History of Costa Rica

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National flag of Costa Rica

The history of Costa Rica encompasses developments in the territory of the Republic of Costa Rica from prehistory to the present. It extends to at least 8000, possibly to 12000 BC. BC back. According to Robert Carmack, up to 400,000 people lived in what is now the national territory until the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century.

Although Christopher Columbus reached what is now Costa Rica in 1502, colonization by Spain did not begin until 1560. This colonial phase , in which the region was of rather minor importance, ended in 1821 with the declaration of independence. From 1823 to 1838 Costa Rica was a member of a Central American confederation, but became self-employed in 1838. Coffee and bananas soon formed the economic basis and produced a conservative class of landowners.

The first free elections did not take place until 1889, but afterwards authoritarian presidents took turns, whose regimes bore the features of a dictatorship. In 1948 there was a civil war in which around 2,000 people were killed. José María ("Don Pepe") Figueres Ferrer founded the Second Republic, soon followed by the abolition of the army, in 1983 neutrality. This and the increasing prosperity earned the country the nickname “Switzerland of Central America”. From 2006 to 2010, the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Óscar Arias Sánchez , was President of Costa Rica, which joined a free trade agreement with the US in 2007 .

Earliest cultures up to colonial times (before 10,000 BC to the 16th century)

The north-west, the Nicoya Peninsula ( Barra Honda National Park ), was the southernmost branch of the Nahuatl , while the south and center of the country were shaped by the southern Chibcha . Costa Rica, with its volcanoes and mountain ranges, but also with its coastal swamps, was a barrier between the high cultures of the north and the south, so that there was only a sparse exchange between cultures.

Pre-Columbian pottery from Nicoya

The east had pronounced South American features. The resident Caribs and the Boruca and Chibcha in the southwest were semi-nomadic hunters and fishermen, yuca , pumpkin and tubers harvested, Coca chewing and lived in palisadenumwehrten villages. The matriarchal Chibcha developed a slave system and were excellent goldsmiths. They also made precisely shaped granite balls , the stone balls of Costa Rica , which, for unknown reasons , fill the graves on the Río Térraba , on the Caño Island and in the Golfito region. They did not develop a script.

Smoker with crocodile lid (500–1350)

The largest archaeological site is Guayabo , on the slopes of the Turrialba , over 50 km east of San José . It existed from 1000 BC. Until about 1400, and was inhabited by perhaps 10,000 people. The pottery and metalwork are particularly artistic. Gold processing was already at its peak around 600, especially in the mountainous regions.

Olmec figure from the Museo del Jade Marco Fidel Tristán Castro in the capital

Lived there Corobicí who lived in small upland valleys, and Nahuatl , who immigrated from Mexico to the 1500th During this time, the Nicoya Peninsula in the northwestern province of Guanacaste was included in the extensive Mesoamerican cultural sphere. The Chorotega in particular , who were the largest indigenous group, had the cultural peculiarities of their northern neighbors. They came from southern Mexico in the 14th century, their name means refugee people . They built cities with central squares and brought with them an agricultural system with beans, corn, pumpkin and bottle gourds. They owned a calendar, wrote books on deer parchment, and made sophisticated ceramics and anthropomorphic figures that are now in the Jade Museum in San José.

The warlike Chorotega had slaves and a society dominated by priests and nobility, characterized by sharp class boundaries.

Spanish attempts at conquest (1502 to approx. 1530)

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On September 18, 1502, Christopher Columbus was the first European to land on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica after a hurricane damaged his ships and the crew's morale sank. Columbus therefore sought refuge in the Bay of Cariari (as he called it) (near Limón ) for 17 days . He was warmly received there. The Indians gave him two young girls and allegedly a lot of gold. He named the fertile area La Huerta (The Garden). The area had perhaps 20,000 residents, as Christopher Baker estimated in 1994.

In 1506 the King of Spain sent a governor, Diego de Nicuesa , to colonize the Atlantic coast of Veragua . But he ran aground with his ship off the coast of Panama and tried to march northwards. However, the Indians there attacked them with guerrilla tactics and burned their crops to stop their advance. A second expedition under Gil Gonzalez Davila set out from Panama in 1522. Davila obtained abundant gold, which earned the country the name Costa Rica , Rich Coast .

