By Frank McNeil
It’s August, and around the world it’s “Get a Grip Time.” Iran stages another Holocaust-denying spectacle, China insists it doesn’t rig the value of the renminbi, and Fidel Castro does his best “I’m Back” Terminator impersonation.
My country, the United States, isn’t exempt. Witness the drive to attack illegal immigration at the source: fetuses. Think of the proposal to deny citizenship to American born children of illegals as the Herod Amendment, in honor of the guy who had a permanent fix to misbehaving babies.
This might be funny, were it not for the serious consequences of fostering anti-Hispanic sentiment in the U.S. for political dross, or an Iranian narrative that denies the worst atrocity in history, or of the effects of China’s trade distorting practices on other nations.
So too with Costa Rica and the crazy rhetoric over the Legislative Assembly’s approval of visits by U.S. naval vessels – which, if denied by the courts, would push open the door to Costa Rica for the Mexican cartels. You don’t have to close your eyes to the failures of a badly named “war on drugs” to know that Costa Rica, for its own survival, must work with the U.S. to keep its institutions out of criminal hands. I believe that’s the reasoning behind President Laura Chinchilla’s recent call for the U.S. to develop a regional program with Central America, rather than continue to treat Costa Rica and its neighbors as a sliver of Mexico, as the U.S. now does with the so-called Merida Initiative.
Be clear, if some nutty general wanted to “militarize” Costa Rica, I would denounce it, as I once had to do long ago. I’m not sure that’s been declassified, but the public record is clear with respect to my views of Oliver North and his “cabal of the zealots” (the U.S. Congress’ term), and of General Noriega and the U.S. officials who enabled his thuggery. That said, there’s no nutty general and no conspiracy – only U.S. Coast Guard and Navy anti-drug trafficking patrols in the Caribbean and the Pacific, plus – for the first time in Costa Rica – the visit of a large ship, the Iwo Jima, equipped as a hospital and disaster relief ship for this mission.
| Blanket Costa Rican legislative approvals for U.S. Navy port calls have taken place since the early 1990s. ______________________________ |
Blanket Costa Rican legislative approvals for U.S. Navy port calls have taken place since the early 1990s. Previously, when port calls were infrequent,show-the-flag, good works affairs, the U.S. Embassy requested permission for each ship. The situation changed as maritime drug trafficking shifted from big container ships to smaller craft; that’s when high seas patrols and intensified work with local authorities, such as the Costa Rican Coast Guard, got underway. Most Caribbean countries, including Nicaragua, now have such agreements for U.S. port calls.
The Legislative Assembly, with the approval of the courts, instituted approvals for multiple ships, knowing that not all ships on the list would make port, but that the pursuit of drug runners, often in cooperation with Costa Rica, or making maritime rescues might make a port call necessary at any time. Some opponents distinguish between Coast Guard (welcome) and a bad guy Navy. Nonsense, the Coast Guard doesn’t have enough ships so the Navy had to pitch in. The two have the same mission for these patrols, drug interdiction.
That’s no different today than it was in 1991, which makes me scratch my head over the sudden fear that the Obama administration intends to militarize Costa Rica. The far left, in love with Hugo Chavez, is driven by a belief that not a sparrow falls unless a Gringo shoots it down. But there’s also worry among ordinary folk. I suspect that honest concerns stem from the presence of the Iwo Jima,which in other circumstances – with a different crew and equipment – becomes a formidable warship, with Harrier jump jets and a Marine expeditionary force,among other combat power.
The Facts: For five years, U.S. Southern Command has run a good will, training-for-disaster-relief mission called “Continuing Promise.” (Where do they get these names?) The Navy has two hospital ships, but needs are immense; take the Southeast Asian Tsunami and Haiti’s earthquake. So the Navy has learned to outfit LHDs (big-deck amphibious carriers) for disaster relief, now part of the Navy mission. In these five years, the two hospital ships and three big ships, including the Iwo Jima, have been lined up for this good will training as part of medical/disaster-relief exercises.
Takeoff the Harriers and big-time combat gear; add a 70-bed hospital, Sea Bee construction teams, medical staff (Navy and NGO), and reduce the marine complement to 500 (not 1,700, as some accounts state), for training in relief and reconstruction: That’s the ship we will see. When the Iwo Jima sails from Costa Rica to its next port on its 8-nation mission, my old friend Don Pepe Figueres will not roll over in his grave. Costa Rica will not have been militarized.
I should add that I speak for no U.S. administration, past or present.
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Frank McNeil, U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica in the Carter and Reagan administrations, is a founding trustee and current Vice President of the Costa Rica-USA Foundation for Cooperation (CRUSA). Married to a Costa Rican American who helped him represent the U.S. on three continents, the McNeils spend considerable time in Costa Rica.
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