Radical measures against criminal violence have proven too much for Costa Rican lawmakers used to a more gentle, preventative approach
San José, Costa Rica – Readers of Costa Rica’s La Nacion newspaper were this week jolted from their mid-summer complacency by alarming news.
Not only was there a cold weather warning — the temperature was forecast to dip to 16 degrees overnight in San José — but there were photos of three men wearing black balaclavas talking about the country turning into a narco-state.
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These were the good guys, agents of the drug control police, denouncing shortcomings in their own force, including their removal by the government last September from airports, docks and borders. Police claim their stagnant resources have been overwhelmed by the influx of criminals. Some analysts say the country needs another 10,000 beat cops to add to the current 13,500.
The drug agents were joined by a tough former magistrate and current vice-president of the country’s legislative assembly, Gloria Navas, who warned that Costa Rica’s spike in homicides last year threatens to see it follow Ecuador down a path of lawlessness and chaos. (Ecuador has seen its homicide rate rise to 45 per 100,000 people, from 10 per 100,000 six years ago. A presidential candidate who promised to crack down on the gangs during the last election was assassinated.)
“What are we trying to do, leave Costa Rica in the hands of criminals and create a narco state?” Navas asked.
Costa Rica, the happy place for many Canadians enchanted by its exotic animals and world-class beaches, is still a safe country, governed by the rule of law.
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But it is experiencing an unprecedented security crisis. It has seen a 40-per-cent increase in violent deaths, mainly among gang members, as the homicide rate has risen to 17 per 100,000 people. The cause is organized crime trying to move in to ship cocaine and fentanyl. Traffickers used to take advantage of Costa Rica’s porous borders and thinly patrolled waters to use it as a trans-shipment point for cocaine to the U.S. But it has increasingly become a market in its own right. Organized crime employs local gangs, who are often paid with drugs that they then use to build up internal markets.
This is nothing new in Central America, the world’s most dangerous neighbourhood, but it is deeply troubling for Costa Ricans, who have felt themselves exceptional until now.
The country abolished its army 70 years ago and diverted funding into health and education, something that advocates say has helped to inoculate it against much of the violence and turmoil that has plagued much of Central America.
Laura Chinchilla, who was president between 2010 and 2014, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the cause of the security crisis is explained in one graph that shows the percentage of GDP spent on education falling to 5.2 per cent this year from 7.5 per cent in 2017.
At her press conference with the three drug control agents, Gloria Navas said there comes a time when the population no longer has confidence in the response of those in charge and is forced to hold protests.
Since she was sitting alongside the head of the country’s largest and most powerful union, this was not an idle threat.
“To me, this reminds me of what happened in Colombia when the whole of society started to coalesce and say: ‘this is not acceptable’,” said Roger Pardo-Maurer, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence for Western Hemisphere affairs in Washington and a dual citizen of Costa Rica. “There is not a single person who feels the government is doing enough.”
President Rodrigo Chaves and his security minister, Mario Zamora, tried to laugh off the press conference as a “show,” comparing the masked agents to Basque ETA terrorists.
But Chaves hastily convened a meeting with the public sector unions to try to avert street protests that could taint his country’s reputation with foreign investors.
Costa Rica’s dilemma is that its people have created a stable political system against a backdrop of natural beauty that has led to it being called “the Switzerland of Latin America.” But social programs to prevent the poor from falling into crime are no longer working.
There are, of course, other models out there. Nayib Bukele was re-elected as president of El Salvador on February 4th with 83 per cent of the vote. Before he took office in 2019, Salvadoreans were terrorized by gangsters who extorted money from businesses and fought deadly turf wars. The murder rate was the highest in the world at 51 per 100,000 people. But his “mano dura” (“iron fist”) policies, which allowed police to arrest anyone they suspected of gang ties, has seen that number plummet to three per 100,000 people.
Dubbed “the world’s coolest dictator,” he is revered in his own country. But safe streets have come with a cost — the suspension of constitutional rights and the indefinite suspension of suspects without the right to a lawyer.
Costa Rica’s Chaves says that El Salvador provides a reference point for him to introduce his own “mano dura” policies — increasing jail sentences for criminals who use minors, extending preventative detention and making it easier to hold suspects with limited evidence. “Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures,” he said.
He has long said he has little in common with traditional Costa Rican politics and promised to transform the country.
But so far, such radical measures have proven too much for Costa Rican lawmakers used to a more gentle, preventative approach. Chaves’s party only has nine seats and he needs the support of 29 members of the legislature to pass his security package. It remains unclear whether the country is willing to follow him.
“We live in a democracy. We’re not El Salvador or any of those countries that violate individual rights,” said Navas.
National Post
jivison@criffel.ca
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