Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war.
Why should they go out and fight ? They leave that to the poor.
Return to Costa Rica, the Caribbean Legion, and the Costa Rica Civil War (1944–1948)[edit]
Main article:
Costa Rican Civil War
When Figueres returned to Costa Rica in 1944 from being exiled in Mexico, he established the Democratic Party, which a year later transformed into the Social Democratic Party. The party was intended to be a counterweight to the ruling National Republican Party (PRN), led by former President
Calderón and his successor
Teodoro Picado. The highly controversial Calderón had angered Costa Rican elites, enacting a large social security retirement program and implementing national healthcare. Calderón was accused of corruption by the elites, providing a rallying cry for Figueres and the Social Democratic Party.
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Figueres began training the
Caribbean Legion, an irregular force of 700. Figueres launched a revolution along with other landowners and student agitators, hoping to overthrow the Costa Rican government. With plans of using Costa Rica as a base, the Legion planned next to remove the three Central American dictators. Washington officials closely watched the Legion's activities, especially after Figueres carried out a series of terrorist attacks inside Costa Rica during 1945 and 1946 that were supposed to climax in a general strike, but the people did not respond.
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Former President
Calderón supporters prevented and invalidated the 1 March 1948, presidential election in which
Otilio Ulate had allegedly defeated
Calderón in his second term bid with fraud. In March–April 1948, the protests over the election results mushroomed into armed conflict, then into revolution. Figueres defeated Communist-led guerrillas and the Costa Rican Army, which had joined forces with President
Picado.
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With more than 2,000 dead, the 44-day civil war was the bloodiest event in 20th-century Costa Rican history.
Figueres as the provisional president (1948–1949)[edit]
Board exhibited at the
Museo Nacional de Costa Rica showing the symbolic act of the army's abolition on December 1st, 1948
Monument to José Figueres Ferrer commemorating his abolishing of Costa Rica's army in 1948, Plaza de la Democracia,
San José
After the civil war Figueres became President at the head of a provisional junta known as the "Junta Fundadora" (Founding Council) that held power for 18 months. During that time he took several actions:
- abolishing the army (as a precaution against the militarism that has perennially thwarted or undercut democracy in Central America)4 Figueres said he was inspired to disarm Costa Rica by H.G. Wells "Outline of History", which he read in 1920 while at MIT. "The future of mankind cannot include armed forces. Police, yes, because people are imperfect.", he declared. Ever since, Costa Rica has had no army and has maintained a 7,500-member national police force for a population of over five million.6
- enabled women and illiterates to vote3,
- put into effect basic welfare legislation1,
- nationalised banks1,
- outlawed the Communist Party3,
- directed the writing of a new constitution3,
- guaranteed public education for all3,
- gave citizenship to black immigrants' children3,
- established civil service to eliminate the spoils system in government3, and
"In a short time, we decreed 834 reforms that completely changed the
physiognomy of the country and brought a deeper and more human revolution than that of Cuba", Figueres said in a 1981 interview.
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Once Figueres gained control, the legislation he passed regarding
social reform for his
Second Republic of Costa Rica was not that much different from Calderón's proposals. In fact, it is believed by some historians (such as
David LaWare) that Figueres' social reforms were more or less the same as Calderón's Labor Code of 1943, only Figueres had gained the power with which to enact the laws upon the whole country with the complete support of virtually all the country. Both of these leaders' programs were in many cases exactly like the ones Franklin D. Roosevelt passed during the Great Depression that helped lift the US out of its own economic slump and social decline it had faced in the 1930s. Figueres admired what president Franklin D. Roosevelt did, however he noted that "the price he had to pay to get his programs through was to leave the business community free overseas to set up dictatorships and do whatever they liked...What we need now is an international New Deal, to change the relations between North and South."
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Figueres stepped down after 18 months, handing his power over to
Otilio Ulate, and ever since Costa Ricans have settled their arguments constitutionally.
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"Your hands are not clean to fight communism when you don't fight dictatorships", Figueres told American interviewers in 1951. "It seems that the United States is not interested in honest government down here, as long as a government is not communist and pays lip service to democracy."
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Second term as President (1953–1958)[edit]
In 1953, Figueres created the
Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), the most successful party in Costa Rican political history, and was returned to power in the 1953.
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During his various terms in office he nationalized the banking system and contributed to the construction of the
Panamerican Highway that goes across Central America. He promoted the private industry sector and stimulated the national industry sector. He succeeded in energizing the country's middle class creating a strong buffer between the upper and lower classes.
What most alarmed U.S. officials was Figueres's material and moral support for the
Caribbean Legion, even though Figueres had obviously lost interest in the Legion after he gained power. But Figueres still criticized U.S. support for the dictators, going so far as to boycott the 1954 inter-American meeting because it was held in
Caracas, where President
Marcos Pérez of Venezuela held sway.
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Figueres happily cooperated with North American military plans. After the United States established the
School of the Americas in the
Panama Canal Zone to train Latin American officers in Anti-Communist techniques, more Costa Rican "police" graduated from the School between 1950 and 1965 than did officers of any other hemispheric nation except Nicaragua.
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The
Republic of China awarded him the "Shining Star" in 1955.
In 1957, an assassination plot by dictator
Rafael Trujillo (
Dominican Republic) was uncovered.
Border war with Somoza's Nicaragua (1954–1955)[edit]
Figueres's support for the
Caribbean Legion nearly cost him his job during this second presidency. Implicated in an invasion of Nicaragua in April 1954 by anti-Somoza exiles linked to the
Caribbean Legion,
Anastasio Somoza García launched a counter-attack, allowing the exiled former Costa Rica president
Rafael Calderón to invade Costa Rica in January 1955.
