Costa Rican lawmaker says U.S. revoked her visa over alleged ties to Communist Party
San Jose, Costa Rica – Vice-president of the Costa Rica congress said Thursday that the United States Embassy told him that the United States had revoked his visa due to alleged contact with the Chinese Communist Party.
Vanessa Castro of the Party of Social Unity of the Social Opposition Christian, speaking in the Legislative Assembly, denied such links and declared that the media allied to President Rodrigo Chaves knew that her American visa had been revoked before she did.
Castro was one of the many Costa Rican characters who came out on Wednesday to say that their American visas had been canceled, including the president of the Congress, who belongs to the National Opposition Liberation Party, and two judges on the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court who made decisions that Chaves hated.
“I went and checked and they told me to the embassy that they had received information that, among other things, I had links with the members of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Castro. “You all know me, I have a fairly public life, can you imagine that I have a relationship with members of the Chinese Communist Party?”
She also noted that she had supported Rica’s initiatives in the United States as a regional free trade agreement and joint patrols against drug traffickers.
Castro said that the media supporting the administration of Chaves showed up at his office to ask questions about the visa even before she was informed.
The United States Embassy said its policy was not to comment on individual visa cases.
Chaves played visa cancellations on Wednesday, saying that “it seemed extremely embarrassing that” political figures as important as the president of Castro and the Congress Rodrigo Arias should not be able to go to the United States.
In April, the former Costaorian President and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Oscar Arias, Rodrigo Arias’s brother, said the United States had canceled his visa without explanation. He hypothesized that Washington may not have liked his comments on the war in Ukraine, the American trade conflict with China or the situation in Gaza.
The American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, made his first trip abroad as the first American diplomat in Central America in February and limiting the influence of China in the region was one of the central discussion points of travel.
