In this episode of Under the Shadow, host Michael Fox takes us to Costa Rica to examine the so-called peaceful and democratic beacon in a region beset by dictatorships and violence, and the myths surrounding the elimination of the country’s military, along with how the United States did its utmost to encourage San Jose to do its bidding.
This is Episode 11.
Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present.
In each episode, host Michael Fox takes us to a location where something historic happened—a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum. But every place he takes us was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives, and left deep marks on the world.
Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.
This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.
Guests:
Ciska Raventós
David Díaz
Ivan Molina
Rotsay Rosales
Gustavo Fuchs
Edited by Heather Gies.
Sound design by Gustavo Türck.
Theme music by Monte Perdido and Michael Fox. Monte Perdido’s new album Ofrenda is now out. You can listen to the full album on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Additional info/links:
- You can see pictures of Costa Rica’s National Museum and Butterfly Garden, here.
- Follow and support journalist Michael Fox and Under the Shadow, and listen to his new podcast Panamerican Dispatch at https://www.patreon.com/mfox
- Here’s the link for Kyle Longley’s book, Sparrow and the Hawk: Costa Rica and the United States during the Rise of Jose Figueres.
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Michael Fox: Hi, folks. I want to kick things off by saying that today’s episode will be a little different. Instead of focusing on war and violence, today we’ll be talking about democracy and peace. Or at least the idea of it. OK. That’s all I’m gonna say. I hope you like the episode.
I’m standing in this Plaza in San Jose, downtown San Jose. On one end is the Archaeological Jade Museum, on the other is Congress. Tourists are walking around. It’s a windy afternoon, dark clouds rolling overhead.
And on the easternmost side of this Plaza, going up these stairs, is this huge, yellow-orange building that almost looks like a castle, the Costa Rican flag flying overhead. This, decades ago, was a military barracks. It was home to the Costa Rican military. Today, it is the National Museum of Costa Rica. Because, of course, 75 years ago, Costa Rica abolished its military here.
My family and I went for a walk inside.
“Hola… Hola… ¿Cuánto sale?”
“Manténgase cerrado para asegurar que no salgan las mariposas.”
It’s super interesting. You walk inside and they still have the outer walls set up, these big brick walls buttressed alongside the tower, but they’ve converted them into a mariposario, a butterfly garden. So these big plants, tropical plants, birds of paradise and whatnot sprout up from this path that winds upwards. Little butterflies fly here and there.
If that is not a sign of the amazing transformation from a place of might to a place of coexistence. Even if it’s largely symbolic, it’s really beautiful.
So there’s a sign here that describes this was the main tower on the former Bella Vista barracks, that’s what the barracks was called.
We walk up a windy ramp.
You get the feeling like you’re walking through one of these forests they have here in in Costa Rica, the green mixed with the brick building. As we wind our way into the museum here, big signs, it says, keep the door closed to prevent the butterflies from coming out.
We’ve just walked up and we’re actually on the inside main square, I guess. Downstairs here you have to pass this metal gate. And this is apparently where the old jail cells were.
There’s a plaque on the wall here. It says “Las armas dan la victoria pero solo las leyes dan la libertad.” Weapons give victory, but only laws can give freedom. Jose Figueres Ferrer. He was the one who abolished the military. So he basically knocked a piece, took down a piece of the Bella vista barracks.
“It was against this wall, literally. This is where we are right now. So this is the location where Costa Rica symbolically abolished its military on Dec. 1, 1948, 75 years ago.”
It’s wild to be there at the museum, this exact location where Costa Rica eliminated its army. That one idea, demilitarization, has been a point of pride and admiration inside and outside Costa Rica for the last three quarters of a century. This is the so-called country of peace in the hemisphere, the “Switzerland” of Central America. It promoted the Central American peace deals of the 1980s. It became the headquarters of The United Nations University of Peace. And while, as we have heard in this podcast often, museums elsewhere remember the crimes and the horrors of the past to ensure they never repeat — here, Costa Ricans and this museum honor this memory of peace — the destruction of the wall… symbolizing the end of the military.
So we’re kind of walking through the side room of this temporary exhibition, from the barracks to museum, and the walls are all painted white. And you have each of these side rooms, these are the former jail jail cells. You have the the floors and these tiles, these dark yellow and kind of Gray or black tiles. And in each of the different rooms which are former jail cells. (00:20:46.100) You have different images of San Jose of the capital, what the barracks look like.
I walk my daughter over to a prominently displayed picture.
Of all the pictures in this place, of all the images, this is probably the most important. I’m standing before this big. Big, maybe 3 foot by two foot. Black and white picture of Jose Figueres Ferrer, who was the president at the time, Who’s knocking off? A piece of the Fort, a wall that we just passed by that was like the symbolic demolishing of the army of the military. This is on December 1st, 1948, which is when they abolished the military, abolished the army, and this was the exact location where they abolished the military and the army was from this Fort along to that wall on the back.
