In the midst of civil war, an unusual alternative changed a nation
In a recent conversation on the podcast The Rest is History, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook discuss the history of the 1948 Revolution of Costa Rica. The highlight of their talk is simply how amazed they are that democracy has flourished in this small country ever since. Part of their bewilderment is the seemingly exceptional nature of Costa Rica’s political experiment in relation to the rest of Central America.
Costa Rica is important to me because of my father, who migrated from there to the United States in 1968. As a child in the 1980s I would be attentive to any mention of Central America or Costa Rica in school. I was mostly disappointed. The one time I recall it popping up in history class had to do with President Oscar Arias receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for proposing peace and democracy in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador. This peaceful country became a model for my own conceptualization of Christianity and politics.
The idea that Costa Rica is the “Switzerland of Central America” is often repeated, but the history of why the country has this reputation is little known. The claim stems from what did not happen: countless bloody civil wars, and the U.S. meddling in political affairs (as in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador). Thus, Costa Rican history is an exception to the rule in Central America. How did this happen?
It is the result of the so-called Tico democratic spirit, which would rather spend tax money on education and public health than on the military. This spirit was already part of the ethos even before the Civil War of 1948, when José Figueres Ferrer (Don Pepe) came on the scene. After a short stint studying in the United States, Figueres in the 1930s set up a sort of farming and industrial community on his ranch, but would eventually become disenchanted with the direction of the country in the 1940s, even going into exile for a couple of years. He was just the right man to make certain that peace would be Costa Rica’s legacy well into the twenty-first century.
How did the Civil War lead to a social democracy whereas other Latin American revolutions did not? There are at least two reasons.
First, Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia’s presidency (1940-1944) had been a watershed moment. He introduced social reforms that would be continued after the Civil War. In fact, his commitment to Catholic social practice can be seen as a precursor of Latin American liberation theology, which again would be crucial in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador in the late 1960s through the 1980s. However, his ties with Manuel Mora’s communist Vanguard party, an alliance that helped Calderón get elected, would eventually lead to problems. When Calderón ran for reelection in 1948 but was defeated by Otilio Ulate, he resorted to election fraud. This attack on democracy was the last straw for Figueres.
Second, because of Figueres’ role in the Caribbean Legion, the rebels received arms from Juan José Arévalo’s Guatemala. The Legion was made up of Latin Americans who wanted to see dictators like Trujillo from the Dominican Republic and Somoza from Nicaragua removed from power and democratic governments installed instead.
The United States, under the direction of Ambassador Nathaniel P. Davis, only intervened during Costa Rica’s Civil War in a diplomatic fashion, which ended up in support of the rebel’s side. Historian Kyle Longley points out that this was the first time the U.S. intervened in a Latin American conflict during the Cold War, marking the end of the “Good Neighbor” policy. Calderón’s ties to communism, while ignored during World War II, quickly became a target because of the U.S.’s new policy of aggressive anti-communism. Figueres was a social democrat and an anti-communist, which made him the best bet for the Truman administration.
The War of National Liberation begun on March 11, 1948. Within a few weeks Figueres’s Founding Junta of the Second Republic would claim victory. The “Pact of Ochomogo” convinced Mora and the communists to stop fighting, since Figueres would not end Calderón’s social reforms. The Junta took charge of the country for eighteen months, establishing the policies that would eventually become the Constitution of 1949. The transition from Figueres’ Junta to Ulate’s presidency was peaceful. Not only was the communist party banned, so was the military and the Junta’s forces. Without the military there were no potential opportunities for military coups or the dictatorships the Caribbean Legion opposed. This legacy of peace established by Figueres after the Civil War continues to this day.
Why is this exceptional history remarkably new information for historians like Holland and Sandbrook—or, indeed, for most people outside of Costa Rica? Clearly a figure like Figueres deserves more attention in history and political science textbooks. In fact, there is only one major English language biography of him, and a memoir by his first wife Henrietta Boggs, along with a documentary dedicated to her story.
I have had recent opportunities to visit my father’s country and think about what its legacy means for my own identity. Having grown up in Los Angeles County, the reality of a country without an army seemed both utopian and alluring—especially since the only time Central America comes up in social studies is to discuss dictators, guerillas, or refugees. Perhaps this is just another reminder that history (and politics) are way more complicated than the narratives found in textbooks make them seem. Since there are few recent written materials detailing Costa Rican politics, those curious about Costa Rica might find a recent documentary about Costa Rica’s exceptional politics a good place to start.
Michael Jimenez is associate professor of history at Vanguard University. He is the author of Remembering Lived Lives: A Historiography from the Underside of Modernity (Cascade Books, 2017). He is currently researching the influence of Cesar Chavez’s nonviolent activism and the recent history of Costa Rica.