COSTA RICA: SEEDS OF TERROR
Hopfensperger, Jean
COSTARICA Seeds of Terror BY JEAN HOPFEN SPERGER ?Y JEAI ^kXox Wolf, a third^jf neration Ger-^km man cattleman, is a successful rancher in northern Costa Rica. Tall and tanned, he loom more like...
...It showed the whole hierarchy of organizers...
...The FDN sold weapons to anyone who'd buy," Glibbery says...
...Few Costa Ricans, even in government, have ever heard of them...
...S A Guide to Costa Rica's Right At least six paramilitary groups operate in Costa Rica...
...Most of the groups were formed in 1983 and 1984 with the backing of the local economic elite, the ministry of security, and the contras who use Costa Rica as a base of operations against Nicaragua...
...Two members of one group who confessed to bombing an electrical tower that provided electricity to Nicaragua spent only a few weeks in jail, says former Rural Guard Deputy Director Pedro Arias...
...They have asked to patrol Costa Rica's northern border to prevent Sandinista incursions, but the Costa Rican government denied the request...
...The arrangement benefits the paramilitary groups as well...
...All the groups have intelligence systems, ranging in sophistication from the North Huartar association's eavesdropping to a reported computerized information system used by a group called Patriotic Union...
...The most visible and influential group is the Free Costa Rica Movement (MCRL), a right-wing civic organization with an armed branch...
...I trained the men in guerrilla warfare," he says...
...It's more secure," explains one MCRL member...
...The photograph of the attack that appeared in the country's largest daily newspaper, La Nation, contained small black spots over part of the shirts of the men %the Free Costa Rica Movement, the University of Costa Rica newspaper later repealed...
...That's because Victor Wolf is not a typical Costa Rican...
...Government on the Bay of Pigs operation...
...K Country and Truth is a group based in the province of Guanacaste that took responsibility for the 1985 bombing of an electrical tower that supplied electricity to Nicaragua...
...According to Vargas, MCRL provides instruction using Fal and Galil rifles, mortars, and antiaircraft weapons...
...support, Jimenez says...
...The existence of these groups is a well-kept secret guarded by national-security officials and the influential members of the press...
...Embassy, which donated boots, backpacks, canteens, and other Paramilitary groups are changing the face of Costa Rica) and the United States is providing them with arms, training, and political ammunition...
...These agents pay offhundreds of people, he contends...
...Hundreds of drivers of the red taxis that dart through San Jose belong to the Movement as well, Vargas says...
...The vice minister of national security, for example, acknowledges he is a former member of the Movement's board of directors...
...The groups try to infiltrate the major universities, which are viewed as prime recruiting grounds for communists...
...Research support for this article was provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism...
...Marines in Vietnanj, says his paramilitary group also was integrated into the reserve...
...Much of this so-called news comes from the Movement's files on leftists and subversives...
...And the many members who belong to the Costa Rican national security forces also benefit from training by U.S...
...Unofficially, they do...
...Before the Central American Peace March made its ill-fated trip through Costa Rica last December, the U.S...
...Atltfast six paramilitary groups have taken, shape during the last few years, and thpse groups are changing the face of Costa Rica, long considered democracy's show-place in Central America...
...The photographs had training camp is uncovered, mCmbers can* been altered to eliminate the insignia of claim it's a ranch used by the reserve, says Arias, who uncovered a Movement training camp near San Jose last year...
...While waiting for the attack, they've kept themselves busy...
...Tall and tanned, he loom more like the Marlboro Man than a typical Costa Rican...
...The Movement has a press club which "prepares articles for publication," said Carlos Federspiel, a San Jose businessman who is a member of the group's board of directors...
...Ludwig Starke also worked with the U.S...
...Wolfs group is convinced that Costa Rica, with no standing army, is incapable of defending itself against the "internal and international communist threat...
...Formed in 1983 by former combatants of the 1948 civil war, it has members throughout the country...