“Is this the museum that you wanted to come to?”
“This is it…. This is why.”
Today, we take a deep dive into Costa Rica, the so-called peaceful and democratic beacon for a region beset by dictatorships and violence. To look at the myth it has created around the elimination of the military and how the United States did its utmost to encourage San Jose to do its bidding.
This is Under the Shadow — an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, to tell the story of the past, by visiting momentous places in the present.
This podcast is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.
I’m your host, Michael Fox — longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist. The producer and host of the podcast Brazil on Fire. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years in Latin America.
I’ve seen firsthand the role of the U.S. government abroad. And most often, sadly, it is not for the better: Invasions, coups, sanctions. Support for authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years.
In each episode in this series, I will take you to a location where something historic happened — a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument or a museum. But every place I’m going to bring you was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives and left deep marks on the world. I’ll try to discover what lingers of that history today.
So… throughout this series, I’ve been looking at the long history of U.S. intervention in the region. In Costa Rica, we take a slightly different turn. The U.S. still plays an undoubtedly historic role, particularly throughout the 1980s, but as you’ll see, it’s a little more subtle. See… the goal was to show how capitalist and democratic Costa Rica was THE positive example of success in the region. And the U.S. threw millions of dollars at helping to shore up the country and its economy.
Oh… also, we’ll be bursting the bubble a little on that beautiful myth of the peaceful, demilitarized Costa Rican democracy, as well as the guy who supposedly ushered it in — president Jose Figueres Ferrer.
This is Under the Shadow. Season 1: Central America. Episode 11. Costa Rica. Peace and democracy — maybe.
Jose Figueres Ferrer: I want to begin with this man.
Michael Fox: Jose Figueres Ferrer — thats’s him, speaking about his childhood later in life. He’s the former president who I’ve already mentioned. The Costa Rican icon who abolished the military. They called him Don Pepe. When he passed away in 1990, at the age of 83, The New York Times headline read that he had quote “Led Costa Ricans to Democracy”.
There’s a life-sized statue of him in front of the museum. His arms at his sides. Looking South. It portrays him wearing a simple farmer’s outfit. And that’s how he thought of himself — as a farmer-philosopher. He was a small man. 5 foot three. With a particular drawl of a Costa Rican Spanish accent. He studied hydroelectric engineering at MIT and became a successful coffee grower, before become a leading figure in the opposition to the government and taking the presidency.
He would later say, at a commemoration of the abolition of the military in Costa Rica, that he was influenced by British science fiction writer H.G. Wells, who was a pacifist and wrote this theme into many of his stories.
Like the butterfly garden and the National Museum, Figueres is the perfect symbol of Costa Rica’s peaceful image — a philosopher president who freed the country of the violence that has plagued the rest of the region.
The problem is that it’s not true.
Ciska Raventos: “I mean to consider Figueres as a peacemaker anti military. Is entirely false.”
Michael Fox: That’s Ciska Raventos. A sociologist, and a retired professor from the University of Costa Rica. I spoke with her at her home in San Jose on a stormy afternoon.
Ciska Raventos: “Figueres led an armed uprising against the elected government. I mean he was the the one that led the coup.”
Michael Fox: This is so incredible. Let me give you a quick recap.
In the eight years leading up to the 1948 coup, the country is run by center-left presidents who actually cater to the needs of the poor.
President Rafael Calderon founds a social security retirement program, national healthcare, and establishes the University of Costa Rica. His administration rolls out labor and social rights like the country has never seen, and they do it in coalition with members of the communist party, which has substantial support, particularly in Congress.
Now… the timing here is key. Remember, this is the early 1940s, so the United States is a little busy.
At the time, the U.S., is allied with the Soviet Union, in the fight against the Nazis. This is before the Cold War.
Interestingly, the U.S. involvement in World War 2 actually leaves some Latin American countries free to tread their own path… and to pass unprecedented social reforms that both before and after this point would raise concern in Washington.
But there was no reason to worry. This was pretty basic social democracy stuff. But it was huge for Costa Rica. And also Guatemala.
Remember this was the time of president Juan Jose Arevalo’s Guatemalan Spring.
All of this probably wouldn’t have happened if the U.S. hadn’t been so preoccupied with the war in Europe.
But in Costa Rica, president Rafael Calderon is still attentive to appeasing his friends in Washington.
David Diaz is a historian at the University of Costa Rica. We heard from him in Episode 8 about William Walker.
David Diaz: “The story that Calderón’s wife tells is that in 1940, Calderón met with U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” says David. “Roosevelt explains that public opinion was changing, that the Nazi threat was real, and at any moment the U.S. might have to enter the Second World War. And as soon as the U.S. declared war on Germany, Costa Rica should immediately do the same, because of its close proximity to the Panama Canal.”
Michael Fox: Remember, that canal remains the only way of crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or vice versa, without going around the tip of South America. So, as we’ll see in the next episode about Panama, it was really strategic.
