To the editor:

As a native Costa Rican, I have been disappointed by the Journal-World’s misleading characterization of the tragic and unfortunate murder of Shannon Martin. Your coverage continues to fall under the rubric of “Costa Rica slaying,” as though the whole country was involved in this murder (“Martin slaying” would be more appropriate).

Even though I’ve been a citizen of the United States for 46 of my 48 years, I am very proud of my homeland. Costa Rica is a nonviolent country, and its reputation among Americans is quite high (over 25,000 of us, according to one Web site, have chosen to buy property and retire there. They would not do this if the country was not safe.)

To the visitor, Costa Rica offers tropical forests, mist-shrouded mountains and miles of unspoiled beaches. It has no standing army with which to wage war on its neighbors or engage in foreign exercises for oil or power. It has a 70-year tradition of democracy (longest in Latin America) and it provides affordable health care for its citizens.

To suggest that Costa Rica is full of killers, as your continuous headline “Costa Rica slaying” implies, strikes me as racist in tone. And, in terms of the weight of your coverage, it far exceeds even murders here in Lawrence. As a comparison, the Journal-World, to my knowledge, had no local coverage of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing, even though both perpetrators were from Junction City, a mere 90 miles away.

Donald Phipps,

Lawrence