... The Nicaragua Revolution (1970's-1980's) ...
by Infocostarica Staff

Costa Rica's relations with neighboring Nicaragua have always been testy. During the 1970s, the Nicaraguan revolution brought these simmering tensions to a boil, threatening to destabilize Costa Rica and plunge the whole Central America into war. Costa Rica was led to the brink by a pathetically myopic US foreign policy. That it was ultimately saved owes much to the integrity of Costa Rica president Oscar Arias Sanchez (86-90), who earned the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to the region.

Much of the post-1948 friction between the two nations stemmed from the personal rivalry between Costa Rica's "Don Pepe" Figueres and "Tacho" Somoza. Nicaragua's strongman dictator, who despised Figueres's espousal of social democracy and efforts to rid Central America of tyranny. In 1948, Figueres ousted the Calderonista government and came to power with the backing of Nicaragua's anti-Somoza opposition. For the next two decades, Figueres and the Somoza family conspired against each other.

Most Ticos were sympathetic of the Sandinista cause and supported their government's tacit backing of the anti-Somoza revolutionaries who established guerrilla camps in Costa Rica close to the Nicaraguan border. Many Costa Ricans even took up arms alongside the revolutionaries.

In February 1982, Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez was elected president. He originally tried to keep his country neutral. In the face of the Sandinistas radical shift to the left, however, Monge found himself hostage to US and domestic right-wing pressure to support the contras. As his economic crisis deepened. He was forced to bow to US demands in exchange for foreign aid. The Nicaraguan counterstrikes in the border began so the Costa Rican Civil Guard was being trained in Honduras by US military advisors, and roads and airstrips were being built throughout the northern provinces.

In the fall of 1984, when Nicaragua agrees to sign the Contadora Peace Plan brokered by Venezuela, Monge withdrew his support and flew to Washington to endorse Reagan's pro-contra plan.

As the prospect of regional war increased, the Costa Rican people "stepped back from the brink" and rallied behind peace advocate Oscar Arias Sanchez in the 1986 presidential elections. Arias had been outraged by US attempts to undermine Costa Rica's neutrality and drag our tiny nation into the conflict. Once inaugurated, he immediately threw his energies into restoring peace to Central America.