Investigator Get International Support
Targeted for numerous death threats during the last two weeks and denied
protection by the government whose children she is trying to safeguard,
Rocío Rodríguez, chief investigator for Casa Alianza, received a strong vote
of support this week from the international community.
Responding to a Casa Alianza mass e-mail circulated around the globe last
Friday, some 150 supporters of the regional child advocacy group sent
e-mails to President Abel Pacheco this week, asking the government to
provide protection to Rodríguez following her risky Nov. 22 testimony
against five Costa Rican men facing trial this week on charges of sexually
exploiting minors. Rodríguez spearheaded the seven-month investigation of
the alleged Costa Rican pedophile ring - the first in Latin America to go to
trial (TT, July 13, 2001).
In the days leading up to her key testimony, Rodríguez received more than 100
death threats and menacing phone calls, warning her not to testify (TT, Nov.
22).
"If you declare on Thursday we are going to blow your head off," said one
anonymous caller in Spanish, recorded on Casa Alianza's phone taping
equipment in the San José office.
The Ministry of Public Security's Special Sex Crimes Unit wrote a letter to
Security Minister Rogelio Ramos Nov. 21, requesting protection for
Rodríguez. Yet Rodríguez told The Tico Times Wednesday she has not received
any official response from the government.
Asked about the e-mails, President Abel Pacheco told a journalist from the
daily La Nación: "Here everyone in the public domain has had his or her life
threatened. I have been threatened for years, and here I am, fat, rosy and
well-fed, and nothing has happened to me."
Pacheco later said the government was providing all the security it possibly
could, despite the fact no police officers are assigned to protect Rodríguez
or the office.
Rodríguez's testimony in the two-week-long trial - scheduled to end today
(Friday) - followed that of eight boys, ages 13 to 16, who took the stand
against the five accused pedophiles, who allegedly called themselves the
"Anonymous Pedophile Association of Costa Rica" - or APA for short.
The Casa Alianza investigator infiltrated the alleged Internet-based pedophile
network using phony cyber-identification - a name she plucked from the
obituaries in a newspaper.
Using the fake handle to initiate e-mail correspondence, Rodríguez won the
confidence of accused ringleader Christian Araya, a 32-year-old former
audio/visual technician at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), who allegedly
belonged to a 350-member international pornography ring called "Pai Dos."
A self-described "experienced boy-lover" who reportedly admitted to Rodríguez
via e-mail that he enjoyed touching boys in the bathroom at Waterland park
in San Antonio de Belén, Araya unknowingly sent Casa Alianza more than 100
photos of himself posing in various acts of oral sex with boys,
investigators said. Most of the photos were apparently taken in the UCR's
audio/visual lab.
The pictures and the seven months of e-mail correspondence were used in
Rodríguez's court testimony before the three-judge panel, which is expected
to rule on the case today or Monday.
Rodríguez told The Tico Times this week that the phone threats have diminished
to three or four a day - down from 30 a day - since her testimony. However,
she continues to travel with private bodyguards and has armed guards at her
house.
A 38-year-old Costa Rican with a background in business administration,
Rodríguez has worked for Casa Alianza for five years, and claims her family
thinks she is crazy for doing so. But her strong sense of social justice and
desire to help children keeps her going.
"I have a conviction that this is what I was born to do," she said.
Rodríguez's long hours of investigating Latin America's dark underbelly,
coupled with the stress of receiving death threats over the years has taken
its toll on the dedicated advocate. Last April, Rodríguez suffered what she
calls a "stress attack" in her vertebra and lost all feeling in her right
leg. Doctors ordered her to spend a month and a half in bed, resting.
Although Rodríguez is slowly recovering now, she can walk only with the
assistance of a cane.
"You have to take care of your mental health in this type of work - it's not
easy," she admitted. "Not everyone is capable of doing this."
But Rodríguez is determined to continue her work of protecting the most
vulnerable members of society.
"Think about when you were a kid, and what would have happened if you were
sexually abused or raped?" she said. "People cannot forget that they were
once children, because if you forget that you were once a kid, you will
forget about the children of today.
"You have to fight for what you believe in, and I believe in human rights and
social justice," she added. "So if this is the price of believing in human
rights and justice, then these threats plus 50,000 more won't turn me back."
By Tim Rogers
Tico Times Staff
trogers@ticotimes.net
