Costa Rica riled by rare, unruly unrest, strike

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Thousands marching in the streets. Flaming barricades. Clashes between demonstrators and riot police in darkened streets. A semitruck hollowed out by fire.

Costa Rica has been rocked in the past week by the kind of protests rarely seen in the country in comparison with its more tumultuous Central American neighbors. It comes during a labor strike that went into its fifth day Friday with no apparent end in sight.

Spurred by calls from public sector unions, demonstrators protested again outside the presidential residence and blockaded roads in different parts of the country to demand President Carlos Alvarado scrap a proposed fiscal reform before congress that includes new taxes.

Costa Rica’s government is struggling with a deficit estimated at 7.1 percent of GDP this year, which has pushed up the public debt load and increased its need for revenue.

Alvarado is proposing to implement a value added tax to replace the existing sales tax and expand it to goods and services that are currently exempt. One of the most controversial measures is a 1 percent duty on basic foodstuffs.

Those and other changes that would limit unemployment assistance and the payment of some salary bonuses have met with vigorous opposition from public sector unions. Social security officials reported a daily staff absentee rate of 13 percent to 26 percent, causing dozens of surgeries to be postponed.

“Here are the people demanding no more taxes on the working class, no more burdens on workers,” said Melida Cedeno, president of the APSE teacher union.

“This strike is indefinite,” she added, “and will end only when the government has the will to sit down at the table to talk with all the workers … and withdraw the proposed law.”