Davila's priests baptized many Indians, but the majority died of starvation and disease. The expedition also lost more than 1,000 men, similar to later expeditions. Internal disputes, the hostility of the Indians, but also pirate attacks destroyed the colonies. In 1524 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded the first settlement on the Pacific, Bruselas near today's Puntarenas . It only lasted until 1527 or 1528.

In 1543, Guatemala became the heart of the land bridge that was under the viceroy of New Spain , but the Spanish had long since left Costa Rica.

Spanish colonial rule (1560 to 1821)

It was not until the 1560s that new attempts at colonization and Christianization began after four decades . But smallpox and tuberculosis had meanwhile cost the lives of many Indians. The rest fled to the mountains, especially the Talamanca Mountains . Only in the Nicoya Peninsula has a significant population of Chorotega been enslaved.

From 1560 it was systematically colonized, Spanish conquistadors under the leadership of Juan Vázquez de Coronado founded Cartago in 1562 , which was the capital of Costa Rica from 1563 to 1823. In 1565 the city received a coat of arms and the motto Muy Noble y Muy Leal (especially noble and especially loyal). It was located at an altitude of over 1400 m at the foot of the volcano Irazú or Iaratzu (rumbling mountain).

The great distance of Costa Rica to the administrative and economic center of Guatemala , and the low economic importance made the colony one of the poorest in America, as a Spanish governor wrote in 1719.

Numerous Indians fell victim to smallpox. As a result, too few indigenous workers were available for the encomiendas , who would have enabled the landlords to have a steep hierarchy and extensive leave of work. As a result, Costa Rica showed a tendency towards more egalitarian structures; the conquerors had to cultivate their fields themselves.

Even after a century, Cartago consisted of only a few adobe houses and a single church, which burned down when the Irazú erupted in 1723. In order to produce town-like settlements, the population was forced to live around the newly built churches, founded Heredia (Cubujuquie) in 1717 , San José (Villaneuva de la Boca del Monte) in 1737 and Alajuela (Villa Hermosa) in 1782. Wheat and tobacco were exported and enabled a denser settlement of the Meseta Central.

The mixing with the indigenous people was, in contrast to most of the Spanish colonies, rather low. No mestizo class was suppressed by Spanish settlers; poverty had an equalizing effect.

Only Nicoya and Guanacaste on the Pacific were linked to Nicaragua and Panama by road. An extensive livestock industry developed here. The Indians were forced to work on the haciendas . The landlords introduced numerous black slaves to replace them .

On the Caribbean coast, however, cocoa plantations emerged, after which they were replaced by tobacco plantations. In response to increasing piracy, however, Spain closed its ports in 1665, ruining trade. The region became a refuge for smugglers and pirates, which in turn undermined state authority.

In 1809 the province of Costa Rica became a province of Spain. With the Charter of Cadiz in 1812 deputations for the provinces were created, of which the Diputaciòn Provincial de Nicaragua y Costa Rica was also responsible for Costa Rica. Nicoya and the central region there had sent a joint envoy to the Cortes in Spain.

Independence (from 1821) and Confederation (1823 to 1838)

On September 15, 1821, Costa Rica, along with other colonies, declared independence from the colonial power of Spain. While the other Central American states decided to join the Central American Confederation , Costa Rica hastily decided to join the Mexican empire of Agustín de Iturbide . It only belonged to the Confederation from 1823 to 1839. The capital of Costa Rica, which supported Mexico, was moved in 1824 by President Juan Mora Fernández , who held this office until 1833, to San José , founded in 1738 , which preferred an independent, republican constitution. In 1843 the Universidad de Santo Tomás was founded, later the Universidad de Costa Rica . The city was in sharp competition with Cartago , which was just as conservative as Heredia, while the other two cities of San José and Alajuela were more liberal. In 1823 there was a civil war. The short battle in the Ochomogo Hills was won by the Republican forces of San José. Guanacaste also broke away from Nicaragua and joined him a year later. At the same time, border disputes and, above all, the repression prevailing in the other states paralyzed the confederation, so that Costa Rica declared its independence in 1838. Neither massive repression nor an independent military played a significant role here.

