National Monument of Costa Rica represents the five Central American nations allied to expel the U.S. invaders (Photo: Juan Santamaría Museum).
In Costa Rica, every April 11 we celebrate the defeat of the United States in the war of 1856-1857, when a troop of adventurers, led by Southerner William Walker, attempted to take over Central America to secure the transit route between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and expand the slave states. Central America defeated them, and our humble defenders shot Walker and many of his U.S. bandits.
But at my high school, we celebrated the victory over the U.S. Americans by marching to the music of John Phillip Sousa and playing his military marches from memory, which were as “gringo” as a Smith & Wesson revolver.
That’s how contradictory our relationship with the United States has always been. On the one hand, we remembered the heroic example of soldier Juan Santamaría, who died from the bullets of the invaders when he used a torch to set the house where they were sheltering in Rivas, Nicaragua, on fire, and on the other, we marched to the rhythm of the enemy in that war, without thinking much about the historical inconsistency. After all, for children, the United States was the country of NASA, Disneyland and the Flintstones.
Those invaders were called “filibusters,” a word that somehow concealed in our schools the origin and nature of the enemy in 1856. The truth is that they were a band of mercenaries and outlaws from the United States, believers in Manifest Destiny to colonize the continent, attracted by Walker’s promise to distribute land, fortune and slaves among them. Although they did not have the official support of their government, their repeated incursions into Central America were undoubtedly tolerated by Washington.
But in 1986, Central America was the hottest spot in the Cold War. On the border with Nicaragua, just 186 miles from where we marched on April 11, Nicaraguans were killing each other in a war financed by Ronald Reagan’s government and the Pentagon was preparing a large-scale invasion that would drag Costa Rica into a catastrophic conflagration.
President Oscar Arias’s Peace Plan for Central America prevailed over Reagan’s war plans, students marched en masse in support of peace, and Sousa’s marches were replaced by Costa Rican music. Once again, with humility and intelligence, Central America prevailed over warmongering plans.
I grew up, studied journalism, traveled throughout Central America and the world, and gained a much deeper understanding of the complex relationship with the United States. Our recent history is marked by episodes of fraternal cooperation and sincere interest in democracy between our countries, interspersed with acts of interventionism, support for dictatorships, and human rights violations.
For example, in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson wisely rejected the shameful offer of Costa Rica’s last dictator, Federico Tinoco, to hand over Cocos Island in the Pacific Ocean to the United States and install a naval base there in exchange for political recognition. Wilson refused to recognize an illegitimate government that had emerged from a military coup. In 1919, Tinoco fled Costa Rica and democracy was restored.
In 1989, when I was just 19, I worked as a freelance cameraman for NBC News, and on December 20, I was sent to western Panama to cover the U.S. invasion. Many journalists and analysts predicted fierce resistance, and we were surprised when, as our cameras rolled, the Panamanian population took to the streets en masse to celebrate the day the city of David surrendered and Noriega was captured. We went to report on a war, but we filmed a party. We believed that the United States would refuse to return the Canal, but in 2000, Bill Clinton’s administration fulfilled the agreement and Panama regained full sovereignty over its territory.
Beyond the swings in U.S. international relations between conservative and liberal, and between militaristic and cooperative approaches in U.S. international relations, many of us trusted that despite the contradictions, a certain common sense prevailed, along with some basic principles shared among democracies around the world.
In 2006, I studied at Harvard as a Nieman Foundation fellow and took a course with Samantha Power on human rights and U.S. foreign policy. George W. Bush was in office, the war in Iraq was at its bloodiest, and there was much concern among scholars about the damage to democracy that could be caused by the Patriot Act, which expanded the security apparatus and restricted rights and freedoms in the wake of the attacks on the Twin Towers. Professor Power gave her students a message of hope, explaining that at the end of the day, the United States had a robust, respected and credible Constitution that established checks and balances, guarantees and independence of powers that made it possible to reverse mistakes, correct course and prevent the destruction of democracy.
The liberal and protective approach to the rule of law and international cooperation was strengthened under the Obama administration, and the Constitution effectively placed limits on Trump’s first term and protected the alternation of power during Biden’s term, as Professor Power had assured us.
No one expected the speed and depth of the impact that Trump’s second administration would have, the fragility that the U.S. Constitution and the country’s institutions have shown, or that the damage to human rights and essential constitutional principles would also affect Costa Rica.
Less than two months after Donald Trump returned to power, the government announced an agreement to deport migrants arrested in the United States to Costa Rica, where they would be detained. The first 200 people, including 81 children, from Russia, Iran, China, Jordan and Turkey arrived in February, handcuffed, unaware of where they had been sent, and in a state of total uncertainty. In Costa Rica, they were placed in a shelter, in better conditions than in the United States but still, without freedom. I asked myself: If they have not committed any crime in Costa Rica, nor even violated immigration law, why are they being detained? I filed a writ of habeas corpus, and four months later, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica declared the detention of the deportees unconstitutional and ordered their immediate release.
Afghan family deported from the United States to Costa Rica and illegally heldin a Costa Rican migration detention center, part of the group of 200 people of multiple nationalities, sent against their will to Costa Rica (Photo: Ezequiel Becerra)
The words of Judge Fernando Cruz were eloquent in the reasoning behind his vote:
Something has changed, perhaps too much, in a society that has had Hamilton as a reference point for democratic and dignified coexistence (…). Authoritarianism is returning, ignoring the dignity of people regardless of their nationality. It seems obvious, but it is not, in any way. Migrants do not lose their dignity because they do not have papers. What this case, decided by a court in a small, dependent, and vulnerable country, reflects is that migrants have not lost their identity or their dignity. They are still human beings, worthy of dignity, even if they lack “papers” (…). I cannot remain silent; I cannot ignore a flagrant violation of the dignity of many human beings who were treated like objects. Nor do I hide the fact that a country as powerful as the United States imposes on us the execution of acts contrary to human rights. The means no longer matter; the only reason is the will of a powerful state that designs a policy contrary to the dignity of a group of migrants.
After the ruling, no new group of foreign deportees has been sent to Costa Rica, but they still have been sent to El Salvador and other countries. For the moment, the Constitution of a small Central American country has protected democracy and human rights, even though so much has changed in Alexander Hamilton’s society, where William Walker and his filibusters would today feel well represented by their government.