Politics by Assassination

Costa Rica has no army but...

By W. E. Gutman

Special to Honduras This Week

Last in a two-part series

Breathtaking mountain vistas. An idyllic climate. Unspoiled rain forests. Golden beaches stretching along two coasts. A rich fauna and an exuberant flora, Costa Rica has it all, and then some. But what makes Costa Ricans proud of all, what they enjoy reminding the world, is that their small Central American nations has had no army since its abolition in 1948. Look again.

A document obtained by this writer through the Freedom of Information Act lists nearly 2,500 Costa Rican soldiers and officers who have trained at the SOA since 1949. Among the courses taken: military intelligence (the second most popular specialty after military police and infantry training), psychological warfare, sniper and commando tactics, airborne, engineering combat and construction jungle operations, "irregular warfare," counterinsurgency, "nuclear war and military pedagogy," radio operation and maintenance, "special tactics," mine sweeping, basic weapons and combat trauma medicine.

Costa Rica has also contributed instructors to the SOA, most recently Lt. Wilbert Mora and Capts. Juan Calvo, Jorge Alfaro Núñez, Luis C. Calvo Calvo and Carlos Alberto Castro. The last two ended a two-year stint in January. Lt. Col. Walter F. Navarro Romero, SOA class of 1989 (Psychological Warfare) a Costa Rican, is the SOA base sub-commandant.

Asked to comment, Maj. Gordon Martel, SOA Public Affairs Officer who pinch-hit for base commandant Col. Roy Trumble (Trumble twice declined to be interviewed), dismissed any inference of impropriety in the existence of military presence in Costa Rica. "This is a kind of police force not unlike the [U.S.] National Guard. Its members are trained to perform civil and rural guard duties. They also go on drug interdiction missions."

Understandably, Maj. Martel must have recited SOA's standard catechism. The rationale, however, is tenuous in Costa Rica, as in the rest of Central America, police and army are indistinguishable and interchangeable. One is tempted to speculate -- given the nature, complexity and sophistication of the courses taken by Costa Rican students at an elite school such as the SOA -- that "civil and rural guard duties" are clever euphemisms crafted for public consumption. For his nation of three million, such intensive training looks more like a state of continuous mobilization and combat readiness than an attempt to keep peace in the streets or to preserve nature's virgin beauty against human predation. Moreover, Costa Rica has categorically rejected a recent U.S. offer to install -- gratis -- a drug surveillance radar network. Such adamancy, at a time when Costa Rica is known to be providing a benevolent land bridge between Colombia's cartels and North America, invalidates Maj. Martel's argument. Out of 2,500 graduates, fewer than a dozen took the so-called "counter-narcotrafficking" course. Measured against the hundreds of students who have trained in intelligence, counterinsurgency, infantry and military police, drug interdiction does not appear to be a burning preoccupation in Costa Rica at this time. The course may have been useful for other purposes.

Well earned, Costa Rica's reputation as nature conservator and premier tourist attraction has obscured a less than sterling rights record. As recently as 1993, the Cobra Commando, a shadowy paramilitary group, was keeping the narcotics pipeline open and terrorizing indigenous Indians in the Talamanca jungles. Once a thriving and proud people, caught between the sword and the cross, Costa Rica's Indians have dwindled to a precious few and may be headed for extinction. This could explain Costa Rica's reluctance to acknowledge the very existence of an antecedent civilization.

Reliable sources have also told this writer that groups of heavily armed Costa Rican military units have been seen training -- under U.S. military supervision and with live ammunition -- in the dense and rugged Braulio Carrillo National Park, a primary rain forest rising on the northern outskirts of the capital city of San Jose. A complaint filed confidentially with Costa Rica's Ministry of Tourism by the witnesses was quietly suppressed. Informants have suggested that Costa Rica Libre, a powerful and influential if secretive right-wing ultra-nationalist "fifth column" may indeed be training against real or perceived threats. Costa Rica Libre, which makes its views known in the daily, La Nación, has been identified with anti-Communist and anti-Castro factions. A number of La Nación journalists and editors have been described as disciples of Costa Rica Libre.

