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Nicaragua and Costa Rica: A comparative analysis |
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By Javier Martín |
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One of the most frequently asked questions in my tours is: why is that we find in Central America two countries next to each other, like Costa Rica and Nicaragua, showing a huge contrast between them; Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America (surpassed by Haiti) and is next to Costa Rica that presents very high standards of living in Latin America. Neighbors, both descendents from mother Spain, and yet, so different economical situations, causes are of course historical.
Costa Rica: During colonial times Costa Rica was the poorest and most isolated colony in Central America, far away from the center of power (Guatemala) never showed minerals in big amount so we never developed much slavery. |
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Because we didn’t produce richness for the Spanish Crown we were very much left alone for long, forming by this a certain spirit of freedom that was going to be the origins of our idiosyncrasy.
In 1821 we received a letter from Guatemala, letting us know we were no longer a Spanish colony, the system had collapsed, Napoleon had invaded Spain and the Crown was no longer capable of running us as colony, so we were given our independency without asking for it. The following times were politically unstable; a small civil war between conservatives and liberals happened for a short time getting soon to an agreement, the same conflict happened in other Central American ex colonies, specifically in Nicaragua the conflict was going to produce later a long and destructive civil war. |
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| Around 1830 we started to grow coffee, Braulio Carrillo –third chief of state- decided to give land free for any costarrican that wanted to grow coffee, since then, costarricans have had a little piece of land where to grow coffee and other products for their family support, what we see here is a unique and quite dramatic case in Latin American history; at an early stage of our history we had a healthy distribution of land – therefore of wealth- that produced a strong middle class that was latter going to establish the long lasting democracy that we feel proud of, opposite from the common thing in Latin America where a much reduced number of extremely wealthy families own almost the totality of land while the rest of population lives in poverty, in Costa Rica we were acting with a high level of social awareness, still now days, such special condition hasn’t been explained otherwise than simple and pure goodwill for our social upper class, a very strange and interesting case indeed. |
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Nicaragua, the transit way and internal conflicts:
Meanwhile the same conflict between liberals and conservatives (aristocracy) happen in Nicaragua, but instead of solving it quickly, they developed a long lasting political conflict that was going to produce a civil war few years latter. Things kept much the same until 1848 when there was a gold rush in California and this changed the whole scenario for a simple reason: instead of crossing North American territory -where sooner or latter you were going to find indigenous tribes that will for sure attack you- it was safer to follow the Transit Way, this was; taking a ship in the East Coast to the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, from where you could jump into a smaller boat that will cross you all along the San Juan River which links with the Managua Lake –the biggest in Central America- and in the west coast of the lake you could take a wagon that will take you to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua where you could take a ship that will take you to San Francisco. Historical records show there were at least 2000 persons doing this trip per month and that the trip lasted about a month, this route was known as the Transit Way, and the owner was Cornelius Vanderbilt, considered at that time king of the railroads and probably the first millionaire in USA. |
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| Vanderbilt was not alone, was part of group of businessmen including Joseph L. White and Nathaniel J.H. Wolfe, who made a company named “The American Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Canal Company” first idea was building the transoceanic canal there, because -as it can be checked on the map- the geography had already done a lot of the job needed to connect the two oceans, the inter oceanic canal was then conceived and the agreement to make feasibility studies with the Government of Nicaragua was signed up in 1849, after studies were done, results were that building this was going to be so expensive that for Vanderbilt and his friends -despite all the money they had- this was out of their budget, so they created a new company named The Accessory Transit Company, dedicated solely to transport people from East Coast to the West Coast of USA, for this purpose a new agreement was signed in 1851 where the government of Nicaragua gave exclusive rights for the Company to provide the transportation service, in return, the company committed to give an annual fee and a percent of the revenues to the government f Nicaragua. Its important to mention that the idea of building a Canal in Nicaragua was an old idea, it was actually seriously proposed to United States by the recently formed federation of Central American Countries back in 1825. |
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Nicaragua: a revolution and William Walker.
“During a period of six years Nicaragua had had no fewer than fifteen presidents” (Scroggs 83).
In 1854 a civil war in Nicaragua started between liberals and conservatives, both parties send representatives who went to California looking to recruit mercenaries and the liberals found a brilliant and strange man named William Walker from Tennessee. He arrived to Nicaragua in June 1855.
Walker believed that white race was superior and it was a natural thing to invade other territories in behalf of progress of mankind and development of civilization. Born in a strong Puritanism environment he became a physician, a lawyer and a journalist. In 1854 he invaded Sonora and Baja California, declared the independency of both where he was of course the president, after some battles against the Mexican army he has to return to California where he was now a well known kind of hero, then he was contacted by the liberal party of Nicaragua to participate in their civil war and he accepts.
