Word: costa
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Hard-liners within the Reagan Administration seized upon that request with glee. One low-level State Department cable even proclaimed that it "could lead to a significant shift from [Costa Rica's] neutralist tightrope act and push it more explicitly and publicly into the anti-Sandinista camp." Although the message did not reflect official policy, once leaked it produced an understandable outcry in Costa Rica...
Actually, Costa Rica violated its military abstinence three years ago, when the Sandinistas began drawing closer to Cuba and the Soviet Union. At that point the government accepted $30,000 from the U.S. to send local guards to be trained in Panama, and allowed Washington to sup ply the nation with boots, tents, Jeeps, ra dios and even some low-key training. Last year the U.S. offered to rebuild a main road through the dense jungle in northern Costa Rica...
...seemed hardly coincidental to Costa Ricans that the road could serve to ferry troops and materiel northward in the event of an attack by Nicaragua. They were nonetheless willing to accept the offer until Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle injudiciously announced that hundreds of military personnel would be responsible for the project and that their presence "would be the first such joint exercises in Costa Rica." With a menacing Nicaragua urging it to remain on the side lines, Costa Rica began backing away from the road project, then canceled it. Two months ago, 30,000 Costa Ricans flocked into...
...Costa Rica's dilemma is partly of its own making. Its pacific tradition has long made it a haven for exiles of all political stripes: it now houses some 16,000 refugees from El Salvador, 10,000 of them un registered. It is home to 3,500 exiles from the Sandinista regime, though just five years ago it allowed free rein to Sandinista rebels fighting to bring down Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
...final analysis, neither Costa Rica nor Honduras will be satisfied with its military situation until it has made progress with its social and economic woes. And until Washington appreciates this, the U.S. is unlikely to be fully welcomed or trusted in either land...