Juan Mora Fernandez established a functioning legal system, founded the first newspaper and expanded the educational system. He encouraged the cultivation of coffee, for which he gave free land. Nevertheless, in September 1835, the other three cities attacked San José.

Braulio Carrillo , a dictator, dissolved Costa Rica from the Confederation in 1838. However, the Honduran general José Francisco Morazán Quezada overthrew Carrillo in 1842. Morazan's ambition and the increased taxes to fund his plans led to his overthrow in 1843.

Statehood, Coffee Barons (from 1838)

Republic of Costa Rica within the borders of 1850
Monumento Nacional de Costa Rica Detalle
National coat of arms and flag of the Republic of Costa Rica

Meanwhile, a new leadership group rose, but it was divided, the coffee barons, the cafetaleros .

They teamed up to overthrow José María Castro Madriz . Castro, an educator, had founded a high school for girls and enforced freedom of the press.

As his successor, they chose Juan Rafael Mora Porras , one of the richest coffee aristocrats. Mora was known for the country's rapid economic rise during his first term and for fighting the ambitions of American adventurer William Walker during his second. He could only win this second election through election manipulation. In 1859 he was voted out of office because he was held responsible for the cholera epidemic brought in by the participants in the Second Battle of Rivas, which killed one in ten Costa Ricans. The management group dropped him after he wanted to found a national bank because they feared that they would lose their monopoly on credit for coffee producers. He was executed after an attempted coup against his successor. This civil war-like situation resulted in the army becoming a major force in the 1860s, prone to corruption.

General Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez overthrew the government in April 1870 and ruled until 1882, establishing an authoritarian regime. He is considered a "good" dictator because he abolished the death penalty and tamed the power of the coffee barons, as well as that of the army. He financed road construction and public buildings from the coffee income. He also introduced compulsory schooling , with the state paying for it. The coffee barons increasingly supported him, as the liberal regime was more likely to accommodate their interests than the instability of changing military alliances.

Immigration and railway construction, bananas

Guardia's most difficult project was the construction of a railway connection from the central valley to the Atlantic coast, and thus the connection to the world market. It was built by Minor C. Keith from Brooklyn from New York .

Most of the black Costa Ricans, who now make up around 3% of the population, came from Jamaica . During the 1880s, they worked on Minor Keith's railroad project that linked the towns on the central plateau with the port of Puerto Limón on the Caribbean coast. Minor C. Keith carried out the project with the help of American and Chinese workers. In return, Keith received no payment, but land and income from rail operations. He used this to grow bananas, which soon competed with coffee. The land remained in American hands, including the United Fruit Company , which gained considerable influence in the country.

First free elections (1889)

President Bernardo Soto Alfaro called for the first free elections in 1889, although blacks and women were not yet eligible to vote. To his surprise, his opponent José Joaquín Rodríguez Zeledón won the election. When the government decided not to recognize the new president, mass marches broke out, forcing the government to give in.

Dictators

Rodriguez and his successor, Rafael Yglesias Castro , boosted the economy, but they gained so much power that their regime became more of a dictatorship. Yglesias' successor, Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra , who came into office in 1902, drove three of his opponents into political exile and in 1906 forced the installation of his own candidate for president, Cleto González Víquez . Under him, the railway line from San José to Puntarenas on the Pacific was completed in 1910. On May 4, 1910, an earthquake destroyed Cartago and other places in the province of the same name, killing around 1,500 people. Congress unceremoniously declared the winner of the 1914 plebiscite to be ineligible and appointed its own candidate, Alfredo González Flores , as president.

Nevertheless, the country was formally still a democracy, the army did not intervene. This changed in 1917 when Flores tried to redistribute the tax burden, which until now had practically only been borne by middle and lower incomes, through direct, progressive taxation. He also made sure that the state interfered increasingly in the economy. War Minister Federico Tinoco Granados took power. However, the dictator soon lost the support of American entrepreneurs, and women and students demonstrated against the dictator in 1919. Flores resigned, Federico Tinoco Granados went into exile.

The League Civica opposed it in 1928 against the electricity monopoly of the Electric Bond and Share Co. ( GE ), which played a central role in the electrification of the railways and the general power supply. One of its leaders, Ricardo Moreno Cañas , was murdered on August 23, 1938. In 2008 he was named one of the Benefactors of the Fatherland (Benemeritos de la Patria).

