Word: ricans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...House of Representatives hummed with excitement as Congressmen and Senators, many with their spouses and children in tow, awaited the man of the hour. When Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez arrived, the crowd swept to its feet as shouts of "Bravo! Bravo!" echoed through the chamber. That exuberant welcome was a measure of the respect that Arias has won on Capitol Hill for the peace plan conceived by him and signed two months ago by five Central American Presidents in Guatemala City. Arias' 30-minute address to the informal joint gathering of Congress was teeming with platitudes and somewhat...
When Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright first proposed last month that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez be invited to address Congress, the White House responded with enthusiasm. Officials reasoned that a visit from Arias, architect of the peace plan signed last month in Guatemala City by five Central American Presidents, would demonstrate the Reagan Administration's interest in talking peace rather than making...
Reagan has made little effort to hide his disdain for the Guatemala peace accord, most recently charging that it "falls short of the safeguards" contained in an earlier proposal put forward by Reagan and Wright. The White House has interpreted Arias' visit as a snub. "How would the Costa Ricans like it if our President were to accept an invitation from their legislature, pretty much bypassing their executive branch?" observed an Administration official. Costa Rican officials based in Washington deny that Arias is intentionally insulting Reagan. In fact, shortly after Wright extended his invitation, the Costa Ricans suggested a meeting...
...cease-fire," says a senior contra official. "But not to an unconditional cease-fire." The Guatemala peace accord, however, does not compel the Sandinistas to negotiate directly with the rebels. At a meeting last week in Tegucigalpa, the contras' six civilian leaders accepted an offer of mediation from Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who pioneered the Guatemala plan. They have asked Arias to persuade the Sandinistas to accept a cease-fire that would enable the rebels to retain their arms and continue receiving food and medical supplies...
That ambivalence owes much to Honduran jitters that an end to hostilities in Nicaragua might send a tidal wave of contra refugees crashing across the border. Costa Rican officials believe that in the event of peace, the peasant soldiers in their country would return to Nicaragua, with only the former National Guardsmen of Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle and upper-class Nicaraguans choosing to remain abroad. Honduran officials are less sanguine. As it is, they must cope with some 150,000 Nicaraguan refugees. They fear that most of the roughly 12,000 contras would want to set up shop in Honduras...