The idea of invading territories on behalf of progress of mankind was not an exclusive idea of Walker, it was more a general feeling of a certain segment of the population of U.S. that was actively working towards these projects, and this of course was the segment of the population that strongly believed on the slavery system. They were technically pirates but they refused to be called that way, so they started to call themselves free butters and some how this term transformed into filibusters. Previous to the arrival of Walker to Nicaragua there were some other US citizens already trying to gain Nicaragua for the slavery system such is the case of C.W. Doubleday. |
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The president of Nicaragua Fruto Chamorro dies due to injuries suffered in war and Patricio Rivas takes over as president of Nicaragua, receives Walker with a great joy and starts to plan with him the strategies of war against conservatives. They kept on with the war and start to gain power and territories from the conservatives.
Walker sends Schlesinger to Costa Rica to negotiate our surrender to the new establishment, Juan Rafael Mora Porras, chief of state opposite to this, sends a message to Schlesinger telling him to get out of our territory immediately, and starts to promote the war in the rest of Central American territory against Walker and the filibusters, finds a cold response from them and a few weeks latter Schlesinger invades Costa Rica while our army was already on the way to Nicaragua, looking forward to start the war not against Nicaragua, but against Walker and its phalange. In Santa Rosa, an old hacienda of Guanacaste, both groups started a battle where the Costa Rican army wins and the filibusters flee back to Leon, where Walker’s headquarters were. |
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The second and even more important battle happens in Rivas, Nicaragua where again, Walker was defeated by the Costa Rican army, a cholera disease spread through Costa Rican army and more people died because of this than because the war, Costa Rican army returns home and they took the cholera with them, because of this Costa Rica lost at least a ten percent of the population and had to stop the war until some months latter where a second war campaign was done.
In September 12 1860 Walker was shot down at Honduras without support from no one else. By the end of the chapter, Costa Rica is a small territory where there is a middle class growing coffee while Nicaragua was literally devastated by the war. |
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U.K, U.S.A and Sandino:
During next 30 years Nicaragua is ran by the conservative party. More conflicts between conservative and liberals happened, United Kindom claimed the Caribbean Coast to be part of them, political inestability and the importance of the inter oceanic canal lead United States to its occupation between 1912 to 1933.
Cesar Augusto Sandino, a revolutionary who declared war to U.S. in 1927 due to its military intromission in Nicaragua, was assassinate by Anastasio Zomoza Garcia that runs Nicaragua with absolute support from U.S and establish a familiar dynasty that was going to run Nicaragua for 40 years, this period of time is known for a complete lack of human rights and political abuses from the establishment, in 1979 the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional won another revolution and established a communist oriented government that lasted about ten years. |
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Revolution in Costa Rica
One hundred years letter it was time for Costa Rica to live a civil war. It was 1948, during elections it became very obvious that Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia being president, tricked the elections on behalf of its own party and Jose Figueres Ferrer started a revolution, the war lasted only two months, Figueres gain the power, Calderon flees out of the country and Figueres declares he will return the power to the candidate who was tricked during elections but after one year, because it will take them this period of time to make a new constitution, and he fulfilled this promise; returned the power to Otilio Ulate but with a new constitution and one of the first laws in this actual constitution of Costa Rica says that army is abolished from now on.
This is key to understand the differences between Costa Rica and not only Nicaragua but in general with the rest of Central and Latin American countries; we don’t have an army, and of course the budget that was used to support an army was after that dedicated to social matters that made our country to grow, and developed the social and political stability that we have.
The revolution in Costa Rica was based on social interests, it lasted a short time because both opposite parties agreed on behalf of the people; important radical changes were done to the establishment while even more important social rights previously achieved were preserved. A very interesting thing to observe is that one of these parties in conflict was made out of the unification of the Catholic Church with the Republican Party and the Communist Party against the revolutionaries lead by Figueres. |
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Conclusion:
About comparing the two countries different results, and trying as much as possible to do an unbiased analysis, what we find in Costa Rica is a government system based on political maturity, tolerance and acceptance of what the population agrees, but it is also true that our country was left alone by powerful countries like United Kingdom and United States due to it’s insignificant geopolitical relevance, while there was no intermission, we could achieve our political maturity, in the case of Nicaragua, history shows literally the opposite, including intermission from other countries, and under such conditions, results canot be always good. |
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| Bibliography: |
| Obregón Loría, Rafael. Costa Rica y la Guerra contra los Filibusteros / Rafael Obregón Loría. - 1a ed. - Alajuela, CR.:Museo Histórico Cultural Juan Santamaría, 1991. |
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