A number of unstable governments followed, led by Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno (1910-14, 1924-28, 1932-36) and Gonzalez Visquez (1928-32) alternated in leadership for twelve years. The Great Depression also shook the small country, where malnutrition, unemployment, starvation wages and brutal working conditions led to unrest. In 1930 the Communist Party of Costa Rica was founded, which initiated, among other things, an important labor movement, which was mainly joined by workers from the United Fruit Company . A strike against United Fruit Company brought some relief, but calls for reforms to the paternalistic system of land barons grew louder. The cities gained political power.

From 1936 to 1940, the authoritarian ruling President León Cortés Castro was in office , who was said to have sympathy for National Socialism . The role of the German immigrant Max Effinger, who was director of public works under Cortés, is particularly controversial. He opposed the immigration of Polish Jews. He was interned as a German after December 6, 1941.

Second World War

According to the constitution, Cortés was no longer allowed to run for the 1940 election. His preferred candidate and then his chosen successor, the doctor Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (1940-44), oriented himself more towards the USA and restructured his own party ( Partido Republicano Nacional ). In addition, Calderón carried out a land reform so that untreated land should belong to those who worked it.

The introduction of a welfare state model with a codified labor law with minimum wage, paid vacation and unemployment insurance, but also in the tax system with progressive taxation, was absolutely astonishing and unique in the region . There was also a public health service and old age and disability pensions. In addition, Calderón founded the University of Costa Rica.

In December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor , Costa Rica became the first Central American country to enter World War II . German, Italian and Japanese citizens were monitored and their property confiscated. The conservative elite who had brought Calderón into office increasingly viewed him as their opponent, especially since the arrest of a few Germans who were among them further irritated them. The high expenditures and the war led to a steep rise in inflation, which damaged and turned against the middle class and the working class. Calderón finally allied himself with the Catholic Church and, thanks to the international alliance of the Allies, the rising communists in Costa Rica, who together formed the united social-Christian party. He also had the support of the liberal sections of the elite.

During the Second World War, a new political opposition group began to form, consisting of politically liberal intellectuals who distrusted the “unholy alliance” of Calderón, industrialists and farm workers ( campesinos ). She founded the Social Democratic Party, which was dominated by an emerging middle class. This SDP allied itself with the traditional oligarchical elite and accused Calderón of corruption. They also criticized his collaboration with the communists.

Despite resistance, Calderón was followed in 1944 by his also conservative puppet Teodoro Picado Michalski through an election that was most likely manipulated. Picado was no friend of communism, but he needed the support of the Partido Vanguardia Popular , the radical communist workers' party led by Manuel Monta. While the alliance of the war allies turned into hostility internationally, fear of communism and the influence of the Soviet Union increased in Costa Rica as in all of Latin America. This fear, along with allegations of corruption, was used against Picado by the opposition political camps, calling him the political stepping stone of communism.

Civil War (1948)

During the election of 1948, in which Calderón stood for a second term, there were riots. Several unsuccessful assassinations were carried out on Calderón, Picado and Mora, as well as strikes, riots and isolated deaths. With a 54% majority, Otilio Ulate won the election against Calderón, but Calderón's party described the election as a fraud. On March 1, 1948, Congress canceled the election and burned the ballot papers.

Legend has it that José María ("Don Pepe") Figueres Ferrer, a 42-year-old coffee farmer, engineer, economist and philosopher, spontaneously raised an army of students and intellectuals. But the uprising was long in preparation. "Don Pepe" went into exile in Mexico in 1942. In 1944 he returned to Costa Rica and campaigned for an armed uprising. Through his numerous contacts in other Central American countries, with the help of exiled Nicaraguans, Hondurans and Dominicans, he was able to set up the National Liberation Army consisting of around 600 men. Weapons were delivered from abroad to his troops trained by the Guatemalan military (see Caribbean Legion ). In addition to Guatemala, Cuba also supported him. The Social Democrats supported him internally, but the majority of the party was against military intervention.

