Costa Rica

</image> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Level</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> </infobox>Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a liberal, colonial, capitalist state located in Central America next to Nicaragua and Panama.

Positives

• Costa Rica lacks a military, making it the most peaceful country in Latin America. This also created political stability as it prevented the military from launching coups.
• Costa Rica has the highest levels of life expectancy and literacy in Latin America.
• Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. It was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009. By 2019, 99.62% of its electricity was generated from green sources particularly hydro, wind, geothermal and solar.

Negatives

• Costa Rica has major issues with racism towards indigenous people.
  • Indigenous land rights are frequently ignored in favour of mining, oil and hydroelectric construction.
  • Indigenous teachers and students are not receiving the same opportunities as the non indigenous peoples. There were two cases in Boruca and Teribe in which qualified indigenous teachers were not given jobs in the local schools. There is also the fact that the schools which the indigenous attend are not funded properly, and the students aren't given the same resources to learn.
  • Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica often do not receive adequate healthcare services due to lack of access: they are situated in difficult terrain, particularly in the mountains. Some areas have built clinics, but doctors are available only two days of the week.
  • Only about 26% of the Indigenous population have access to clean water.
• Costa Rica has a fair big of discrimination towards LGBT people. This can in part be attributed to the continued influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica, making citizens more socially conservative.
  • A 1999 national opinion poll which found 80% of Costa Ricans who responded believed homosexuality was “never justifiable”.
  • Police harassment and raids on LGBT people in both public and private properties were frequent.
  • Discrimination in the professional sphere was also prominent, many being fired or abused for their sexual identity.
  • AIDS healthcare remains minimal due to surrounding stigma.
  • In 1990 Government Minister Desanti placed a ban on foreign women travelling alone, with short hair or wearing pants, from entering Costa Rica, in case they were there to participate in a national meeting of Lesbians, known as “Encuentro”; it was not until the late 1990s that the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled that the right of LGBT people to peaceful assembly was outlined in the constitution.
  • In the late 1990s LGBT tourists to Costa Rica were labelled as predatory sex tourists who were not welcome in the country by Eduardo Leon-Paez.
• Costa Rica has criminalised abortion except in cases of maternal life, mental health, physical health and/or rape.

History

Indigenous History

Humans began to live in Costa Rica around 12,000 - 9,000 years ago, inhabited by nomadic family-based clans of foragers. Living off giant armadillos and sloths and vegetables. The area was sparsely populated by indigenous people compared to other areas.

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire claimed Costa Rica in 1502, and it was largely left as an undeveloped area of land. Of course, the Spanish Empire waged a brutal war of extermination against the indigenous population.

Independence

Costa Rica joined in the Latin American Wars of Independence and broke free from the Spanish Empire in 1821 and became a part of the United Provinces of Central America (later called the Federal Republic of Central America) and became independent after a war in 1835, and became a democratic republic in 1847 with universal male suffrage but remained extremely poor due to lack of infrastructure and industry. In 1856, the Costa Rican army attacked William Walker's efforts to set up slave colonies in Nicaragua and defeated him.

Liberal State

In 1870 the government was overthrown by liberals, who abolished the death penalty, torture and set presidential term limits to four years. However, the government engaged in religious persecution and attempted to be increasingly authoritarian while developing an export economy centered around the exporting of banana and coffee. However, the government later relaxed its religious persecution and allowed protestants and buddhists into the country. The country was modernised as railways were built, however, the United Fruit Company began to own most of the land and infrastructure in the country.

20th Century

In 1917, a military dictator rose in the country, but he fell in 1919. In 1921, Costa Rica invaded Panama to claim several towns and it won. But the liberal state entered crisis in 1929 with the Great Depression. The Communist Party led a workers' movement and several strikes and a welfare state was created as the government followed Keynesian theory and built up their infrastructure. The reforms and political violence were extremely controversial and led to a bloody civil war that killed 2,000 people.

The war was one by José Figueres Ferrer, a social democrat who abolished the army to prevent another civil war. This meant Costa Rica was spared the fate of most Latin American countries in the 20th century which fell into brutal civil wars, dictatorships, invasions or rigged elections because of US imperialism as there was no army to turn against the government meaning a direct invasion was the only possible measure. The government also gave women rights to vote, nationalised banks, expanded the welfare state, outlawed the communist party, guaranteed public education, citizenship for immigrants and cracking down on government corruption. Although the governments support for the Caribbean Legion was extremely controversial.

The country entered a strange relationship with the USA, where it received some support from the CIA but did not assist in wars in neighbouring countries and retained progressive policies, notably expanding into environmental protection recently, being considered one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world.

References

Costa Rica at Wikipedia