COSTA RICA FLASHES WARNING TO MANAGUA ON SKIRMISHES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620002-2
ORTmICLE GE`~ J--
ON PA
MIAMI HERALD
11 August 1985
Around the Americas
Costa Rica flashes warning
to Managua on skirmishes
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - An-
gered by a string of border
incidents with Nicaragua, tradi-
tionally tranquil Costa Rica is
warning that it is reaching the end
of its patience.
"We're like a beehive," said
Minister of Information Armando
Vargas. "Everybody works, but
the day anyone touches us, we all
attack."
The Costa Ricans' sting so far
has been more rhetorical than
military, befitting a nation that
abolished its army in 1948 and
adopted a Swiss-style neutrality
law two years ago.
Newspapers carry shrill attacks
on the Marxist-led Sandinista gov-
ernment, fueling what pollster
Miguel Gomez calls "the feeling
that something must be done
about Nicaragua."
Anti-Communist graffiti is turn-
ing up on the walls of the placid
capital of San Jose, a startling
sight in a region where leftists
usually hold the monopoly on
spray-can propaganda.
Foreign Minister Carlos Gutier-
rez has said that he soon will ask
the Organization of American
States to rush a team of interna-
tional military observers to the
198-mile frontier.
And President Luis Alberto
Monge. who had downplayed
some of the incidents as the
spillover of the war between
Sandinistas and their rebel- foes
known as contras, accused Nicara-
gua Aug. 1 of a willful "policy of
aggression" against his country.
Vargas said Monge's Cabinet
voted the same day to "respond
with all patasible vigor" to future
attacks. "Any aggression will
carry a large political price tag ...
and we will send the bill to
Nicaragua," he said.
The warnings took on an omi-
nous tinge after Security Minister
Benjamin Piza last week visited
military leaders in Venezuela and
Panama. The two nations rushed
planeloads of military aid to San
Jose during a similar border crisis
in 1978, when the late President
Anastasio Somoza ruled Nicara-
gua.
Asked if Piza sought military
aid, Vargas told The Herald Friday
that the minister "simply relayed
our growing concern." He added.
however: "We're not closing the
door on any option."
Venezuela and Panama have
been providing some military'aid
since 1982 to Costa Rica's security
forces - 8,000 poorly trained and
lightly armed policemen in the
civil and rural guards - but the
bulk of the guardsmen's foreign
support has come from the Reagan
administration.
U.S. military aid to Costa Rica
has totaled $21 million since 1982.
Twenty U.S. Special Forces mem-
bers are now in the country,
training about 700 guardsmen in
communications and patrol tactics.
The Sandinistas charge that
Washington is "militarizing" Cos-
ta Rica to increase U.S. pressure
on Nicaragua. Yet they say the
guardsmen's very weakness
makes the border a potential flash
point for a U.S. military interven-
tion against Nicaragua.
"Imagine what would happen if
we attack poor little Costa Rica,"
Nicaraguan Defense Ministry
spokeswoman Capt. Rosa Pasos
said earlier this year. "That's why
our troops are under strict orders
to respect the border."
Orders or not, Costa Rica's
Vargas said, Sandinista forces
have staged 34 "major" border
raids since late 1983, including an
attack in May that killed two
guardsmen and wounded nine
others. The latest incident was a
July 26 rocket attack by four
Nicaraguan warplanes against a
civil guard outpost 71/2 miles south
of the border, he said.
Nicaragua has denied responsi-
bility for the attacks, usually
blaming them on anti-Sandinista
guerrillas bent on provoking a
U.S. military intervention.
And the Sandinistas have hinted
that the CIA is behind the cam-
gn by San Jose's newspapers,
traditionally among the s
s t in Central America, to
beat the drums o war.
Vargas said he had no informa-
tion on the c arse but added. " e
don't doubt all kinds of secret
services are taking advantage of
the Central American tragedy not
only the CIA, but also the ovi-
ets
One ranking government official
noted, however, that President
Monge's 1983 declaration of Costa
Rican neutrality was "a tactic to
shield us from U.S. efforts to
persuade us to take sides in
Central American conflict."
If the CIA is behind the cam-
paign, it would a an agency
L un m ut c opin on uo s s ow
twat 8 rcent of Costa Rica's 2.5
m1 on o e v ew t o an in is-
his ommunis s w o t reaten
eir country.
An official at the U.S. Embassy,
expanded from 35 to 150 Ameri-
can staffers since mid-1983, said
the mission has a legitimate duty
to make U.S. policies known in
Costa Rica.
"We try to make the U.S. point
of view known to journalists
here," he said. "but as to whether
the United States is developing a
frenzy against the Sandinistas.
that's not true [because] the people
here are smart enough to develop
their own views of the Sandinis-
tas."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620002-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620002-2
The official said he recently
mailed copies of a speech by a i
Sandinista leader, questioning the
value of Western-style elections,
to 150 Journalists, politicians, busi-
nessmen and youth leaders. Two i
days later, two newspapers pub-
lished editorials on the speech,
first reported by The Herald in
mid-June.
One ranking Costa Rican official
said the anti-Sandinista uproar
was stoked by. newspapers whose
conservative owners include rich
coffee and sugar growers and
industrialists.
"I don't believe it's been neces-
sary for the newspapers to heat up
the situation," said Guido Fernan-
dez, former editor of the leading
IA Nacion newspaper. "The situa-
tion has heated up because of the
facts, and the newspapers have
only mirrored this."
Fernandez and pollster Miguel
Gomez stressed that Costa Ricans
have their own reasons to criticize
Nicaragua and need little egging
on from the outside.
Nicaragua and Costa Rica
fought brief border clashes in 1949
and 1955, and Somoza threatened
to invade this country in 1978 in
pursuit of Sandinista guerrillas
then based in Costa Rica.
Most Costa Ricans enthusiasti-
cally supported the Sandinista-led
revolution that toppled Somoza in
1979. They shifted when the
Sandinistas broke their promises
of democracy and turned toward a
Nicaraguan mutation of Marxism.
Vargas said the traditional enmi-
ty between the two neighbors was
best described in 1910 by Costa
Rican President Ricardo Jimenez.
"Costa Rica has three seasons,"
the president is supposed to have
said. "Rainy, dry, and conflict
with Nicaragua."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706620002-2