Figueres' primary goal was to enforce the result of the previous election by force of arms and to enable Ulate to take over the presidency. Opposite him stood the regular army of Costa Rica, which only consisted of about 1000 soldiers and was largely poorly organized and trained, as well as about 500 soldiers from Nicaragua sent by Anastasio Somoza García to support the Costa Rican troops . In addition, there was a volunteer army from the Partido Vanguardia Popular , which was outnumbered (approx. 3000 men), but was only very poorly armed.

The National Liberation Army operated primarily in the south of the country, where Ulate had the greatest support among the population and Figueres found numerous supporters. The insurgents succeeded in gradually occupying the country and conquering Cartago and Puerto Limón through several surprise attacks . The government troops and their allies could hardly offer any resistance due to inadequate organizational structures. The capital of San José, defended by members of the Partido Vanguardia Popular , was soon surrounded by Figueres' army. The hopeless situation forced the government to give up peacefully. Picado, who was officially still in power, had to resign and Santos León Herrera became interim president. Finally, on April 24, 1948, Figueres and his National Liberation Army marched into San José after the government troops had been disarmed the day before.

Due to the strategically important geographical location of Costa Rica (waterway over the Río San Juan and Lake Nicaragua as an alternative to the Panama Canal ), the USA also had an interest in the outcome of the civil war. The stationing of several US warships off the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica led to rumors that the US might also be planning a military intervention against the Picado regime.

The civil war had claimed between 1,000 and 2,000 lives, most of them on the government side.

Founding junta of the Second Republic (1948)

According to a pact with Ulate, Figueres became leader of a founding junta of the Second Republic of Costa Rica for 18 months before it transferred power to Ulate. Figueres continued Calderón's social reforms, banned the Communist Party and its press, introduced women's suffrage, gave blacks all civil rights and dissolved the standing army. He limited the president's term of office and set up an independent electoral tribunal to oversee future elections. He nationalized the banks and insurance companies. He forced Calderón and many of his followers to go into exile in Mexico, and special courts confiscated their property.

But the various victorious groups of the civil war differed greatly in their political goals and Figueres had to make many difficult compromises. Many left-wing politicians and activists were kidnapped and murdered, the opposition to the activities of the Caribbean Legion in Costa Rica alongside the National Liberation Army was strong, including in Figueres' leadership circle. Power struggles within the junta and rebellions against Figueres went off lightly for him thanks to his control over the armed forces. Supported by Nicaragua, Calderón attempted an invasion of Costa Rica on December 12, 1948, in vain during this internal quarrel. The victorious civil war army was still armed at this point, and Calderón found no popular support. Nevertheless, the political situation in Costa Rica was destabilized. Ultimately, the OAS condemned the actions of both states and pushed through a formal peace agreement. This guaranteed protection for Costa Rica, but at the same time the Caribbean Legion had to be dissolved, whereupon its activists moved to Guatemala.

Abolition of the military

The Costa Rican army was neither quantitatively nor qualitatively strong in the 1940s. Their swift defeat by Figueres' National Liberation Army made this evident. Since the military had only limited power and function both internally and - because of the strong influence of the USA - externally, there was no need for a regular army in this regard.

A group of young men who drafted the new constitution called for by Figueres and Ulate proposed for the first time the abolition of the army in the draft constitution presented by the junta on May 24, 1948. The main reasons given were the lack of military tradition and the destructive consequences of military activities. The Constitutional Commission thus took a different view than Figueres, who only came to power through armed force. Figueres had to realize that the idea of ​​the Caribbean Legion (the liberation of Central America from its dictators), which he had still pursued, could not be realized. As a result, he declared the Costa Rican Army dissolved on December 1, 1948 for economic and symbolic reasons. Article 12 of the constitution, which has been in force since 1949, has since banned a standing army and only allows an army to be set up for national defense under certain conditions. In this regard, the armed forces have to submit to the state without exception.

On December 3rd, Costa Rica signed the Rio Pact .

National security was now the task of the Guardia Civil , a gendarmerie of approx. 1000 police officers and the approx. 700-strong coast guard. It is not clear whether the National Liberation Army was dissolved or merely restructured into the same Guardia Civil . In any case, their function was similar to that of the original army. The mechanism that police officers were to be changed for each new government ensured that the police were always politically loyal to the government. In this way it was prevented that the armed forces could develop into political resistance. This was thus a preventive measure against a possible future military coup.

