COSTA RICA Modernizing the Non-Army

Hutchcroft, Jayne & Edelman, Marc

Only a few years ago, Costa Rican policemen carried screwdrivers, not guns, in their holsters. Much of their time was spent removing parking violators' license plates. Most Civil and Rural...

...The existing Costa Rican security forces have, however, been remarkably efficient in Marc Edelman and Jayne Hutchcroft, both anthropologists, follow Costa Rica closely...
...In a 1981 statement celebrating its 20th anniversary, MCRL claimed its members had included presidents of the republic, ministers and deputies...
...Nicaragua's Southern Border In February 1983 columnist Jack Anderson, citing confidential State Department cables, charged that "the Reagan Administration, with Israel as a partner, is working on a multimilliondollar land development plan in Costa Rica . . . [which] with the military buildup in Honduras would create a giant strategic pincers physically isolating Nicaragua by land...
...The plan's origins, however, suggest that strategic concerns were paramount...
...Other kinds of units could, however, become an Army in everything but name...
...But because the government is not united in its attitude toward the contras and is under U.S...
...military personnel would participate and that "the dispatch of combat engineers would be the first such joint exercises in Costa Rica...
...Honduran-Style Roads In September, General Paul Gorman of the Panama-based U.S...
...This is probably opposed by most of its people and entails significant dangers for both domestic peace and international stability in the region...
...This project, intended to generate foreign exchange, creates additional security considerations in the north...
...Currently there are around 5,000 Civil Guards, the main police force founded after the 1948 civil war...
...Protecting the pipeline will require improved vigilance and could become a pretext for establishing a massive security force along the border...
...Costa Rica expelled some 60 U.S...
...Historically, Costa Rica's military rarely assumed the dominant role in national politics that armies did elsewhere in Central America...
...But fears were again raised about possible parallels with Honduras when The New York Times reported that in areas of Honduras bordering Nicaragua, U.S...
...Other aid has been provided by Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Argentina, Panama, Venezuela, Japan and Spain...
...Last August, AID signed a $14.2 million loan agreement for the project, which Monge described at the time as "a rescue mission...
...Nine months before Anderson's revelations, La Nacion described a development plan for the same 800 square miles of sparsely populated jungle in the Nicaraguan border area...
...Responding last October to another business group's offer to finance a new security force, Civil Guard Colonel Oscar Vidal commented that while he favored the idea, such a unit would REPORT ON THE AMERICAS have to be under the authority of the Public Security Ministry...
...military and constructed by U.S...
...The Southern Command and the Atlantic Command, each with 278 guards, are based near the banana plantations in southwestern and eastern Costa Rica, the scenes of frequent strikes and police violence...
...It is widely believed in Costa Rica that each political party has its own armed units...
...Navy Sea Bees, who were greeted on arrival by top Costa Rican security officials, also completed a well-drilling project in the northwest...
...road plans appeared modeled on similar efforts along Nicaragua's other border with Honduras, where there is heavy fighting...
...citizen with a farm in the project zone...
...Increased border patrols, the government claims, would contribute to reducing tensions...
...Already a small naval base has opened at the Pacific terminus of the planned pipeline, just a few miles south of Nicaragua...
...Last May, the Patriotic Union, whose members include ex-Foreign Minister Gonzalo Facio and MCRL founder Frank Marshall, called for the formation of an Army "to defend our territory in the face of the warlike situation in the Central American area...
...In addition to the official security forces, private paramilitary groups are also active...
...A recent poll found 83% of Costa Ricans opposed to such a move...
...But even though the Costa Rican security forces are still modest in comparison with those in the rest of the region, the current concern with military professionalization signals a definite departure from tico tradition...
...The group debuted in late 1982 by attacking demonstrators protesting Reagan's visit to Costa Rica...
...Since 1982, mobile Guard "commands" have been organized in strategic areas...
...military engineers...
...Vice security minister Campos recently admitted that several subordinates had been lured by large cash payments into collaborating with ARDE...
...In August 1982, an expos in the Mexican daily Excelsior named Hull as one of the key contra collaborators on Costa Rica's northern border...
...Embassy tactfully began to refer to the combat engineers as "citizen soldiers," Costa Rican officials were apprehensive...
...He is still trying to accommodate U.S...
...This unilateral declaration created a minor uproar, especially because U.S...
...rounding up suspects and assembling evidence in these cases, even though legal niceties and thorough investigations often take second place to McCarthyite tirades against foreigners, non-violent progressive Costa Rican organizations, the Sandinistas and the FMLN...
...Panamanian- and U.S.trained Civil Guard patrols have raided contra camps and closed them downat least temporarily...
...Since 1980, there have been a number of bomb attacks and kidnappings, some linked to contras and Salvadorean diplomats and others to both ultra-left Costa Ricans and Central Americans said by security forces to have connections with Salvadorean FMLN guerrillas or the Nicaraguan government...
...Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Senator Charles Percy that Costa Rica should reconsider its ban on the military...
...OPEN leaders in southeastern Costa Rica include high-ranking personnel of PAIS, S.A., one of the principal banana companies in the region...
...After the 1948 civil war, the Army was abolished by the victorious social democrats who, favoring industrialization and economic diversification, sought to consolidate power and to prevent a coup from returning the government to the wealthy coffee oligarchy...
...Shortly before the formation of OPEN, the ACOGE business association suggested founding a system of "neighborhood security committees in charge of reporting 'suspicious' actions or persons...
...Six months before the Kissinger Commission report called for giving more military aid to U.S...
...Because the northern zone is the only place in Costa Rica where no mountains separate the Pacific from the Caribbean, it will probably also be the site of a planned transisthmian oil pipeline...
...The drought stricken region could doubtless use the wells...
...In a December visit to the United States, however, Monge commented that he would not seek the ex,pulsion of anti-Sandinista forces from Costa Rica, since to do so would violate their right to political asylum...
...Costa Rica's vote in the United Nations against the U.S...
...OH Director Eduardo Aguilar, who describes his organization as "a repressive police," believes that "it is necessary to make an enormous effort to strengthen all the security corps...
...Membership requirements include a "proven democratic creed" and, according to vice security minister Johnny Campos, leftists are not permitted to join...
...This aid, several times current levels, could force Costa Rica down a path of increasing militarization and repression...
...In 1979 Hull consulted a "North American engineering firm" about the project's feasibility and extracted promises from the U.S...
...Enrique Benavides, an influential La Nacirn columnist, proposes establishing "obligatory military service without an Army...
...Open Paramilitary Groups The Organization for National Emergencies (OPEN) is a paramilitary group created by presidential decree in 1982 whose 10,000 members receive four hours training each week with obsolete Garand rifles...
...law does not permit assistance to foreign police forces, and Costa Rica cannot accept military aid because it does not have an Army...
...This sentiment was also reflected in the outcry following statements by U.N...
...Contra leaders are often seen in San Jos6 and there may be frequent collaboration between Costa Rican guards and ARDE, but official policy is still not to tolerate the contra presence...
...Other times, though, they have been known to turn a blind eye to contra activities and individual Civil and Rural Guards have been forced to resign or been transferred away from the border for assisting the contras...
...the Military Police, which has grown to 250 men from 100 in 1977 and is responsible for patrolling San Jos6...
...MARCH/APRIL 1984 9We are living in a war and the country has to prepare itself to face serious acts of terrorism...
...diplomats noted that if foreign military personnel came to Costa Rica unarmed, it would not be necessary to secure approval from the country's congress...
...The International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Defense and Foreign Affairs Handbook report that Costa Rica recently acquired a V-100 armored car, new patrol boats and several helicopters and STOL aircraft...
...Southern Command offered to build a road network through the project zone which would be financed by the U.S...
...military engineers would not come to work on northern roads because it might arouse suspicion, their participation in another well-digging project in the northwest was under negotiation...
...One of the main functions of the Rural Guard, however, is the eviction of peasant squatters...
...Despite the rapid growth and specialization of the Costa Rican security forces in recent years, Costa Rican rightists fear that this may be too little too late...
...Meanwhile, 13 U.S...
...pressure to tolerate their activities, a stronger security force presence in the frontier region could well be used to support, rather than hinder, contra efforts...
...and Cuban mercenaries ARDE recruited in Miami and recently brought charges against five ARDE leaders, including Pastora, for terrorism and "illicit association...
...Not content with the slow pace of action on their proposals, rightist proArmy Costa Ricans are founding additional paramilitary organizations, the largest of which is probably the 300man North Hurtar Democratic Movement, centered in Ciudad Quesada...
...Army engineers were already at work in the north installing 37 prefabricated barracks for Rural and Civil Guards...
...In place of the Army, a small Civil Guard police force was created...
...U.S...
...and IMF pressures and the opposing demands of Costa Rican neutralists...
...The creation of an Army in Costa Rica is generally recognized as politically unacceptable...
...Monge, however, who recently accused the IMF of "destabilizing Costa Rican democracy," has little room for maneuver given the country's desperate financial situation...
...Today the Costa Rican government is divided over how much to modernize the security forces and whether to bow to U.S...
...Since 1974, U.S...
...The extreme right Free Costa Rica Movement (MCRL), which has close ties with paramilitary groups in other Central American countries, advertises combat training for its members in the major newspapers...
...Other smaller security forces include the National Security Agency (ASN) and the Intelligence and Security Directorate (DIS), consisting of some 100 officials charged with intelligence gathering and protecting dignitaries...
...The largest of these, estimated to include several thousand members, belongs to the governing social democratic National Liberation Party...
