{"id":9478,"date":"2011-01-17T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T23:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=9478"},"modified":"2011-01-14T19:22:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T18:22:01","slug":"costa-rica-foreign-minster-sparks-army-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/01\/costa-rica-foreign-minster-sparks-army-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa Rica Foreign Minister Sparks Army Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ren\u00e9 Castro tells a Dutch radio station that external forces are causing Costa Rica to reconsider their official pacifist stance.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a candid interview with Dutch radio station Radio Nederland Wereldomroep in the Netherlands on Thursday, Foreign Minister Ren\u00e9 Castro said that he thinks\u00a0the time has come for Costa Rica to reconsider its non-military status.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to have to do a thorough analysis to decide about being an unarmed and peaceful nation, and the new reality of this multilateral world,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing a pacifist is in the Costa Rican soul, but external forces are\u00a0causing us to consider our historic stance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro also added that he felt that \u201cCosta Rica is obliged to make a thorough revision to prepare for the future\u201d and that the nation should consider creating a border defense unit, rather than an army.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a considerable difference between an army and a police force,\u201d he said. \u201cThe army has an offensive capability to attack. Here we are basically talking about creating mobile teams. We don\u2019t want heavy artillery for defensive police\u2026Our capacity for defense is very limited. We don\u2019t have the necessary equipment for communication, aerial vigilance, or to defend maritime boundaries 10 times the size of our territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro\u2019s comments came after the conclusion of a 3-day case between Costa Rican and Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the Netherlands. Throughout the case, Castro seemed to become increasingly frustrated with the Nicaraguan claim that Costa Rica had provoked an \u201cinternational scandal\u201d by stating that Nicaragua \u201cinvaded\u201d the Isla Calero. Nicaragua also frustrated the Costa Rican contingent by claiming the border between the nations established in the 1858 Jer\u00e9z-Ca\u00f1as Treaty was subject to interpretation due to the R\u00edo San Juan\u2019s change in course over the last 150 years.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Nicaragua) again made an unfounded statement, manifesting that the incursion, occupation and use of Costa Rican territory has given Costa Rica motive to initiate an international scandal,\u201d said Edgar Ugaldo, the Costa Rican agent to the world court. \u201cNicaragua has made us believe that they have prerogatives to penetrate into the territories of neighbor states, cause damages, disrespect resolutions of international organizations, and even then, remain unable to take any international responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing President Laura Chinchilla\u2019s words earlier in the week, Castro said that he feels Costa Rica needs to consider making \u201cserious investments\u201d into national defense forces. On Tuesday, Chinchilla said that it was \u201cvery probable\u201d that the upcoming fiscal reform would include a national defense tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a study of the investments of Latin American countries and found that they invert 2-4 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) into defense funds,\u201d Castro said. \u201cThat is a large amount of money. Our country invests that into public universities. We will have to consider investing similar amounts of money into our forces to have modern defense force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro also cited defense and special police units in Panama, Colombia and Chile as examples of forces Costa Rica could consider emulating. He said approximately three years of training would be necessary to prepare sufficient resources and create a viable defense force.<\/p>\n

Beefing Up the Other Side of the River<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Costa Rica mulls the option of amplifying police forces, Nicaraguan military presence on the Isla Calero is growing exponentially, a source in the area told The Tico Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of troops on the Nicaraguan side [of the R\u00edo San Juan] has gotten heavier, much heavier,\u201d said the source that chose to remain anonymous. \u201cIn the last few weeks troops have at least doubled, if not more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The source said that, in addition to more checkpoints for travelers along the R\u00edo San Juan, dozens of troops have been deployed to the grass airstrip in the area of San Juan del Nicaragua known as Old Greytown. Construction materials arrived in Old Greytown in recent weeks to begin construction on a new airstrip, a project that has been delayed for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe airport in Greytown has already been approved for construction and should be completed by the beginning of 2011,\u201d Lucy Valenti, president of the Nicaraguan National Tourism Chamber (Canatur), told The Tico Times in November. \u201cThe runway will be top quality and will allow for small planes to fly in and out of that region of the country. Currently, it is very difficult to get to San Juan del Nicaragua and the airstrip will provide much more access to the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the arrival of the construction materials to the region, more Nicaraguan troops were deployed to protect the area and widen and lengthen the landing strip. Currently, troops are stationed in camps and tents on the long, narrow plot of grass.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The troops) are most likely there to protect the materials at the airstrip, but they\u2019re probably also there to provide back up along the border,\u201d the source said. \u201cShould there be some kind of threat or disturbance on the border, the airstrip is only half a kilometer away. They could be there in about 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ticotimes.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ren\u00e9 Castro tells a Dutch radio station that external forces are causing Costa Rica to reconsider their official pacifist stance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}