The Guardia Civil has been expanded and well-structured over the years, and its members have received the best possible training from US support. In 1978 it already consisted of 4,500 security guards and was thus many times larger than the military army before. However, she had no major weapons with the exception of a few flying objects and boats to monitor the air and sea space. In 1996 the Guardia Civil was merged with the Border Guard and has been called Fuerza Pública since then .

Frente Sur Contras 1987

During the Contra War , Contra units such as Edén Pastoras ARDE operated on the territory of Costa Rica and carried out operations in Nicaragua from here. Due to the escalation of the war, the Batallón Relámpago (Blitz Battalion ) was set up within the Guardia Civil , which was trained and uniformed by the US armed forces and therefore practically did not differ from a US unit except for the national badge in appearance. The unit with a strength of around 600 men was disbanded at the end of the 1980s. (Caballero / Thomas, Central American Wars )

Complete demilitarization was not carried out. Compared to most of the other countries in Central America and worldwide, Costa Rica is very little militarized. In 2009, spending on police and security forces was only 0.6% of GDP.

Second republic

In 1949, the founding junta gave power to the legitimately elected President Ulate , who from then on assumed his full term in office.

Figueres won the first democratic election after the civil war as the founder and candidate of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) in 1953 and ruled until 1958 and again from 1970 to 1974. He dominated politics as the leader of his party for decades and died on June 8, 1990. The PLN and Christian Democrats regularly took turns in power, but the elections remained democratic. The two political camps grew closer and closer together, so that Calderón , who had lost the civil war and then attempted military coups from Nicaragua in 1948 and 1955, was able to legitimately run for the presidency in 1962 - albeit unsuccessfully. In 1966, both Ulate and Calderón even supported the election of José Joaquín Trejos Fernández as President of Costa Rica. The frequent changes in power between the political camps were economically very successful and led to the establishment of a welfare state, for which 40% of the budget was spent in 1981. At the same time, the state became the largest employer.

From 1963 to 1965 the 3,432 m high Irazú erupted several times. It is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes. The oldest documented eruption took place in 1723. Severe earthquakes took place in 1822, 1841 and 1910, which severely affected Cartago.

In 1980 Costa Rica plunged into a severe economic crisis. Inflation, devaluation, rising petrol costs, but also falling coffee, banana and sugar prices were characteristic. In addition, there were trade disruptions caused by the civil war in Nicaragua, in which Costa Rica first became the base for the Sandinista , then for the Contras . Borrowing increased so much that Costa Rica was considered the country with the highest per capita debt.

neutrality

In 1983, President Luis Alberto Monge proclaimed his country's unarmed neutrality as the civil war in Nicaragua worsened .

Sociologist and business lawyer Óscar Arias Sánchez won the 1986 elections . Arias tried to push the Contras out of Costa Rica and put his country's official declaration of neutrality into practice in 1983. In 1987 he achieved the breakthrough in negotiations and the signing of a peace plan by the five Central American countries. For this he received the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize .

In February 1990 Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier , the candidate of the Christian Social Unity Party (PUSC) (PUSC) won the election with 51% of the vote. Exactly 50 years after his father, he was installed in his office. Under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Calderón initiated a tough austerity course. Costa Rica was sometimes called the “Switzerland of Central America”, less because of the landscape than because of its prosperity and neutrality.

In March 2006, Óscar Arias Sánchez was elected President, as in 1986 (until 1990). He has been a member of the National Liberation Party (PLN) since he was a student , and its Secretary General from 1981–1983. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate brokered the 2009 coup in Honduras .

Free trade agreement with the USA (2007) and economic crisis

On October 7, 2007, a referendum took place in Costa Rica on a free trade agreement with the USA , Central America and the Dominican Republic , the Tratado de Libre Comercio con los Estados Unidos, Centroamérica y República Dominicana , which was approved with 51.6% of the votes cast has been. The campaign for the agreement was mainly supported by President Óscar Arias Sánchez and his party of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), but also by intellectuals, politicians and business representatives.

The campaign against the agreement was supported by the opposition party Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) and its representatives Otton Solis and Jose Miguel Corrales. However, private initiatives also formed under the slogan “¡Mi corazón dice no!” (My heart says no!).

