Who is Oscar Arias? Washington’s mediator in Honduran coup

[Orwellian_Ghost]

He is praised for winning the Nobel Peace Price in 1987 as a reward for shepherding to completion the so-called Esquipulas II peace agreement, which became known as the Arias Plan. The pact laid the basis for the downfall of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the disarming of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas in El Salvador, and the coming to power in both countries of governments closely aligned with Washington.

The product of one of Costa Rica’s richest coffee-growing families, Arias, 68, got his start as an advisor to President Jose “Pepe” Figueres. The founder of the Party of National Liberation (PLN), Costa Rica’s leading party, Figueres came to power after winning a civil war in 1948 in which he led a rebel army that joined the country’s rightists and social democrats against the army and militias organized by the Stalinist Popular Vanguard Party, which was allied with a conservative bourgeois government.

Figueres’s “liberal” anti-communist credentials won him support and funding from the CIA. He worked closely with the long-time agent Cord Meyer in setting up Latin American front organizations.

Arias, who succeeded Figueres as the leader of the PLN, was first elected president in 1986. A year later, he was credited with Esquipulas II’s ratification by the presidents of five Central American countries and awarded the Nobel Prize.

The only two other surviving signatories of the pact—Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Guatemala’s Vinicio Cerezo—have hotly disputed the credit given to Arias, charging that there was no “Arias Plan,” and that the initiative had been taken by Cerezo before Arias was even elected president.

<snip>

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/aria-j11.shtml

[arcos]

1. Sorry, but this is BS...

I'm Costa Rican. Anti-Arias and anti-PLN because they are right wingers. But this is BS.

Some of it is true, but it is as true as the "official" history, that paints Figueres and Arias as Costa Rican saviors. They are neither saviors nor Washington slaves, and both have been linked to the right wing and the left wing. In fact, Figueres and several PLN leaders were not only called a "communist", but the CIA tried to assassinate him back in the 70s because he was seen as too Fidel Castro-friendly.

Arias didn't succeed Figueres as head of the PLN, by the way. There were several PLN Presidents between Figueres and Arias, including some of the more respected leaders of the PLN, former Presidentes Daniel Oduber and Luis Alberto Monge. Hell, even Figueres' own son was elected President back in 1994.

[madrchsod]

3. that is reason i have`t sold my evergreen and oui magazines from the 70`s

the first reports of what was going on in central america during the 70`s were articles in oui magazine. evergreen covered just about everything...

[elleng]

2. Oscar Arias has

been President of Costa Rica since 2006. He previously served as President from 1986 to 1990 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil wars then raging in several Central American countries.

He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security. In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims.<1>

He is a member of Collegium International, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and economically sustainable world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Arias

[many a good man]

4. Figures was a good man

He was an idealist, a diplomat, and man who could turn ideas into action. He is known as the "Father of Democracy in Central America" and brought many successful reforms to Costa Rica, including national health care, civil rights, and abolishing the military. His legacy survives as Costa Rica continues to be one of the few bright spots in Latin America. I'm happy to say I was fortunate to have a long conversation with him in the mid '80s.

I encourage people to look at the wiki entries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Figueres_Ferrer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_rica

[HamdenRice]

5. More Trotskyite crap I'm happy to unrecommend

Figueres as a CIA stooge? The president who abolished his own country's army as a villain? Puleez.

In the bizarro world view of World SociopathologicalLiars Web Site, just because Arias was born into an upper class family, he could never make amends for this grievous error of pre-birth judgment on his part by doing good, like preserving the Costa Rican environment or ending decades of war in Central America that had slaughtered tens of thousands of peasants.