Figueres had played a dangerous game, but he had also abolished the Costa Rican army, which forced him to appeal to the
Organization of American States to protect his country from Somoza's aggression. The OAS, with the concurrence of the U.S. representative, ordered a cease-fire and sent a delegation to Costa Rica for an on-site investigation.
At that point, Somoza realized that he had to act quickly. He called in his IOU from the CIA. He had permitted the CIA to use
Las Mercedes Airport, outside Managua, as a base for its P-47s during the Guatemalan intervention. Now he wanted the planes that were parked there to help him in his feud with Figueres.
On 15 January, three days after the OAS action, a
P-47 Thunderbolt violated Costa Rican airspace and bombed and strafed a number of Costa Rican towns.
Figueres, alarmed by this escalation, pointed out that Costa Rica had no defense against "modern weapons" of this kind and again appealed to the OAS. The council of the organization immediately authorized the United States to sell four
P-51 Mustang fighters to Costa Rica for a dollar apiece.
The State Department, responding to pressure from certain U.S. congressmen and sensing an opportunity to improve America's image in Latin America after Guatemala, came to the rescue and preserved the Caribbean's "lone democrat." Its gesture ended the "invasion", and the State Department scored one over the CIA. The Nicaraguan dictator withdrew, but not before extracting a commitment from Figueres that he would sever links with the exiles.
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1958 testimony before U.S. Congress[edit]
In 1958, during a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, U.S. Vice President
Richard Nixon was spat at by
anti-American protesters who also disrupted and assaulted Nixon's motorcade, pelting his limousine with rocks, shattering windows, and injuring Venezuela's foreign minister.
[3] The event prompted the US Congress to create a special committee to investigate the reasons behind it. Many people were invited to speak before it, including Figueres, who testified as follows (in part) on 9 June 1958:
"As a citizen of the hemisphere, as a man who has dedicated his public life to promote inter-American comprehension, as an educated man who knows and appreciates the United States and who has never tried to hide that appreciation to anyone, no matter how hostile he was, I deplore that the people of the Latin America, represented by a fistful of overexcited Venezuelans, have spit upon a worthy public officer who represents the greatest nation of our time. But I must speak frankly and even rudely, because I am convinced that the situation demands it: the people cannot spit at a foreign policy, which was what they tried to do. But when they have exhausted all other means of trying to make themselves understood, the only thing left to do is spitting."With all due respect to Vice-President Nixon, and with all my admiration towards his conduct, which was, during the events, heroic and later noble, I have no choice but to say that the act of spitting, however vulgar it is, lacks a substitute in our language to express certain emotions.... If you’re going to speak of human dignity in Russia, why is it so hard to speak of human dignity in the Dominican Republic? Where is intervention and where is non-intervention? Is it that a simple threat, a potential one, to your liberties, is, essentially, more serious than the kidnapping of our liberties?"Of course you have made certain investments in the (Latin) American dictatorships. The aluminum companies extract bauxite almost for free. Your generals, your admirals, your public officers and your businessmen are treated there like royalty."Like your Senate verified yesterday, there are people who bribe the reigning dynasties with millions, to enjoy the privilege of hunting in their lands. They deduct the money from the taxes they pay in the US, but it returns to the country and, when it arrives in Hollywood, becomes extravagant furs and cars that bring down the fragile virtue of female stars. And, meanwhile, our women are kidnapped by gangsters, our men are castrated in the torture chambers and our illustrious professors disappear, lugubriously, from the halls of the
University of Columbia, in New York. When one of your lawmakers calls this a "collaboration to fight communism", 180 million Latin Americans feel the need to spit."Spitting is a despicable custom, if done physically. But what about moral spitting? When your government invited
Pedro Estrada [
es], the
Himmler of the Western Hemisphere, to be honored in Washington, didn’t you spit upon the face of all democrats in (Latin) America? … I can assure you that, when it comes to international economic policy, the United States seems to be willing to repeat certain errors of domestic policy that inflicted much damage in the past, including, of course, the ones that led to the great crisis of 1929."We, the Latin Americans, are tired of pointing at these mistakes; especially, the lack of interest in the prices of our products. Every time we suggest a plan to stabilize prices at a fair level you answer with economy slogans, like "the law of supply and demand" or "the free market system", or with insults like "Aren’t we paying you enough money now?" We don’t beg, except in emergencies. We’re not people who will spit about merely money. We’ve inherited all the flaws of the Spanish character, but also some of its virtues."Our poverty does not diminish our pride. We have our dignity. What we want is to be paid a fair price for the sweat of our people, for the impoverishment of our land when we provide a product needed by another country. That would be enough to live, to raise our own capital and to carry on with our own development."
Third presidential term (1970–1974)[edit]
The termination of
Alliance for Progress funds as well as the collapse of the
Central American Common Market, threatened to cripple the country's economy until Figueres discovered a new market by selling 30,000 tons of coffee to the Soviet Union in 1972. Costa Rica then became the only Central American nation to establish diplomatic relations with Moscow. The
World Bank and
International Monetary Fund also delivered millions of dollars to keep the economy afloat.
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When opponents of Nicaragua's Gen.
Anastasio Somoza Debayle seized a plane in San José in 1971, the 5'3" Figueres stood on the runway and aimed a submachine gun at the cabin until the hijackers surrendered.
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He claimed that he almost ruined a 1973 Central American summit when he twitted five army generals: "Isn't it odd that all you bastards are generals, and I'm the only civilian, but I'm the only one who's ever fought a war?"
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