Article: 27173 of rec.radio.shortwave Path: news.cs.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!dkuug!news.eunet.no!nuug!trane.uninett.no!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: MOORE@tmu1.mcrest.edu ("Don Moore" ) Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave Subject: Costa Rica: Elections & cland radio Date: 3 Feb 1994 14:47:48 -0600 Organization: Teikyo Marycrest University Lines: 92 Sender: daemon@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu Costa Rica is having presidential elections this Sunday (Feb 6th), so this might be a good time to look for Costa Rican stations on shortwave. It's hard to say if the various religious stations - Faro del Caribe or Adventist World Radio will have anything, or UN-run Radio For Peace, but with luck one or two of the irregularly active Costa Rican commercial stations might reactivate. One Costa Rican station that is active and might provide some interesting listening is Radio Reloj on 6006 kHz. I've been hearing them lately both in the evenings and in the mornings - as early as 1000 UTC. Most of their regular programming is news oriented with frequent time checks - hence their name of Radio Reloj, or "Radio Clock". Radio Reloj is historically aligned with the (current) oppostion party which is headed by ?? Figueres, the son of Jose "Don Pepe" Figueres, president from 1950-1954 and 1970-74 (or thereabouts). The late Don Pepe was probably the most popular politician in Costa Rica's history. He was also a staunch supporter of democracy in Latin America in an era (the 1950s) when the US govt strongly supported military dictatorships in Latin America as a way to prevent Communism. For this, Don Pepe was not too popular in Washington in the 1950s. During Don Pepe's 1950s presidency, Costa Rica was used as a base of democratic-liberal (not Communist) insurgency activities against the dictatorships of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, ?? Perez- Jimenez in Venezuela, and good old Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, among others. In fact, Don Pepe is probably remembered as one of the staunchest supporters of democracy in Latin American history. During Don Pepe's 1950s tenure, several clandestine broadcasters operated out of Costa Rica, including the original Radio Sandino and another station aiming at the Perez-Jimenez regime in Venezuela. Curiously, Don Pepe was orignally elected president of Costa Rica in 1948 but didn't take office because of a six week civil war which he won. (Yes, he WON the war). Costa Rica has had democratic governments for over one hundred years with only two brief exceptions. The first was about 1917 when the current president tried to take dictatorial power but was embarrassed into resigning when San Jose teachers organized their primary school students to march on the presidential palace. This lapse in democracy lasted only a matter of days and is told in John Gunther's boook INSIDE LATIN AMERICA (published 1941 and not to be confused with his 1967 book INSIDE SOUTH AMERICA). The second lapse was in 1948 when the party in power under president Rafael Calderon (father of the current Costa Rican president!) refused to hand over power after Don Pepe had clearly won the elections over Calderon's hand-picked sucessor. The result was a rather bloody six week civil war which included a lot of clandestine broadcasting from a station in the town of Santa Maria de Dota in the mountains not far from San Jose. Don Pepe's forces won, but Don Pepe refused to take office since he had had to resort to force of arms. Instead, an interim government was set up and Don Pepe ran in and won new elections in 1950. A few other notes, most of Costa Rica's presidents until 1986 were prominent supporters of Don Pepe during the 1948 civil war. The one (whose name escapes me) who was president from 1974-78 was, like Don Pepe, a strong opponent of Somoza and Nicaragua and did a lot to help overthrow him - including allowing Radio Sandino to reestablish on Costa Rican territory in 1978. The one who was president from 82-86 was also well-versed in clandestine radio and allowed the democratic contras, such as Eden Pastora (to be contrasted with the Somoza contras in Honduras) to operate clandestine radio stations in Costa Rica. One more note, the election of Rafael Calderon's son as president in 1990 was probably the ultimate symbol of the healing of Costa Rica's 1948 civil war. Don Moore MOORE@TMU1.MCREST.EDU Teikyo Marycrest University Davenport, Iowa, USA