Costa Rica Abolishes Its Army
The 1948 civil war followed the annulment of a presidential election, and was won in about six weeks by Figueres's National Liberation forces at a cost of roughly two thousand lives. Rather than consolidating his victory through the institution that had delivered it, Figueres symbolically smashed a wall at the Bellavista barracks and announced the abolition of the standing army; the constituent assembly wrote the prohibition into the constitution the following year, leaving only police and civil-guard forces. The decision is usually explained by the very fact that Figueres had just used an irregular army to seize power: a professional military was the most plausible threat to the settlement he intended to build, and abolishing it removed the instrument by which he himself might be displaced. Coupled with the extension of the franchise, the nationalisation of the banks and heavy spending on schooling, the result was an unusually stable civilian order in a region where military intervention in politics was the norm for the following three decades.
- Year: 1948 CE
- Category: Political