David Diaz says that Calderon did as he was told.
David Diaz: “On December 7th, 1941, like its infamous axis partners, struck first, and declared war afterwards.”
“Just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Costa Rica declared war on Germany. It was the first country in Latin America to join with the United States on this,” he says. “So the Costa Rican political class always wanted to be on good terms with the U.S. political class. And they kind of mutually helped each other like that,” says David.
Michael Fox: Anyway… Calderon and his successor Teodoro Picado Michalski introduced social reforms. They also embarked on large infrastruture projects, building hundreds of miles of roads and bridges. A U.S. film crew produced this short travel documentary about Costa Rica in 1947.
Documentary: “Although the traffic may be antique, the roads of Costa Rica are among the best in the world, and this little country boasts that it is one of the first to complete its portion of the great Pan American Highway.”
Michael Fox: In 1948, former president Calderon takes another run at the presidency. He loses by roughly 10,000 votes. But there are widespread allegations of fraud. The Calderon-backed legislative assembly annuls the election.
And our friend Don Pepe — the great democrat and peacemaker — Jose Figueres Ferrer — picks up arms and rises up with a group of 700 men. The story is that they took action in defense of the country’s democracy.
Sociologist Ciska Raventos.
Ciska Raventos: “That is simply not true. By now, it’s clear that whatever fraud occurred was possibly on the side of the people that were against the government.”
Michael Fox: In other words… Don Pepe rose up to defend the opposition that had carried out the fraud.
And now, it’s important to keep in mind that Don Pepe did not have a good relationship with Calderon. He actually spent two years in exile… from 1942 to 1944 after denouncing Calderon’s government. Figueres viewed Calderon as an authoritarian leader trying to grab back power.
After the 1948 vote was annulled, and Figueres was leading his rebellion, former president Calderon tried to defuse the situation. He met with his competitor and they agreed to designate a president who could take office until new elections were held. Don Pepe refused the deal.
Don Pepe’s uprising led to a 44-day Civil War. It was the bloodiest event in 20th-century Costa Rica. 2,000 people died. In the end, the insurgency defeated the Costa Rican military and a junta led by Don Pepe took power on May 8, 1948.
But throughout the entire uprising — and this is important, though not surprising, if you’ve been listening to this podcast — Don Pepe was backed by some powerful forces. A 1997 book by U.S. historian Kyle Longly, “The Sparrow and the Hawk,” looks at U.S. – Costa Rican foreign relations during this era and in particular, the rise of Figueres.
He argues that the 1948 Civil War in Costa Rica was actually the United States’s first Latin American battleground of the Cold War, a full six years before the CIA overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
Remember that Calderon was allied with Communist groups. His coalition controlled the legislative assembly. They took up arms to defend the country against the Figueres uprising. Opposition groups, in both Costa Rica and the United States, twisted this out of proportion to make it seem as though Communist forces were pushing to take over the country.
Longly writes, “Heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union significantly influenced U.S. responses to the Costa Rican Civil War of 1948… It caused the United States to intervene more directly in Costa Rican affairs, threatening the pattern of traditional cordial relations between the two countries.”
This was not a full-blown U.S. operation. Nor was it a CIA coup. That agency was founded only months before. But the U.S. played a key role.
As Longly highlights, U.S. diplomats took measures to undermine the government position. They blocked government officials from purchasing weapons from abroad, and looked the other way, when Figueres’ troops received shipments of arms from foreign allies. U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica Nathanial Davis helped the warring sides to broker the peace deal that brought an end to the 44-day war. In the process, the ambassador guided Figueres and his people, while intimidating and threatening president Picado, who was ultimately toppled.
At one point, Picado was told the U.S. was threatening to invade from Panama’s Canal Zone. He agreed to surrender rather than allow the country to be occupied by the United States.
If you remember, Arbenz, in Guatemala made the same calculation when he resigned under the pretense that his country was overrun with rebel U.S.-backed troops and there was about to be a bloodbath.
“The U.S. role in the revolution was important,” Longly writes. “helping to remove a perceived Communist threat by aiding Figueres’ triumph, which ensured a major change in Costa Rican leadership.”
Seven months later. December 1st, 1948, Don Pepe declares the end of the Costa Rican military.
Ciska Raventos: “Clearly, Figueres was not a pacifist. But the army was more prone to be loyal to the opposition than to him. So the abolition of the army allowed him to have a bigger control than what he had.”
Michael Fox: In other words, the real reason for his abolition of the military, was because he was afraid it might turn against him and carry out a coup against his government. Historians say Figueres believed that in the case of an external threat, Costa Rica could rely on support from the United States and regional organizations like the recently formed Organization of American States to come to its defense.
It’s shocking, because this is so different than the myth and the story that’s been spread both inside and outside Costa Rica ever since.
Ciska Raventos: “This first move, which is absolutely pragmatic, later gets Like fictionalized into a pacifist mood and the relationship with peace.”
