The Vesco law
Patrick Marnham
San Jose, Costa Rica Ifirst became aware of the police in this friendly but rain-sodden country when two uniformed men armed with sub Machine guns sauntered into a jeweller's shop last week and robbed it. This seemed Very Central American, but more .ex- Penenced observers pointed out that the un- Postors should have been immediately recognised because the real police are always complaining that they are inade- quately armed.
Costa Rica is a country lacking both an arroY and a martial tradition. It first heard that it had become independent from Spain When a letter arrived from out of the blue in 1821. Two years later the Costa Rican land- owners divided and actually fought a battle as to whether or not they should join the empire of Agustin Iturbide of Mexico. Only when the battle was over did they hear that the Emperor had died one month earlier. .ever since then, with the exception of two Months in 1948, the country has carefully preserved its neutralist and pacific tradi- tions.
`Go into any bar in this country and any bar in Nicaragua, its neighbour, and you can immediately see the difference in na- tional character', one expatriate European told me. 'In Nicaragua you can hardly hear Yourself think for the threats and verbal 11101enee. Here the men just sit around talk- ing about girls.' It is enough to make any shepous revolutionary despair. In fact Costa "ea has recently undergone its baptism of revolutionary violence, but to date the Poorly-equipped police force has dealt with It effectively, and popular feeling has come out strongly against this unwelcome novel- t1.?:: The instinctive reaction when the first riMbs went off was to say that it must be the work of foreigners. Sure enough, a Latin group of terrorists from all over Latin America was eventually arrested. But among them a 19-year-old Costa Rican ā n_liddle-class sociology student Viviana allardo, whose only claim to fame had been years her social debut four yes previously. v Iviana was arrested after three policemen had been shot dead. She was described as Petite' and 'a good shot', and was herself .11nried down in prison by a guard claiming to be restoring the honour of Costa Rican 4anhood. That is one girl whom they no tiger discuss in the bars of San Jose. , The other problem is the economy. Last _Year this country, for long known as the mieost Prosperousation in Central America, suf- oited an infl rate of 120 per cent and a eā"irtencY devaluation of 400 per cent. Oddly "Migh, with the economy on the point of V v, and the country incapable of ser- cillg its massive loans from foreign banks, there has been a steady stream of foreign in- vestment coming in from both the United States and Europe. In several favoured parts of the country foreigners are buying up villas, smallholdings and building plots. The editor of the English language newspaper, The Tico Times, suggested that this was because the greed of these investors was overcoming their fear. Anyone with hard currency is able to buy land very cheaply compared to the price they would have had to pay one year ago. A bank manager believes, on the contrary, that many of these investors still consider Costa Rica to be a stable country by today's stan- dards. There are even some US investors who seriously regard a house in Costa Rica as a convenient bolt hole in the event of nuclear war.
Costa Rica has traditionally been a haven for two groups of US citizens: the 'pen- sionados', retired couples looking for their place in the sun, and criminals. These two groups sometimes make an incongruous party as they leave the incoming flights from Miami. Costa Rica's extradition laws are so ineffective that it was only this year that the country got round to deporting its first US fugitive, a man wanted for murder in New Jersey. Many of the cheerful, swar- thy figures to be found behind the desks in the semi-official dollar exchange in San Jose wear chunky pieces of gold dangling round their necks and would look hairy rather more at home in a Brooklyn second- hand car lot than on the Avenida Central. But while they are over here they behave. It must be the last rule in the internationaly criminal handbook. 'If all else fails, go to Costa Rica, and while you are there, be a good boy'. A number of these fugitives from US justice will have been among the residents of a plush San Jose suburb who last month protested against plans to 'We come here every winter for the filth.' develop the neighbourhood for low-income housing, on the grounds that this would in- crease the crime rate. This is criminal rehabilitation with a vengeance.
The most celebrated fugitive has of course been Robert Vesco, the man who was indicted with the former US Attorney- General John Mitchell, and who is wanted in the United States for questioning about the disappearance of 200 million dollars from the defunct IOS mutual fund. Vesco's rather passe Seventies glamour still draws television crews, no less, to Costa Rica. But he has become a highly unwelcome figure here. He was driven out of the country four years ago and made his most recent attempt to return to his luxury ranch house last week, claiming that he needed surgery on his urinary tract. When the news of his ar- rival at a small country airport reached San Jose, a cabinet meeting was called and Vesco was once more told to leave. His doc- tor was instructed to go to Nicaragua and operate on him there. For, oddly enough, the left-wing Sandinista government of that country has become the latest to tolerate Vesco's presence. US appeals to the San- dinistas for an extradition order fall, naturally enough, on deaf ears.
The law allowing foreigners who own land and bring in some hard currency every month to claim a Costa Rican passport after five years is known as the 'Vesco law', and is currently under revision. This is one of the many tasks facing the new ad- ministration of President Monge, whose National Liberation Party won the elections last February. For if Costa Rica is no longer so peaceful or so rich, it is still one of Latin America's few parliamentary democracies. As in the case of other parliamentary democracies rather closer to home, this system sometimes produces its paradoxes. It was for instance the more socialistic Na- tional Liberation Party which first welcom- ed the crooked capitalist Vesco to Costa Rica: whereas it was the more capitalist Unity Party, which, under the former Presi- dent Carazo, provided the essential support the Sandinista revolutionaries needed in order to overthrow the Nicaraguan dic- tator, General Somoza.
Costa Rica's relations with Nicaragua are traditionally distant. Even when the two countries make a deliberate effort to be friendly, it is likely to end in tears. Earlier this year, the Nicaraguan government of- fered to return the bones of Juan San- tamaria, Costa Rica's national hero. He died in 1856 while setting fire to a houseful of North American freebooters. The reli- quary containing the remains was duly handed over and lodged in a museum, but years of mutual suspicion were too much for the Costa Rican authorities who opened the box and examined the contents. An of- ficial report then stated that the sacred relics consisted largely of animal bones. The Nicaraguans were outraged by this sugges- tion and demanded the return of the box. It was carried to the Nicaraguan presidential plane through crowds of Costa Ricans who lined the streets, mooing like cows, and has
subsequently been reburied in Nicaragua with full military honours.
When the new administration began work this month, it was again in somewhat farcical circumstances. None of the incom- ing ministers were able to get into their of- fices because they had not been issued with keys. And when the presidential staff final- ly burst in, it was to find that all the fur- niture, including the presidential lavatory, had been removed by the outgoing Presi- dent and donated to a favourite charity. While President Monge battles against these discomforts and the country's economic crisis, the new 'First Lady', Doris, has produced a brainwave of her own. Doris, who is variously described in the local press as half-English and half- Argentinian, or the daughter of Polish Jews, or wholly Costa Rican (and it could all be true), turns out to be a believer in tourism. Developing tourism in Costa Rica is always an uphill struggle because the country is sopping wet and a stranger to sunshine from May until November every year. But Doris may have cracked this. Her plans for a 600 million dollar 'Costa Rican Disneyland' include an underwater hotel.
Latin American political parties are riddl- ed with factionalism, and the new Ministers of Public Security and Foreign Relations responded smoothly and swiftly to the 'First Lady's' dream by changing the visa laws overnight and making it almost im- possible for any tourists at all to enter the country. But their fears may be premature. The people who claim to have predicted re- cent earthquakes in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and the eruption of Mount St Helen's, now say that the next big terrestrial re-arrangement will take place here in Costa Rica, and quite soon. So the expatriate pur- chasers of nuclear bolt holes could also be in for a surprise.
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