At the beginning of the year, President Arias decreed that the construction of the Diquís hydroelectric dam would begin in 2009. According to Arias, the project is "of national interest" as it will meet the domestic demand and will allow Costa Rica to export electric energy to other isthmus countries through the Central American Electric Interconnection System (SIEPAC). However, the indigenous people of the Brunca region where the dam will be built have rejected the project as they claim it will flood huge areas of forestland and will have a detrimental impact on the agriculture and fishing industries which their livelihood depends. Whereas the government and the financial institutions that are backing the project have promoted Diquís as an opportunity for development in one of the poorest regions of Costa Rica, indigenous people say they were not consulted on the issue, in compliance with International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169, which states that indigenous people must be consulted on any issue affecting their welfare.

Seven months after the president issued a decree requiring improvements in construction site safety, the measure had still not taken effect, and construction workers took to the streets. On February 13, before the first day of protests was over, one of the protesters was dead. In the following days, there were widespread complaints of police brutality, on the one hand, and union efforts to destabilize the government, on the other. The government has also accused the construction workers union of accepting funds from the Venezuelan state, and of working to undermine the government. The union has denied these charges, and has in turn alleged that the state is trying to outlaw legitimate social dissent.

By Sharon Pringle

Translated by Matthew Brooke

Back in June 1997, the presidents of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras met in Tulum, Mexico, to sign an agreement aimed at preserving the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, a 450-mile treasure of Caribbean marine life. The reef, the world's second largest, stretches from Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula to the Bay Islands of Honduras and provides billions of dollars annually in tourism and fishing income for the region. With overfishing, pollution, coastal development and other pressures affecting the reef, the presidents launched the so-called Tulum Declaration, pledging to protect the reef and its supporting ecosystem of coastal wetlands, lagoons and mangrove swamps. But ten years later, the record of the four countries in reaching that goal has been spotty at best, experts say, with none of the nations apart from Mexico doing much to enforce relevant environmental regulations.

Nicaragua's National Budget, which President Daniel Ortega forwarded to the legislature in December, was passed in early February after two months of complaints from opposition parties. But despite insistence from the ALN and PLC that elements of the budget be made more transparent, and that public salaries be increased, both parties voted for it in almost its original form. Only the MRS opposed the budget's substance, largely on the grounds that it represents a capitulation to IMF austerity measures.

In the last general election a petition by the Party for National Conciliation (PCN) prevented smaller political parties from being booted from the electoral role. Congress settled on an interpretation of electoral law which benefited those parties that could not garner more than 3% of votes. Now, individual political parties only need to amass 50 thousand votes or win a single seat in congress to nominate a candidate. This has given the smaller parties an opportunity, however small, to compete in the next elections. There are still candidates to be announced, alliances to be made and voters to be persuaded.