Michael Fox: This, for instance, is a children’s choir singing Costa Rica’s hymn for the Abolition of the Army, outside of the National Museum seven years ago on the anniversary of the announcement.
They sing: “That is why today the world knows us and respects us for the decision of lifting notebooks and violins instead of cruel and destructive rifles.”
Now… it’s important to point out that historians are very clear that the Costa Rican military never had the power of many of the armed forces in neighboring countries.
The military in Costa Rica was already being rolled back and defunded as of the late 1800s.
Celebrated Costa Rican historian Ivan Molina explains that this was due to a distinct feature of the Costa Rican system. See, in other countries, where powerful elites ruled over landless masses, the military was used not to protect borders or fight foreign wars, but as a means of social control. In Costa Rica, the demographics were different. The country was more homogenized mestizo and the majority of people were farmers who had their own land. Although, segregation laws forced Afro-Costa Rican communities to remain along the country’s Caribbean coast, where many Black Caribbean migrants arrived to work for the United Fruit Company. This was actually where the Jamaican Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey got his start. And it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that Black Costa Ricans won citizenship and the right to vote.
But, Costa Rica was one of the first countries to implement a fully functioning democracy, at least for the adult, white or mestizo male population.
Ivan Molina: “So, in order for political parties to compete for electoral support they had to make promises for improvements,” says Molina. “And by the end of the 19th century, you see political parties looking to expand education and health. To improve infrastructure. There is a clear focus on executing public policies. And the country has always had a regressive tax system, so one of the ways of financing these social policies was to defund the army.”
Michael Fox: I just want to pause here for a second. This seems like such a truly simple, and yet completely radical proposition.
For instance…. The budget for the U.S. Department of Defense this year is more than $2 trillion U.S. dollars. That’s trillion with a T. Can you imagine how much health care, education and social services that kind of money could provide?
OK. Back to reality and Costa Rica.
Ivan Molina explains that over the years, resources were transferred from the military to the police force.. And… that’s one of the reasons why it was relatively easy for Don Pepe to do away with the military in 1948.
Ivan Molina: “We were already a country with more teachers than soldiers,” says Ivan Molina. “That wasn’t just a myth, it was reality.”
Michael Fox: Historian David Diaz says the Costa Rican army had only 300 soldiers at the time it was abolished, down from 10,000 in the 1880s.
Meanwhile, the true myth of a peaceful Costa Rica had yet to be built… It would consolidate in the 1980s. Now, I’ll get to that in a second, but first, I need to close out on our friend, Don Pepe.
He’s a really curious figure. He takes power in 1948 and leads a junta for 18 months. During that time he retains many of the progressive reforms passed under Rafael Calderon.
Ciska Raventos.
Ciska Raventos: “Despite the fact that Figueres overthrew that government by the arms, he did keep the reforms. Many of the people that supported Figueres were hoping for him to end the reforms. And he did not. So there, there you see the other part. That’s very difficult to understand, how somebody who is successful in an armed uprising keeps the reforms that irritated many of his allies. I think that for for us is also always difficult to understand because it it. It makes both forces, while antagonistic, and enemies at the same time, quite continuous in ideological terms too.”
Michael Fox: Before he left office in 1949, Figueres approves citizenship for Afro-Costa Ricans, and women’s right to vote. And he outlaws the Communist Party.
A classified CIA report from 1950 stated, quote, “Costa Rica recognizes the U.S. as the dominant power in the Caribbean.”
Figueres returned in 1953, this time through an election. And once in office, he continued his contradictory center-left stance. You know… it’s weird, this is a guy who led the bloodiest coup in the country’s history, and was backed by the United States. Yet he continues to promote New Deal-style social programs. He supported the private sector and at the same time, he nationalized the banking system, and he cooperated with the United States,
Jose Figueres Ferrer: “These young men are students at the school of the americas, a major instrument in the US army’s southern command’s stated policy of providing strong influence, guidance and orientation to Latin America services.”
Michael Fox: He sent more police to be trained at the U.S. School of the Americas than any other country in Latin America, except Nicaragua, which was under the rule of the Somoza dictatorship.
But he also ran into trouble with the U.S.
Here’s a clip from that travel documentary I mentioned earlier.
Documentary: “In 1502, when Columbus landed on the shores of this country, he christened it Costa Rica, meaning rich coast. But it is not the wealth of gold and silver and other valuable mineral deposits which makes Costa Rica a rich country… Next to coffee, bananas are the chief crop of export. And the investment in banana plantations is valued at over $23 million.”
Michael Fox: See… Costa Rica was a major base for the United Fruit company — you know the U.S. banana juggernaut that operated across Central America. In fact, United Fruit got its start in Costa Rica, in the late 1800s. And like elsewhere in the region, it basically made a killing.
David Diaz.