...One way to receive formal military instruction is to join the volunteer national reserve...
...At least one other journalist is on the twenty-member board of directors...
...My commander isn't even on Earth...
...Adolfo Louzao, a Costa Ridan who fought with the U.S...
...Although not all members have weapons, the group claims it has a system in place to provide arms and ammunition to all members in the event of an emergency...
...Equipment to the fledgling anticommunist gfloup...
...That's how things always end," says Arias...
...The strikers got scared and left...
...The group reportedly broke up squatter settlements on members' land, and it squelched a hospital-workers' strike in San Carlos...
...Unlike regular reservists, who return their weapons after training, this group has purchased its own arms and uniforms...
...Many reserve instructors are private trainers in the Movement...
...A cattle exporter in the northern province of Guanacaste, Jimenez continues the fight against communism...
...I think the civilians know the problem, but they don't know what to do about it," says Wolf...
...Wealthy cattle # ranchers and sugar-cane growers refer to the President of the United States as "Papa Reagan," Jimenez adds...
...Some members hold important government-security positions, including jobs as trainers in the national-reserve forces...
...Several internal factors have also accelerated the formation of these groups...
...Jean Hopfensperger, a free-lance writer in Madison, Wisconsin, specializes in Central American affairs...
...Wolf is part of an armed right-wing, movement gathering 'strength in Costa Rica...
...It provides logistical and economic support to the rebels and funnels aid from sympathetic Costa Ricans and Central Americans...
...Some Costa Ricans believe they are part of a larger U.S...
...Louzao was the military trainer for the North Huartar Democratic Association in 1983, a group based in San Carlos, the heart of cattle and contra country...
...John Hull, reportedly the CIA's liaison with the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN) in Costa Rica, sold weapons on two occasions to members of the Free Costa Rica Movement, says Peter Glibbery, a British soldier of fortune who says he took orders from Hull...
...U.S.-financed weapons for the Nicaraguan contras wind up in the hands of the paramilitary groups...
...Explains one Movement militant, "For us, having Reagan as U.S...
...At the same time, the nation's judicial system apparently is unwilling to crack down on members of these groups...
...The number has now dropped to about fifty...
...Embassy, says his group was training to defend Costa Rica from a potential Sandi-nista invasion...
...This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the organization, which was created in 1961 "to thwart Cuban expansionism," members say...
...Ironically, some of the reservists who were "protecting" the marchers against Movement protesters were also members of the paramilitary group...
...We want names, who they talk to, what they do...
...The U.S...
...We told them [the strikers] that if they didn't leave San Carlos, we'd whip them," Louzao says...
...So when we see a problem, we take care of it...
...The group's first objective was to help the contras...
...Today, he lives in CostaRica...
...The members reportedly train on ranches near San Jose and near San Isidro General in the South...
...We went in and told them they had five minutes to think about it," says Wolf...
...As reservists, they use the Civil Guard's weapons and train at police academies and private ranches...
...military officers based in the country...
...Most of these groups include members with ties to the United States, through military training, collaboration with the CIA, friendships with U.S...
...MCRL, for example, has a university branch that monitors professors and students...
...During the administration of Luis Alberto Monge, who was in power from 1982 to 1986, the groups enjoyed the government's support...
...If a private ^hurling the stones...
...Most of the groups'operate with the knowledge and approval of the, Costa Rican Ministry of Security, and four of the organizations have been integrated into Costa Rica's national reserve...
...f For the moment, these rightist forces have not resorted to the type of ^eath-squad activity that marks their Salvadoran or Guatemalan counterparts...
...But members have broken up squatter settlements and squelched a hospital strike in the zone...
...I got some retired North American [military] specialists I knew from Vietnam to help...
...We're dead anticommunists" without U.S...
...Currently the Movfcffte^t dpes noWfe-ceive material aid from the United States, he says...
...It also said Costa Ricans should "keep watch over their neighbors because at any time we will be visiting homes looking for information...