Calling its adherents "intellectual misfits," and "stooges" of U.S. military colonialism in Latin America," critics charge Costa Rica Libre with pretending to be obsessed by the ghost of Communism rather than alarmed by any clear and present danger, a ploy they say is designed to preserve the oligarchic status quo. It is widely believed that Costa Rica Libre is receiving U.S. military aid and training as recompense for its loyalty. An SOA connection with Costa Rica Libre could not be established at this writing.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

"The SOA is seriously hindering the establishment and strengthening of democracy in Latin America," charges Father Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who spent two years in prison for spearheading protests against the school. Bourgeois, who heads SOA Watch, a grassroots organization that keeps close tabs on the school, claims that "the SOA does not screen soldiers who are assigned to it.

Known perpetrators of serious war crimes come and go as they please." Indeed, a number of officers cited in the 1993 U.N. Truth Commission attended the SOA after they had committed atrocities. "Funded by U.S. tax dollars," Bourgeois argues, "the SOA steals from the poor. Graduates return to their countries to enrich the rich and to keep the poor in their place. The school must be closed."

Defenders of the SOA, which operates on a $42 million-a-year budget (the school recently underwent a $30 million renovation), insist it is getting a bum rap. Maj. Martel rejects all criticism. "The SOA is a legitimate military institution where legitimate military skills are taught. It is not the school's fault that a fraction of graduates has engaged in reprehensible behavior," -- a plea echoed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga).

Congressman Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), who represents the Fort Benning area, goes a step further. He argues that the SOA has actually promoted democracy in Latin America. These are by and large obscurantist arguments that even the Pentagon stops short of endorsing. Guaranteed anonymity, a senior analyst told this writer that the SOA "has systematically encouraged the transplantation of military structures into, and facilitated the propagation of military power and objectives against, legitimate civilian governments."

A GRINGO COURSE

The future of the SOA may hinge not so much on ethical but on prosaic considerations, including looming cutbacks in military spending. It will be hard to explain why the SOA should survive when several dozen military bases in the U.S. are now on the chopping block, "to maintain a maximum state of readiness with existing financial resources."

In what way is the SOA indispensable to a maximum state of readiness? What future conflicts is it preparing to thwart in Latin America when it brags of having helped reestablish democracy in the region?

Public intolerance for the absurd may also help bring down the SOA. To soak up U.S. culture and values, SOA students are routinely treated to baseball games, excursions to Disney World and other perks, all compliments of U.S. taxpayers. It is doubtful that a term or two at a school which teaches, among other useful tricks, how to filet a human being in less time than it takes to read this sentence, can imbue a Latin American with the Jeffersonian perspective. Most of these soldiers have cultivated a dark view of priests, social workers, journalists and liberal intellectuals. To them they are all dangerous subversives. Even the parsimonious (12 hours) "human rights" course offered guest instructors is not expected to alter deeply rooted biases and inclinations. After all, this is gringo rhetoric and it will be swiftly discarded as a hindrance to more practical objectives once they get back home.

What SOA supporters will have to grapple with, as some of its alumni's reputation spreads like blood in bathwater, is whether keeping the school open sends the wrong message, both in the U.S. and abroad. False prophets, of course, are useful; they give the truth a good name. Ultimately, they also remind the world that power struggles, particularly those engineered by others for reasons of geopolitical hegemony, sharpen plutocratic dominance, end in abuse and hasten the sacrifice of the innocent. Ultimately perhaps, but never soon enough to curb the bloodlust.

Postscript. School of Assassins, a 20-minute documentary on the SOA narrated by Susan Sarandon, has been nominated for an Academy Award.

A Connecticut-based journalist, W.E. Gutman is currently on assignment in Latin America.