David Diaz: “When Figueres comes to power in 53, he tries to renegotiate contracts with the United Fruit Company,” says David. To collect up to 30% taxes on banana exports. Before that, they didn’t charge anything. They spent 50 years without paying any taxes on their banana exports.”
Michael Fox: Remember, pushing back on United Fruit was the whole reason for the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954, as we looked at in-depth in the second episode of this podcast.
David Diaz: “And there was talk of another coup being planned against Figueres. Figueres was also seen as a threat by the Dulles Brothers,” says David. “Remember, one was Secretary of State and the other was a lawyer for the banana company. But fortunately for Figueres, he had very good friends in Washington who lobbied for him and his government.”
Michael Fox: Washington would again play a profound role in Costa Rica, just a few short decades later.
That… in a minute
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Michael Fox: The day is July 19, 1979. The Sandinistas overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. In neighboring Costa Rica, Ciska Raventos says people celebrated in the streets the day Somoza fled the country.
Ciska Raventos: “It was late, late at night. People took their cars out to honk their horns People went to the main radio station in the center of San Jose because there was a lot of excitement. And it was, it was a very exciting thing. I mean, we we never thought that they were going to be able to get rid of Somoza and and the Sandinista government was a government of immense hope, I think. I think that. That after the Spanish Civil War. for this region at all, for the Hispanic region there, there there hasn’t been such another. Like hopeful process as the first years of the Sandinista revolution. Like the alphabetization campaign. Sí, the possibility that Nicaragua is going to lead a different path. So, so there was a lot of excitement and a lot of enthusiasm….”
David Diaz: “But,” says David Diaz, “once the Revolution began to radicalize to the left. News began to be published in the Costa Rican press that Nicaragua was becoming Marxist-Leninist and that it was getting closer to the Soviet Union and Cuba. And this set off the communist fears from your average Costa Rican And this started to play a role in how people in Costa Rica saw the situation in neighboring Nicaragua.”
Ciska Raventos: “But at the same time. shortly after that. Costa Rica had its first. Insolvency crisis. And Since it happened one year before Mexico. And since Costa Rica is so small. The debt crisis didn’t even have a name yet.”
Michael Fox: The 1980s Latin American debt crisis is sometimes referred to as “the lost decade.” It rippled across the entire region, rocking heavy hitters like Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, but also tiny Costa Rica and its 2.4 million people. It was a major impetus for the structural adjustment programs pushed by the IMF and World Bank that helped usher in neoliberalism across the region.
Keep in mind that in the leadup to this period, Costa Rica achieved one of the lowest levels of inequality in Latin America.
Historian Ivan Molina.
Ivan Molina: “Costa Rica manages to reduce poverty from 50% in 1960. to 25%. In 1976, 77,” he says. “And all that was from state investment. And without having decisively modified the tax structure. So what the governments did was. Increase investment. But they did this by increasing the debt. Particularly the external debt. So when we get to the end of the seventies, the Costa Rican economy is almost on the verge of bankruptcy and then the debt crisis kicks off in the 1980s.”
Michael Fox: Ciska Raventos
Ciska Raventos: “We were unable to pay our debt, We were unable to take on other loans, The government threw out the International Monetary Fund. But mainly because it was like. In a position that it couldn’t maneuver in any direction because they couldn’t get more money to pay and the debt was unpayable, so we defaulted one full year before Mexico.”
“So, so that led to to an enormous scarcity of goods of even of food a an enormous inflation like the the exchange rate. devaluated in about 500% so so. It was like a, terrible social situation. And when Luis Alberto Monge gets elected he somehow has to find out how to create a program of stabilization.”
Michael Fox: Enter Luis Alberto Monge. That’s him speaking about financial hard times shortly after taking office. He was a stout man and a longtime politician. He was the head of Costa Rica’s legislative assembly in the 1970s and for many years served as the General Secretary of Don Pepe’s center-left National Liberation Party. Monge actually fought alongside Don Pepe in the 1948 Civil War.
“Shaking hands…”
To stabilize the economy, Monge looks to the United States.
President Ronald Reagan: “Well ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to welcome President Monge of Costa Rica. Costa Rica is an old and valued friend of the United States.”
Michael Fox: This is June 1982. Monge traveled to Washington to meet with president Ronald Reagan just a month after he took office.
Remember… at the time, Reagan had been in power for a year. And the U.S. was hard at work fighting the so-called communist threat in Guatemala, El Salvador, and in particular, Nicaragua.
In a prepared speech outside the White House, Monge says that he’s repeated to President Reagan his country’s need for support in order to overcome its financial difficulties.
Ciska Raventos: “The speech is totally explicit because what he says is. Help show that democracy is possible. In this turbulent region. And from then on. On one hand, Costa Rica becomes a support for the Contra against the Nicaraguan government and on the other hand Costa Rica receives daily support of about a million dollars for several years.”
President Ronald Reagan: I personally pledged my administration’s support for Costa Rica’s efforts at economic recovery.”
