Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 20:43:29 -0600 From: cblanca@sol.racsa.co.cr (Hotel Casa Blanca de Ml. Ant. S.A.) Hello out there: I am just back from San Francisco and have met our lawyers and members from out g/l/b/t movement to get all information for the following update! UPDATE Costa Rica 7/8/95: ----- our resulotion still witout being published: The declaration of our movement to end up gay/lesbian discrimination by naming the roots of the homophobia etc. was declined by all newspapers. A full page paid advertsing space cost between 1000 and 2000 US$ but no paper accepted our money. In case you are interested in the original text of the declaration or it's English translation, please feel free to contact me directly! (To much text to send it generally to all of you!! ----- International support: 1. Students organisations in the USA probably will stop students exchange until case is settled by a declaration of Costa Rica's government! 2. ILGA and IGLHRC (Internat. Gay/Lesbian Human Rights Commission) are just preparing an official action against the discrimination (should be started very soon). 3. Amesty International in Costa Rica, Germany and US are observing our case. IGLHRC will contact ai's head office in London to get support for us! 4. A great number of protest letters were received by the different states authorities in Costa Rica and the embassies in Germany and the US (in Germany hundreds of signatures were collected and sent to all authorities) 5. International press shows interest: The New York Times showed interest to publish the case. In Germany the newspapers "taz" and "junge welt" already published articles to call the attention on Costa Rica and to put pressure on our government! Other papers and magazines might follow! ----- national support All groups connected to g/l/b/t issues or to Human Rights in general will be invited to a workshop soon, in order to elaborate and sign a manifestation against sex tourisme, in order to fight the existing sex tourisme which until now only exists in the heterosexual part of tourisme coming to Costa Rica! Yesterday's contest for Mr. Deja Vue at the Deja Vue disco was a great success and political issues were brought up during the contest and were applauded by 1050 visitors. The contest took place exactly one year after the violant police action during the contest of 1994! The only g/l magazine "Gente 10" is getting a bigger response than ever and started to be highly political and will be our medium to gather gay/lesbian power together (like for a possible boycott of the Miller-owned brewery "Cervezeria Americana" which is not only not willing to show the support Miller in the USA is giving to g/l/b/t events, but they also stated that promotion placed in a gay/lesbian paper will be negative for the image of the brewery!). ------- state of the lawsuit: 1. we have to get Amphitron Holidays / Washington D.C. to make a statement countersigned by their lawyers in which they confirm that the package was never approved by any of the gay/lesbian hotels in Costa Rica. (Phone: (202) 872-9878, Fax: (202) 872-8210) It is still their package which is base for all new discriminations shown each day in the paper by letters written to the papers stating the weirdest opinion of people who just begun to follow the hate and discrimination formulars of the "Prensa Libre"! (Two days ago a lawyer wrote that Hotel Casa Blanca has to be closed, without knowing our place or our politics at all!). 2. the lawsuit will only be done by myself and our company. The other hotels decided not to join (they are branch offices of companies being owned by foreigners, I am resident and I am fighting for "all or nothing"). The lawsuit will be supported by the national g/l/b/t movement. We will get support from known psychologists and lawyers, because the lawsuit will be public (that's law) and it is sure that the main issue will be about "homosexualty is to be considered normal or an offense against moral and traditional values". It's certain that press and TV will be watching the lawsuit (not to help us, that's for sure!)! 3. included in the lawsuit will be a legal protest (recurso de amparo) for myself being cancelled from my postiton as Secretary of the Commission of Natural Resources and Sostainable Development of the local government, which took place without I was informed during an extraordinary session of the council on 06/24/95. Until today no one informed me except of other members of the commission! ================== WHO MIGHT BE BEHIND THE HOMOPHOBIC WAVE???? First clues and hints!!!!! Costa Rica's one and only gay/lesbian beach which exists for more than over 15 years and which represents the only place for coming out for most of the 80% closet gays and lesbians of our society is about being destroyed by a touristical project which is not counting on the regular legal procedure. In fact several not very legal permits were given and guest of our place told me that it seems that they will build houses inside the beach area which is according to Costa Rican law highly illegal (the maritim zone of 200 meters inwards the land in strong protective zone by law!!). As ambiantal commission we started to investigate that case. I as secretary of the commission wrote 1 month ago a letter to the authorities to ask them to study the strange permits and procedures of the building process (outside the maritim zone building already started without the study of the ecological impact which must be presented and approved BEFORE building permits can be given!). The area of the gay beach is one of the last natural habits for the endangered subspecie of the squirrel monkey, as well as for white faced monkeys etc.. The squirrel monkey's endemic subspecie in our area will be extinguished in about 5 years if no protection of their housing areas will be done. Workshops to save the monkeys are hold every year, this year visited by many international scientists. The gay beach is the last beach in natural shape outside of the national park conserving the same biodiveristy as the park. It's protection is highly justified by ecological reason (the social importance for gay/lesbians in Costa Rica would nobody take as a reason, so!). The arquitect of that project (known for other irregularities concerning a second project in the area) knows that I am gay for having seen me at the gay beach several times, when he presented his plans to foreign investors he took to the beach!). Shortly after my letter was received the reporter Rosibel Mena came down to my place to ask me about the tour package of Amphitron Holidays and homosexualty in general! She had the exact information what is true and what is not true, she was told that the package is faked. Although she was given correct info she decided to write the discrimating articles based on the package (which was with bad intention even wrongly translated to make it offensive!). After the homophobic wave raised in our small town (gladly stopped by the apperance of myself and my employees in a local radio show) I received from colleages of the commission the news that the local governments council started to think over to cancel me from my position. Without advise or info I was taken out of my position by the Council on 06/24/95 without explanations and without contacting me until today! Somebody still is putting oil into the fire. Therefore letters representing the worst homophobic opinions are received and printed by the national newspapers to raise a homophobic atmosphere to keep gay/lesbian people away of visiting our area and the beach (national gay/lesbian tourist are NOT following this expectations and started to visit even more the area, our movement hopes that the international tourisme will keep on visiting, too). Posibility of connections between the gay beach case and the rescent discriminations of gay/lesbian national and international tourists were discussed inside our group with our lawyers and were evaluated with a 80% chance to exist! We will have our lawyers investigating that possibility! ***************** We are very glad about all the support we are getting from all of you. But we need to keep the pressure up until the Costa Rican Government finally makes an aclaration which will make it impossible to start similar discriminations in the future! Without a defined position of the government the next homophobic wave will be coming soon, like shown by the line of those cases during the last years. Thank you for your support! Harald P.S.: sorry that I could not shorten this e-mail, too much happened during my vacations! ****************************************************************************** To send a message to the entire list "queerplanet", email queerplanet@abacus.oxy.edu This list is run by the program MAJORDOMO@abacus.oxy.edu. *******************************************************************************