...They are now calling for the creation of an Army or some comparable institution...
...This technicality has not stopped the United States from providing $2 million annually since fiscal year 1982 under the Military Assistance Program plus additional funds for training...
...Navy permission to carry out exercises in Salinas Bay along the Nicaraguan border and turned down U.S...
...military personnel "drilled water wells for military camps and nearby civilian communities...
...MCRL head Bernal Urbina admits that MCRL members participate in OPEN and that new recruits take advantage of OPEN training...
...President Luis Alberto Monge has charged that "the international campaign against our country that rants about our militarization is a crude maneuver of the enemies of Costa Rican democracy...
...U.S...
...There are frequent raids into Nicaragua by Costa Rica-based contras and occasionally hot pursuit incursions by Sandinista troops...
...Apparently unaware of his role in originating the development plan, Excelsior reported that Hull, "accompanied by other men, takes off from a farm in Los Chiles in his small plane and penetrates Nicaraguan territory to strafe villages...
...invitations to train Civil Guards at bases in Honduras, to participate in the Big Pine war games and to send observers to the recently revived Central American Defense Council...
...Ambassador Curtin Winsor greeted the announcement quoting the Spanish aphorism, "popular es gobernar"' -"to populate is to govern...
...There is also a 3,000-member Rural Guard, created in 1969 to replace the old treasury police whose duties included cracking down on clandestine liquor stills...
...On returning, [his] men disperse throughout the farms of the frontier zone and resume their 'work' as peons...
...Other groups include one headed by Patriotic Union members Frank Marshall and Vico Starki and another in the eastern banana zone, which has links to OPEN...
...Near the Nicaraguan border, several Costa Ricans who refused to collaborate with the contras have been murdered...
...The idea came from John Hull, a U.S...
...Advocates of a police buildup express fears that if economic conditions continue to worsen, protests, strikes, squatter invasions and popular discontent might grow and take on a more radical tone...
...school in the Panama Canal Zone...
...The Israeli firm TAHAL, with experience in colonization projects, is 10providing advice on infrastructural development and the Israeli government has donated a tractor to the town of Los Chiles and several hundred Galil rifles to the Costa Rican forces posted along the border...
...Mixed Relations with Contras Relations between the security forces and Eden Pastora's ARDE reflect the differences within the government between those sympathetic to the contras and those who favor genuine neutrality and fear border violence will spill over into Costa Rica...
...The Judicial Police (OU), founded in 1973 with 120 employees, now has a total strength of 647, 287 of whom are investigators...
...Most Civil and Rural Guards were political appointees with little training who were replaced every four years when new presidents handed out jobs to supporters...
...allies in Central America, a secret "working paper" prepared for the White House National Security Council and leaked to The New York Times, called for providing Costa Rica with between $7 and $9 million annually in security assistance...
...They are the authors of "Costa Rica-Resisting Austerity" in the January/February issue of the Report...
...The "terrorist threat" has also been seized upon as a reason for beefing up the security forces...
...They suggested that while roads would be welcome, soldiers would not, since there were plenty of unemployed Costa Ricans quite capable of building highways...
...There's No Army, But...
...The newly formed Chorotega Company, now stationed along the northern border, consists of 184 Guards trained by Costa Rican graduates of the U.S...
...invasion of Grenada, which sparked the resignation of hard-line Foreign Minister Fernando Volio, was followed by a declaration of "perpetual neutrality" that Monge hopes will keep the country out of any armed conflict in the region...
...Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikl6 announced in November that 400 to 1,000 U.S...
...The stated aim of OPEN is to reinforce the Civil Guard in emergencies, but ideology clearly plays an important role in the organization...
...In January the Costa Rican government announced that while U.S...
...Both the U.S...
...One off-duty Rural Guard officer has been killed fighting for the contras...
...But even after the U.S...
...State Department and the Costa Rican government issued emphatic denials...
...Another specialized unit is the riot squad equipped with crowd control gear donated by the Taiwanese government...
...The assistant director of the Rural Guard was publicly denounced as an ARDE collaborator by a Guard major who was subsequently relieved of his post, allegedly for opposing the contras...
...Agency for International Development (AID) to finance preliminary studies...
...and the specialized Crime Prevention Unit (UPD...
...pressures to allow contra bases in the north...
...OU specialists have traveled to the United States, Taiwan, Chile and various European countries to receive training in criminology, ballistics, handwriting analysis and intelligence...
...In northern Ciudad Quesada, OPEN units were used to break a hospital strike in mid1983...
...While still probably not very formidable in an international conflict, tico forces are growing increasingly efficient at exercising control at home...
...The government has also denied the U.S...
...Ambassador Winsor branded opposition to the project "paranoid...
...Bent on Militarization Even though Costa Rican leaders would like to have a more efficient police force, they are clearly not happy that the United States is bent on militarizing their country...

Vol. 18 • March 1984 • No. 2


 
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