Dispute over the rights of the indigenous population

In 2008 , the largest reservoir project in Central America was decided without the legally required involvement of those affected, especially Teribe , who lives in the Térraba Valley there . With this project, El Diquís , a lake of 7400 ha is to be created, the electricity is mainly intended for export. A few decades ago, the Teribe owned around 9,000 hectares of land, but only around ten percent remained after illegal settlements. Their villages are said to be forcibly relocated, but the indigenous people are resisting the destruction of their culture, which is based on the natural environment. 108 archaeological sites are also at risk. In April 2011, James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples , visited the Térraba Valley to get an idea of ​​the situation. After discussions with representatives of the Teribe and the state energy company ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad), the latter temporarily stopped construction work on 20 hectares in the indigenous reserve.

See also

National Museum of Costa Rica

literature

  • Clotilde María Obregón: Nuestros gobernantes: verdades del pasado para comprender el futuro , 2nd edition, San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica 2002 (1st edition 1999).
  • Guillermo Villegas Hoffmeister: La guerra de Figueres: crónica de ocho años , Universidad Estatal a Distancia San José 1998.
  • Rafael Obregon Loria: Conflictos Militares y Políticos de Costa Rica , San José / Costa Rica 1951.
  • Martha Honey: Hostile acts. US policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s , Gainesville / FLA (University Press of Florida) 1994. ISBN 0-8130-1249-X .
  • Carlos Caballero Jurado / Nigel Thomas: Central American Wars 1959-89 , Oxford 1990, Reprint 1998, 2000. ISBN 0-85045-945-1 . ISBN 978-0-85045-945-6

Web links

Commons : History of Costa Rica  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Iván Molina Jiménez, Steven Paul Palmer: The History of Costa Rica. UCR, San José 2006, p. 3.
  2. ^ Robert M. Carmack: Perspectivas sobre la historia antigua de Centroamérica. in: Robert M. Carmack (Ed.): Historia General de Centroamérica , Vol. 1. Historia Antiqua , Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario, Madrid 1993, p. 300.
  3. ^ The Nobel Peace Prize 1987
  4. ↑ vivacostarica.com .
  5. ^ Cariari National Wetlands
  6. ^ Iván Molina Jiménez, Steven Paul Palmer: Historia de Costa Rica , Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, 1997, p. 21.
  7. ↑ Winners and losers: how sectors shape the developmental prospects of states , Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1994
  8. ↑ The Story Of ... Smallpox - and other Deadly Eurasian Germs
  9. ^ Blacks of Costa Rica , World Culture Encyclopedia .
  10. ↑ The quake killed over 1,500 of the approximately 12,000 residents (León Fernández Guardia, Amando Céspedes Marín: The Cartago Earthquake 6h. 47m. 35s. May 4th 1910 , San José 1910, p. 12 ( online )).
  11. ↑ Ricardo MORENO CAÑAS , Asamblea ligislativa. República de Costa Rica ( Memento of December 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ a b c Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 335, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  13. ^ Lowell Gudmundson: Costa Rican Jewry: An Economic and Political Outline , Florida International University 1984, p. 7.
  14. ↑ 75-year-old welfare state in the tropics , NZZ, February 6, 2017
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 336, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  16. ↑ Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 341, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  17. ↑ a b Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 340, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  18. ↑ a b c d e f g Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 337, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  19. ↑ a b c d e f Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 342, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  20. ↑ a b c Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 343, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  21. ↑ Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 339, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  22. ↑ The Constitution of Costa Rica (English) ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . CostaricaLaw.com. Retrieved January 18, 2013.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.costaricalaw.com
  23. ↑ a b Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 347, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  24. ↑ Country comparison: Military expenditure , CIA World Fact Book. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
  25. ↑ a b Tord Hoivik & Solveig Aas: Demilitarization in Costa Rica: A Farewell to Arms? , Journal of Peace Research No. 4, Vol. XVIII, 1981, p. 346, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
  26. ↑ Irazù, Global Volcanism Program of the Department of Mineral Sciences of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
  27. ^ Teribe film about the project (German) .
  28. ^ Swimming against the current
  29. Jump up ↑ The Situation of the Térraba Indigenous People of Costa Rica: A Request for Consideration under the Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Seventy-Seventh Session) .
  30. ↑ Information on the conflict over the dam .