take more than an initial OAS consensus to get the ball rolling. But the fact that a metaphorical ball even exists means relations are thawing.

Gringos tremble in Monster’s Cave

The U.S. Men’s National Team lived up to a long-held legend Wednesday night, which says the “gringo” soccer team quakes in the presence of “La Cueva del Monstruo” (the Monster’s Cave)  — the delightful name given to the Ricardo Saprissa Stadium north of San Jose.

The lone goal made via Landon Donovan’s late penalty kick did little to appease the Monstruo, which chomped up and spit out the Americans 3-1 with seemingly little effort.

Incidentally, Donovan’s goal — his 10th in World Cub qualifying — was the first in the Monster’s Cave since 2000. I hate to say it, but when it comes to soccer, the Americans cannot win in Costa Rica.

The front-page headline in a local paper the morning of the match read “¡Tiemblen Gringos!” or Tremble, gringos! The same paper, Al Dia, the next day ran with a one-word headline in all caps, “¡YES!”

As I watched the game from my living room, a safe distance from the raucous growls of the Monster’s Cave, I emailed back and forth with my brother and friends who watched the match at one of our favorite bars back home in Park Slope, Brooklyn: The Gate. One friend, rapper Loki da Trixta, booed and hissed over emails via his Blackberry as the gringo side continued to fall hard.

The loss drops U.S. to second place in the final round, tipping Costa Rica over to the top in qualifying through four games — or so says the American team’s official website. I’m no soccer buff.

But it wasn’t a mere trembling in the cave that lost the gringos the match. They plainly stank, according to head coach Bob Bradley.

"As a group tonight, we came up short in every way," Bradley said, according to the same site. "I don't think there was any area at all where we were good enough to win a game against a good team. We were under pressure from the start. We fell short. We recognize that, and we have a quick turnaround for the next game."

The defeated gringos can only hope to redeem themselves a bit in that next game, against Honduras at Soldier Field in Chicago on Saturday.

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