...How do they think the death squads began in El Salvador...
...state...
...The existence of the paramilitary groups is a well-l&pt secret, few Costa...
...The MCRL maintains ties with the White Hand Death Squad in Guatemala, the Miami-based exile group Alpha 66, and the World Anti-Communist League...
...Officially the CIA has no links to the reserve," says Echeverria...
...Our group was called 'Special Forces' of OPEN" (the Organization for National Emergencies, which is now the national reserve...
...And the vice minister of interior is a "sympathizer" of the group, said a Movement member who preferred to remain unidentifed...
...Such a lax attitude may have its costs...
...They come in with a black case with $ 1 million in it...
...In the new administration of President Oscar Arias, which took power in May 1986, six MCRL members are in high positions, says Movement Director Bernal Urbina...
...We're playing with fire," says Arnoldo Ferreto, a former legislator and leader of Costa Rica's Communist Party...
...A sign in the reception area of the newspaper's suburban office reads, Private Enterprise Produces Liberty...
...Although the Movement places a full-page ad in the paper each week, "most of the news appears in other pages," he says...
...1 The Reserve is the name that one cattle rancher gives to a subgroup of national-reserve volunteers who have formed their own paramilitary group...
...The communique warned "immoral" Costa Ricans to change their ways or they would be subject to "similar actions...
...Because of the contras" warns former Costa Rican Congressman Miguel Angel Guillen, "a military infrastructure is now in place that can be used in the future for whatever purpose these paramilitary groups want...
...J.H...
...he is one>of the founders of Patriotic Union...
...military institutes, combatants in the 1948 civil war, powerful ranchers, and former pro-Nazi Germans and their children...
...But you can get around it...
...I tell myself, what can you expect from someone who doesn't believe in God," says the rancher, who claims his crusade against communism is divinely inspired...
...11 Patriotic Union is a group of about 1,000 men who claim they are preparing to defend Costa Rica against a Nicara-guan invasion...
...And when Arias discovered a military training camp used by the Free Costa Rica Movement last year and filed suit, the judge dismissed the case, claiming the camp was used by the reserve...
...However, they are planting the seeds of internal repression that aould ripen in the future...
...Members are trying to inform and organize students, business people, ranchers, and religious workers across the country...
...weapons donated to the Costa Rican Civil Guard...
...Like Jimenez, Starke carries on the ideological battle...
...I The North Huartar Democratic Association, based in the northern city of San Carlos, began with about 200 members in 1983...
...Adolfo Jimenez was a pilot in the Bay of Pigs invasion...
...People talk about the Central Americanization of Costa Rica...
...Some members say they have purchased arms from the contras or received them as gifts...
...Ronald Reagan is their patron saint...
...The groups attract rural and civil guards, wealthy Costa Ricans trained at U.S...
...One of the groups sent Reagan a letter congratulating him on the invasion of Grenada...
...H The North Chorotega Democratic Association, based near the town of Liberia, is a group of about thirty men that is loosely connected to the North Huartar Association...
...On two occasions, CIA officers visited a reserve command outside San Jose, says a trainer at that unit who prefers to remain unidentified...
...Former vice president Armando Araus confirms the practice...
...Some members also allow the contras to train—and recuperate—on their ranches...
...They're not trained...
...Do they want that to happen here...
...President was great luck...
...A top priority of this group is aiding the Nicaraguan contras...
...Some of the founding members had close ties to the U.S...
...The group maintains a sophisticated intelligence service which shares its information with the government...
...Embassy gave Movement members a document discrediting the march, says Ruben Vargas, head of the Costa Rican Taxi Drivers Union and Movement member...
...multinational corporations...
...We had all the truck drivers go to the hospital with chains, just waiting to go in...
...The men, mainly from the city of Liberia, receive private military instruction on members' ranches in addition to their reserve training...
