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Following the abolition of the Army, narratives celebrating Central America’s most peaceful nation have masked a militarized policing model shaped by U.S.-sponsored counterinsurgency.

Costa Rica is regularly depicted as Central America’s Switzerland to the extent that it has become a cliché. This image is the result of a decades-long self-fashioning effort through which the Costa Rican state has sought to make itself known as a place of stability, safety, and peace. And indeed, the country’s record is outstanding, especially when compared to its Central American neighbors.

Yet since the abolition of the Army 75 years ago, the longstanding military pedigree of local law enforcement reveals the idea of “demilitarized” Costa Rica is more of a myth than reality.

Once its 44-day-long civil war concluded in April 1948, Costa Rica outperformed other Central American countries on the economic front and built a welfare state that is second to none in the region. Not unrelated, Costa Rica, together with Colombia, exhibits the longest democratic track record in Latin America. Maybe even more remarkably, the country has been an enclave of peace. This makes Costa Rica an outlier in a region whose recent past was tainted by violent internal strife and military dictatorships, infamous for their unaccountable state repression, severe human rights violations, and terrorizing of entire societies, at times with genocidal proportions.

read more: https://nacla.org/myth-demilitarization-costa-rica