Rodrigo Carazo
Rodrigo Carazo was president of Costa Rica from 1978 to 1982, the economist who left the National Liberation Party after losing its nomination and beat it from outside, at the head of a coalition of everyone else. His four years were the worst the democracy had had since 1948. There were the second oil shock, the coffee price falling, and the interest rates. The colón was let go in 1981 after thirty years at eight to the dollar and losing four fifths of its value. There were the inflation of ninety per cent, the incomes down by a third, and the default on the foreign debt in 1981, the first in the Latin American debt crisis, a year before Mexico's. He had broken off the talks with the IMF and told the country he would not hand it to the fund. The presidency was also the one that helped the Sandinistas. Costa Rica's northern border was the southern front against Somoza. The arms came through the country from Venezuela and Cuba with the government's knowledge and by the government's aeroplanes. When Somoza fell in July 1979 the Sandinista junta had been sworn in in San José. He counted that as his achievement, and the Americans and the next government counted otherwise. He founded the University for Peace in 1980, the UN's own university, on land he gave near Ciudad Colón. The relationship with the Nicaraguans soured within a year of their victory. He was born in Cartago, studied economics, and ran the national housing institute and the central bank under Figueres. He was president of the Legislative Assembly in 1966. Then came the quarrel with Figueres over the party's direction that took him out of it in 1969. He lost the party of 1978 the moment he left office. The coalition had been about him. He lived another twenty-seven years in Escazú, writing, unrepentant about the default. He said it had been the honest course. He was given a state funeral in December 2009 by the party he had beaten.
- Lived: 1926 CE – 2009 CE
- Nationality: Costa Rican
- Roles: president, economist, politician
