International roundup

By Agencies
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President-elect Rodrigo Chaves said Monday that his runoff victory was a “revolution” by marginalized communities against Costa Rica’s elites.

The conservative economist, who was briefly finance minister in the outgoing administration of President Carlos Alvarado, had cast himself as the outsider in the race, noting that his Social Democratic Progress Party had never won at any level before this year.

It was also probably a stance the World Bank veteran could only have taken against his rival in Sunday’s vote who embodied Costa Rica’s establishment: José María Figueres, a former president and son of a three-time president.

“The newest party, the party with the fewest resources, the party that never was in government, not even in the Legislative Assembly … ended up winning in a very hard campaign,” Chaves said at a news conference.

“There is a popular outcry to improve the opportunities of those who have benefitted the least,” Chaves said. He credited those communities for carrying him to victory.

But the new president’s powers may be strained when he takes office next month by the fact his party will have only 10 of 57 seats in the legislature.
Benjamin Gedan, deputy director of The Wilson Center, commented on Twitter that Chaves’ victory “is consistent with the region’s anti-establishment mood, but runs counter to claims of a new ’pink tide’ of leftist leaders in Latin America.”

With 98% polling stations reporting, Chaves had 53% of the vote, compared to 47% for Figueres, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said.

More than 43% of eligible voters did not participate, an unusually low turnout for the country, reflecting a lack of enthusiasm for both candidates.

In his victory speech Sunday night, Chaves called for unity to address problems like unemployment and a soaring budget deficit.

A core promise of his campaign was to lower the cost of living for Costa Ricans. On Monday, without providing details, he said he would start with the costs of gasoline, rice and electricity.

His inauguration is scheduled for May 8.

Figueres conceded defeat less than an hour after results began to come in. He had led the first round of voting Feb. 6, with Chaves in second that day. Neither had come close to the 40% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff.

Figueres, who was Costa Rica’s president from 1994 to 1998, represents the National Liberation Party like his father, three-time president José Figueres Ferrer.

ECUADOR

A clash between prison gangs armed with guns and knives left 20 people dead, Ecuadorian officials said Monday, and they announced that they had fully regained control of the penitentiary.

Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said five of the dead had been mutilated, six hanged and one poisoned during the clash Sunday in Turi, about 310 kilometers (190 miles) south of the capital. At least five people had serious injuries.

Speaking to Radio Democracy, Carrillo linked the riot to a “criminal economy” with links to politics, but he did not expand on that.

Gen. Carlos Cabrera, the commander of police, told a news conference that authorities were making a block by block search of the prison.

What appeared to be gunfire and screaming could be heard on videos of the incident broadcast by local news media. Carrillo said on Sunday that about 1,000 police and military personnel worked to control the riot.

Amnesty International said last month that at least 316 prisoners died in confrontations in Ecuadorian prisons in 2020, with 119 of those dying in a September riot.

The government in the past has blamed confrontations on drug gangs linked to Mexican cartels.

CHILE

Lawyers for Bolivia said Monday that Chile’s decision to file a case at the United Nations’ top court about a dispute about a river that crosses their border in the Atacama Desert has hampered diplomatic efforts to resolve the disagreement.

The case between the Latin American neighbors at the International Court of Justice is focused on a small water system but is seen as an opportunity to lay down important jurisprudence at a time when fresh water is becoming an increasingly important world resource.

Chile filed the case in 2016, asking the world court to rule on the nature of the Silala River and use of its waters. At hearings Friday, Chile’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Ximena Fuentes Torrijo told judges that the dispute offered the court “an opportunity to affirm the applicability of the basic principle of reasonable and equitable utilization in these times of increasing fresh water scarcity.”

The two nations say they have narrowed the scope of their disagreement since Chile filed the case. Bolivia has filed counterclaims arguing it has sovereignty over artificial channels and the waters of the Silala that they carry.

Lawyer Mathias Forteau told judges at the Hague-based court that Chile’s “hasty and unilateral” decision to file a case reduced the chances of a diplomatic solution between the two countries.

“Chile seems to have brought the case before the court primarily for preventive purposes” after Bolivia had suggested it might start legal proceedings over the river, Forteau said. “Ultimately what this these proceedings show that if there is a need at all it’s just need for cooperation, not for litigation between the two countries.”

Bolivia’s ambassador to the Netherlands told judges that his country “finds no reason to justify Chile’s claim over the waters of the Silala before this court.”

There is, he added, “no concrete offense whatsoever committed by my country against the uses that Chile makes of the waters of the Silala in its territory.”

The court will likely take months to issue a ruling in the case. Its rulings are final and legally binding.

It’s not the first time the two nations have faced off at the Hague-based court. In 2018, the court’s judges ruled that Chile did not have an obligation to negotiate access to the sea for landlocked Bolivia. Despite that ruling, Bolivia maintains that it has a right to sovereign territory giving it access to the Pacific Ocean.

Bolivia lost its only coastline to Chile during an 1879-1883 war and the nation has demanded ocean access for generations. Chile, meanwhile, has a coastline that stretches 4,300 kilometers (2,675 miles).