Luis Alberto Monge: “Many thanks to President Reagan,” Monge said, “for accepting the ratification of this alliance of the tiny Costa Rica with the powerful United States to continue to fight for freedom and justice for our people.”
Michael Fox: Between 1983 and 1990, the U.S. government would provide $2.5 billion dollars in financial support to Costa Rica.
Ciska Raventos: “So during those years for us. It was as if. more or less, we were like part of the United States or part of an agent of the United States. The Contra fought openly from Costa Rica. U.S. aid was very strong. It felt as if the. As if the country had no sovereignty whatsoever. It was more like like we were like. Like doers for the US.”
Michael Fox: Ciska says that the financing did help to stabilize the economy, but that these funds also helped some groups become very powerful, for instance, private banks. Since 1948, banking had been a state monopoly. In the 1980s, USAID funds were used to finance the creation of private banks.
And Reagan pushed for more involvement of Costa Rica in the fight against Nicaragua.
Ciska Raventos: There’s a certain moment inside the Monge government in which the more Social Democratic sectors of his government. Invent a neutrality declaration. That Costa Rica would always remain neutral in international conflicts. And there’s an enormous support to this neutrality. And it’s mainly the more progressive or the more pro-sovereign sectors of Monge’s Government trying to avoid the U.S. getting us more involved inside the Nicaraguan conflict.”
Michael Fox: May 15, 1984. A huge crowd of people march through the streets of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose. A man at the mic says, “We demand that the president be sincere in his proposal to keep us away from the war.” They chant: “Yes to peace, no to war.” And carry signs and banners reading: “We want peace. We demand neutrality.”
This was labeled the March of Neutrality and it’s important, because this movement for peace and neutrality in the Central American wars would set the scene for what came next. See, this question over war and peace would lead the next Costa Rican leader to the presidency.
It’s late 1985, a few months before the February 1986 Costa Rican elections.
Historian David Diaz tells the story.
David Diaz: “The two parties were the center-left National Liberation Party, that had been founded by Figueres and the center-right Social Christian party,” says David. “And during a televised interview, they ask the candidate of the Social Christian party, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier — [that’s the son of the Rafael Calderon of the 1940s]. They ask him what would happen if the Sandinista Revolution were to harm Costa Rica. And he responded that Costa Rica would have to take the decision to send police to confront the Sandinistas and if the U.S. required it, Costa Rica could send police to the border to strengthen this front.”
“The attitude of this candidate from the Social Christian party was not received well by the voters,” says David. “And the other candidate Óscar Arias, from the National Liberation Party began a really strong campaign with the theme of peace at the center of it.”
That was his campaign song: “Peace for my people. Peace for my land.” It sings: “The war is not our business. Peace is the legacy of the past. Forget the thunder of the cannons. Let’s turn the weapons into ploughshares.” In a campaign ad with this song, you see images of people tilling the land. Parents holding their children. A sunrise. Crowds of people cheering for Oscar Arias.
Ciska Raventos: “And he was way down in the polls. This was November 85. And I mean, there wasn’t a chance he was going to get elected and somehow this idea of not getting involved in the Central American conflict to be able and not to support any of the forces that helped him get elected.”
Michael Fox: I just want to pause here to underscore this point about the spirit of peace in Costa Rica.
Remember, Figuere’s abolition of the military in 1948 was a pragmatic move to stop the possibility of the military from ousting his government, but it…
Ciska Raventos: “led to the possibility of of a greater expenditure in social programs, in health, in education. So, So what we didn’t spend on the army was spent on better causes. So on the long run it’s a very transcendental act. But at the moment it didn’t have the same significance. It’s a significance that history has led to. To to, to give it, to give it a a greater importance, but not only ideological, but also in the facts that it’s really a very important Measure to take. And it has been enormously important for Costa Rica.”
Michael Fox: Of course, even going all the way to its independence, Costa Rica has had fewer violent coups and internal conflicts than many of its neighbors. But Ciska says… and this is fascinating… that over time, the end of the military was the act that really engrained this spirit of peace into the culture of the country.
Ciska Raventos: I think that the idea of being pacifist, of being against war being, I think is something of the political culture. But it’s like mainly due to this lived experience of decades without a military without a. A military expenditure, more than than like. Like a pacifist conviction.”
Michael Fox: Regardless, Oscar Arias road his campaign for peace to the presidency. And he fit the bill — as the candidate for the National Liberation Party — the party founded by Don Pepe, the man who abolished the armed forces.
He wins thanks to his peace campaign and historian David Diaz says he has the strength to confront the Reagan Administration.
David Diaz: “Once he takes office, Arias receives the director of the CIA, who demands that his administration continue with the same policies toward Nicaragua. That Costa Rica turn a blind eye to the Contra training near the Nicaraguan border. And Arias tells him, No,” says David.