...He allowed 1,500 Cuban exiles to receive military training on his ranch in northeast Costa Rica before the invasion...
...The new Minister of Security was Benjamin Piza, a founding member of the Free Costa Rica Movement...
...plan to facilitate an invasion of Nicaragua and the repression of Costa Rica's Left under the pretext that they are Sandinista sympathizers...
...Some of these ranches are also used for private paramilitary instruction, says former Rural Guard Deputy Director Pedro Arias...
...Embassy also refused to allow the group to participate in a committee selecting guards for the local Voice of America tower...
...Embassy personnel, or work as security officers with U.S...
...There's a law that prevents the use of arms used in war," Vargas says...
...Wolfs group goes so far as to seek out and plant right-wing agitators in campus lectures...
...agencies apparently do share intelligence...
...Some actions by these groups are more explicitly political...
...Members of the paramilitary groups hold prominent positions in the Costa Rican government...
...The peace marchers were later jeered and stoned when they entered San Jose...
...Once they realized they'd get shot at if they didn't, they left...
...Directly or indirectly, the United I States provides the paramilitary groups with arms, training, and political ammunition...
...The four groups that have been integrated into the national reserve receive military instruction with U.S...
...They gave us a lot of equipment, espdbjaHy for the boys in the mountains," says Gflliert Alfaro, a San Jose attorney and member pf MCRL's board of directors...
...We've followed communist agents who sneak into the country," Wolf says...
...But U.S...
...According to a press communique issued at the time, its objectives included mining the grounds around the electrical tower to identify Costa Ricans who would risk their lives to defend the Sandinistas...
...H Free Costa Rica Movement (MCRL) is the oldest, most visible, and most influential of the groups...
...They had documention to show that the KGB was behind the march," says Vargas...
...The first thing they do is go to the Nicaraguan Embassy...
...But if there is a government that doesn't maintain their privileges, these groups could be converted into something more dangerous...
...They say their goal is to guard Costa Rica's infrastructure during an attack and to fight off an aggressor for at least twenty-four hours...
...The group includes supporters of former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza and of the Independent Guanacaste Movement, an organization that wants the province of Guanacaste to secede from Costa Rica and become a U.S...
...But they lidn't give weapons...
...Ricans, even in government, have ever heard of them...
...Its 1,000-strong armed branch is divided into the "Blue Berets" for younger men and "Tridents" for more experienced fighters...
...They do not pose a threat now," says former minister Echeverria...
...As Patriotic Union Founder Viko Starke put it: "Piza was a true democrat...
...Militants of the Free Costa Rica Movement led an attack last year against the Nicaraguan Embassy in San Jose, during which they ripped the national shield off the building and hurled stones and rocks at the Embassy...
...Wolf describes himself as a • leader of a "nationalist Costa Rican group that is dead set on not letting this country fall into the hands of the reds," Members of the group, says Wolf, include "anyone who has something to lose"—ranchers, businessmen, Skilled tradesmen...
...Louzao, a former guard at the U.S...
...The trainer expresses concern about the ideological instruction that has come to characterize the reserve...
...One of the shouts was Good Communist, Dead Communist," he recalls...
...Cattle rancher Wolf employs a similar technique for helping his friends remove squatters who set up shacks on their land...
...Information on these groups is based on interviews with members and Costa Rican officials...
...They receive paramilitary training, spy on leftists, ? infiltrate university discussion groups, break up squatter settlements, and wage their own private battle against drug traffickers...
...Several color photographs of Reagan and Vice President George Bush adorn the walls of the San Jose headquarters of the Free Costa Rica Movement...
...Wolf has worked for the (*LA for years, says former minister of security Juan Jose Echeverria...
...We stress intelligence," says Wolf...
...It's better to have them in the reserve than out there doing other things," he says...
...Such favorable treatment of the Movement is hardly surprising, since the vice director of La Nation happens to be vice president of the Movement...
Vol. 50 • September 1986 • No. 9
