Country Snapshot

Population: 3,896,092 (July 2003 est.) Size, comparable to U.S.: slightly smaller than West Virginia Per Capita GDP, not adjusted for PPP (year): (2001): $3,850 Income, wealthiest 10% / poorest 10%: 51.0/1.7 (1997) Population earning less than $2 a day: 14.3% Ranking, Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index: 50 out of 133 Defense Expenditure as a percentage of GDP: 0% (2001) Size of armed forces: …,000 (2001-2002) U.S. military personnel present: 7 (2003)

Counternarcotics

As Costa Rica is a frequent trans-shipment point for narcotics en route to the United States, drug interdiction is the main focus of U.S. cooperation with Costa Rica's National Police. U.S. officials work most closely with two police units in armyless Costa Rica: the Judicial Investigative Organization (OIJ), which carries out criminal investigations, and the Drug Control Police within the Public Security Ministry.

U.S. relations with these units, according to the State Department's February 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), are "close and productive."¹ U.S. and Costa Rican personnel, the INSCR continues, "routinely share information and conduct joint operations" to counteract drug smuggling.²

The INCSR describes one such operation, in the Talamanca Mountains of eastern Costa Rica in June 1998. U.S. helicopters and aircrews based at Soto Cano, Honduras, provided transportation for a marijuana-eradication effort carried out by the Public Security Ministry's Special Support Police (PAE).³

Anti-drug cooperation grew still closer in September 1999, when Costa Rica's Legislative Assembly ratified a bilateral maritime counternarcotics cooperation agreement signed in 1998. The agreement allows U.S. vessels to pursue and capture suspected narcotics smugglers in Costa Rican territorial waters, as long as the U.S. vessels have a Costa Rican police official, or "shiprider," aboard. Under the agreement -- which had to be modified to eliminate sections that violated Costa Rica's constitution -- the United States will provide Costa Rica with equipment and intelligence about narcotrafficking activity in Costa Rican territory.

A 1998 Memorandum of Understanding on Maritime Cooperation and Assistance, signed at the same time as the maritime cooperation treaty, commits the United States to offer technical and training assistance to the Costa Rican Maritime Surveillance Service.⁴

U.S. defense officials have shown a strong interest in establishing a Forward Operating Location (FOL), an arrangement that would allow U.S. military personnel to conduct counter-drug surveillance flights, at the international airport in Liberia, Guanacaste. Negotiations have been delayed by the ratification of the maritime counternarcotics agreement and by the likelihood that an FOL agreement would violate Costa Rica’s constitution.

The Central America regional program of the State Department's International Narcotics Control (INC) program funds substantial counternarcotics training and grants of equipment for Costa Rican law-enforcement personnel. Transfers in 1998 included a twenty-two foot patrol boat for the maritime police's Caribbean anti-drug patrols, computer equipment, 18-foot inflatable boats, secure radio equipment and vehicles.⁵ The U.S. Defense Department's Section 1004 funds provide a small but growing amount of counternarcotics assistance to Costa Rica.

Other training programs

The International Military Education and Training (IMET) program spends about $200,000 a year, according to the State Department's 1999 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, to train police and Public Security Ministry personnel in "professional development, civil-military relations, resource management, computer systems and maintenance of aircraft, boats and motors."⁶ Expanded IMET courses accounted for over two-thirds of IMET funding for Costa Rica in 1998. "Recognizing that Costa Rica is a model of democracy and political stability in the region," notes the 2000 Congressional Presentation, "IMET helps foster this image through support of institutional development."⁷

In Costa Rica, which abolished its army in 1948, security is the responsibility of the National Police. Normally, Section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, prohibits the training of foreign police forces through IMET and some other accounts. The law makes an exception, however, for training police forces in countries which, like Costa Rica, "have longstanding democratic traditions, do not have standing armed forces, and do not engage in consistent patterns of gross human-rights violations."

In 1998, the U.S. Special Forces' Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program trained with Costa Rica's Rural Frontier Police in land navigation, patrolling, and similar skills.⁸ Special Forces also offered some training to police units engaged in removal of old landmines near the Nicaraguan border.

Costa Rica's police participate only rarely in the U.S. Southern Command's regular multilateral exercises; according to Southcom documents, they were represented in 1999 only at the Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian seminar in Miami in March.⁹

Other arms transfers

Costa Rica has not received Excess Defense Articles (EDA) since 1996. In June 1998, according to the INCSR, the INC program sponsored a visit by two Costa Rican officials to Panama to inspect new EDA. According to past State Department Congressional Presentations, EDA would be used to support "efforts against drug trafficking, alien smuggling and border protection" and "to promote inter-operability and modernization of equipment."¹⁰

Costa Rica buys relatively small amounts of weapons and equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) programs. Recent purchases include small arms, ammunition, technical assistance, spare parts, and a UH-1 series utility helicopter.¹¹

Sources:

¹ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: February 1999): <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/camex98.html.>

² Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

³ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁴ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁵ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁶ United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington: March 1998): 415.

⁷ United States, Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 870.

⁸ United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1998," Washington, April 1, 1999.

United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999: 14.

⁹ United States, Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command, "FA Humanitarian 99 Exercise Summary," Slideshow document, May 28, 1998.

¹⁰ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 1998 (Washington: March 1997): 388.

United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 (Washington: March 1999): 870.

¹¹ United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, Foreign Military Assistance Act Report To Congress, Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington: September 1997).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: August 1998).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: July 1999).

United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 97 (Washington: August 1998): 1.

United States, Department of State, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 98 (Washington: July 1999): 22.