Michael Fox: David says there the U.S. starts to pressure Costa Rica hard. That Reagan threatens to remove the U.S. financial support Costa Rica has received since 1982. He threatens to intervene internationally so that Costa Rica is left out of regional dialogue. He sends emissaries to constantly twist the Arias government’s arms.
Now… keep in mind that two things happen in this period that help to both tarnish the image of the United States and lift up the image of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.. First… The International Criminal Court rules in favor of Nicaragua and calls on the U.S. to stop its covert war there. And…
Speaker: “Mr. president you have stated flately and you stated flately again tonight that you did not trade weapons for hostages.”
Michael Fox: Second, the Iran-Contra scandal breaks, which diminishes the clout and the strength of the United States to get its way.
Arias does travel to Washington to meet with Reagan at the end of 1986. Their statements present a united front for quote “Freedom and democracy” but Arias has taken another direction. U.S. financial support drops.
Ciska Raventos: So in that context, Arias’s move is very. Very bold, very bold. Like all of a sudden say, OK, we’re not going that way. And in fact we did lose the contributions of the US went down radically. During during the Arias period. But it was like a way of distancing. From this, this time in which the the, the more the administration made us entirely part. Of the U.S. Project in Central America. Which are, which are very bad years of the war, right?
Michael Fox: Arias followed through on his campaign promise of peace. He took an active role in trying to mediate the armed conflicts in the region. He met with the region’s presidents, calling for a Central American peace deal. They held peace summits in 1986 and 87, with the participation of all of the region’s leaders.
Oscar Arias presents a regional peace plan in early 1987. It calls for the end of war, free elections, democratization, and the end of all assistance to paramilitary forces. It’s signed by the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica on August 7th of that year.
It is a really big thing.
Historian David Diaz was 10 years old.
David Diaz: “I was in elementary school and it was like we had just won the Soccer World Cup. It was incredible,” he says. “I remember the scenes on TV. My dad gave me a newspaper and said, ‘save this newspaper because it will be very important in the future.’ And there was Arias with the presidents at a table signing the document. It had a big impact on me. In schools, there were special meetings so teachers could explain to students how important Costa Rica had been in achieving the agreement. The key role of Oscar Arias. It was a huge national holiday. And it had a lot of weight afterward. It was like there was a new idea of the Costa Rican nation. And it helped us to overcome the economic debt crisis.”
Michael Fox: Just two months later, Oscar Arias is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Costa Ricans respond on national TV.
“This is the greatest gift our president could give us,” says one man. “I’m happy that a country as small as ours, could win an award so big like that which our president has won,” says a boy in a blue shirt looking into the camera.
Of course, as we’ve seen throughout this podcast series, true peace would take years to happen. In Nicaragua, it was only after the Sandinistas lost the 1990 elections. In El Salvador, a peace deal was signed in 1992. In Guatemala. 1996. Only after the end of the Cold War.
Historian David Diaz explains that the Arias peace plan was more like a road map than a done deal.
David Diaz: “A lot of blood will still flow on the streets of Central America,” he says. “But the important thing was that internationally there was a document that said that what Ronald Reagan said about not being able to negotiate with guerrilla groups and that they would only hear the noise of the machine gun was a lie. You can negotiate. They also understand politics and democracy. I think that was the main achievement. Also, more pressure was exerted within the United States about the steps needed to achieve peace in Central America. But it didn’t stop the violence that still left many disappeared, many dead, and many forced migrants who had to leave their countries.”
Ciska Raventos: “It was successful. In slowly, over the next 10 years, demilitarizing the conflicts. But it was not successful in addressing the roots. Of the conflicts that had brought about. The insurgency. So much of what we have today in Central America is still part of that. I mean they generally there hasn’t been any will to address the structural inequality. Of Central America.
Michael Fox: Not only that, but in Costa Rica, it’s gotten worse.
In late 2023, I met up with Rotsay Rosales, near the Political Science department of the University of Costa Rica. He’s a professor there. He wears a grey sports coat that matches his salt and pepper hair. We sat outside at a colorfully painted concrete picnic table.
Rotsay Rosales: “Within 30 years, Costa Rica went from being one of the top countries in Latin America for wealth distribution to being one of the four most unequal in the region,” he tells me.
Michael Fox: He says it’s come on the backs of decades of neoliberal governments that have gutted the social programs and welfare state that had so successfully lifted Costa Rica in the 1960s and 1970s.
That rising inequality has spiked violence in recent years. The number of homicides is at a record high, peaking at 40% between 2022 and 2023.
Rotsay Rosales: “We have never had levels of violence like this in our country. And it’s because of, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many experts, the persistent unemployment.”
Michael Fox: I did a good deal of reporting on this in Costa Rica. Walking through the streets of San Jose you come across many homeless people sleeping on the ground, shoved aside by unemployment, inflation, and a lack of opportunity. The cost of living has sky rocketed. Many things are more expensive in Costa Rica today than even in the United States, yet the monthly minimum wage is only about $600. That’s not even $4 an hour. .
One man I met said he now carried a gun for fear of rising insecurity.
All of this, led to the election of outsider economist, Rodrigo Chaves, in 2022. You might think of him as like a soft Trump or Nayib Bukele.
That’s him promising to quote “trap, capture, detain, judge and jail the crime bosses,” while presenting a new law against organized crime in the country.
Rodrigo Chaves: “Thank you very much president Biden, for the people of Costa Rica, it’s a great honor.”
Michael Fox: In August 2023, he met with U.S. President Joe Biden, who promised to help strengthen Costa Rica’s police forces in order to fight transnational crime.
And that is putting Costa Rica’s peace image and legacy on shaky ground. Rotsay Rosales is one of many Costa Ricans who are concerned about Chaves’s tendency for authoritarianism.
Rotsay Rosales: “Chaves is revealing characteristics that are really worrisome for the democratic norm of the country,” he says. “He’s spreading fake news. He’s using polarization to divide the country, into an us versus them. And that’s led to rising levels of intolerance.”
Michael Fox: Hate speech and discrimination online in Costa Rica rose over 250% between 2021 and 2023…. This mimics the reality we’ve seen in many other places with a rising far right.
Gustavo Fuchs is a Costa Rican researcher and a PHD student at the University of Texas.
Gustavo Fuchs: “In terms of policy priorities, he’s closer to Trump because of his alliances. He’s allied with libertarians and evangelicals, just like Trump in the US. So a lot of the things that he’s trying to do, his policies are in the direction of defunding the welfare state, cutting education, funding for education, funding for Social Security, for health.”
Michael Fox: But the neoliberal trend of gutting these services has been on the rise for years.
Remember, Costa Rican hero, Oscar Arias? Well that’s not how he’s seen today. His legacy is complicated. See, he was elected back into power in 2006, when he oversaw the approval of the country’s entry into the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA
There were huge mobilizations against it. Marches in the street. Costa Rica was the last country to hold out. The people said it would ruin the economy, and lead to exactly what the country has been experiencing in recent years.
Rolando Araya, from the Movement against the Central America Free Trade Agreement, spoke to the international press during one of these marches.
Rolando Araya: “Aside from what we already know, that is going to affect the country economically and socially, and turn Costa Rican democracy upside down,” he said. “How can something of such magnitude have been negotiated in secret and then approved in Parliament?”
Michael Fox: Ciska Raventos
Ciska Raventos: “The alliance in favor of CAFTA had all the money in the world. It was like all the powerful sectors and the. The people were against CAFTA. The movement against CAFTA was mainly all the unions. A community groups. Indigenous populations.”
Michael Fox: Ciska says pushing through CAFTA was Arias’s explicit goal upon returning to power in 2006. The previous president had held out for two years over concerns that it would damage the country. Arias got the job done — with the help of the United States.
Ciska says U.S. ambassador, businessman Mark Langdale took out all the stops to push CAFTA across the country.
Ciska Raventos: “It was so outrageous what he had done. So outrageous the interference, because he had gone to talk in favor of CAFTA being an ambassador at workplaces. It was outrageous and in WikiLeaks. A lot of this came out. And a. And you have like cables that show the concern of the U.S. government. And the idea that to hush this up. So they call him to Washington, they call him to retirement.”
Michael Fox: It’s another reminder of how the United States has gotten it’s hands dirty in every country of the hemisphere. Even here… in peaceful, Pura Vida Costa Rica.
That is all for this episode of Under the Shadow.
Next time, we head to our last and final stop on this journey across Central America.
We go to Panama. A country split apart by U.S. plans for progress. And a bloody invasion that would destroy tens of thousands of homes and claim the lives of hundreds.
That’s next time on Under the Shadow.
Just a few quick things to say before I go…
As this is the second to last episode, I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who chipped in to make this podcast series a reality. And to appreciate NACLA and The Real News for supporting and producing this endeavor. I will read a full list of names of everyone who backed and supported this project at the end of the final episode.
Again, a quick reminder that the album for my band, Monte Perdido, is finally out on Spotify or wherever you stream music. It was released in May. And it includes the outro theme song to Under the Shadow that you are hearing right now. The link is in the show notes. Please check it out, like it, follow it, and share with a friend.
Finally… you can see pictures of Costa Rica’s National Museum and Butterfly Pavilion, plus the statue of Jose Figueres Ferrer out front, on my Patreon page… Patreon.com forward slash mfox. That’s also where you can find my new personal podcast, Panamerican Dispatch. It’s exclusively for my Patreon supporters, and it’s a window into my reporting from wherever I am in the Americas. You can think of it like an audio postcard. The first three episodes are out. In the last one, I look in-depth at my reporting on this Costa Rican episode. There was so much surprising stuff that I just didn’t have room to include. You can find it there. As usual, the links are in the show notes.
Under the Shadow is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.
The theme music is by my band Monte Perdido.
This is Michael Fox. Many thanks.
See you next time…
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