Costa Rica (1983: Doomsday)

Today, Costa Rica is more a geographic idea than a unified country. Once the most stable nation of Central America, since 1983 it has become a failed state with no central government. Like much of the world, the territory is divided among a large and constantly-shifting community of warlords and guerrillas. Two major powers consider themselves the legitimate rulers of Costa Rica: one the remnants of its pre-Doomsday government and one first created by breakaway Sandinistas from Nicaragua.

Background
The Nicaraguan Civil War exerted a major influence over life in Costa Rica beginning in the late 1970s. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)'s 1979 takeover of Nicaragua was organized in large part from Costa Rica. After the FSLN took control of the country, Costa Rica's northern border region became the location of Contra guerrilla activity.

Costa Rica itself was in the midst of a long recession triggered by rising government debt and inflation. President Luis Monge was attempting to deal with the crisis through deep cuts in spending together with tax cuts aimed at increasing exports. Overall, the country was probably in worse shape than at any time since the 1948 civil war.

1983-1986: Collapse


After Doomsday, open war spilled across the border from Nicaragua as a large force of Contras calling themselves the People's Front of Nicaragua (FPN) entered Costa Rica from Nicaragua's sparsely populated southeast. Although his main source of military aid - - had been cut off, Nicaragua's President Ortaga chose to attack. He dispatched a major Sandinista force under General Joaquín Cuadra. Cuadra seized Guanacaste Province - long regarded as rightfully Nicaraguan - and the Costa Rica's main Pacific port, Puntarenas, in order to head off the Contras.

The bankrupt Costa Rican government, dependent on tourism and food exports to the US, was unable to drive out the invaders. By 1985, much of the Central Valley, home to the capital and half the country's population, was in Sandinista hands. President Monge and the Costa Rican government fled to the coast, relocating to the port city of Limón. Although his term expired in 1986, conditions prevented Monge from stepping down, an election being impossible to hold.

1987-1991: Digging in
In 1987, the three sides agreed on a cease-fire. Monge's government was allowed to reoccupy the Central Valley, but Sandinistas remained in Puntarenas and Guanacaste, with General Cuadra in command of the occupation. The FPN Contras remained unassailed in the northeastern lowlands and in Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast region. Monge recognized that the truce was precarious and wisely kept much of the apparatus of government in Limon, far from Nicaraguan forces. He also began to rebuild Costa Rica's military, which had not existed since its abolishment in 1948.

As soon as a measure of calm was restored, Monge rushed to hold a new election. Conservative Rafael Angel Calderon won, and his opponent Oscar Arias immediately questioned the results. In truth, there was no fraud, but a great amount of incompetence in the hurried election, with thousands of votes lost, not counted, or counted twice. Arias' supporters refused to recognize the election results. Nevertheless, Monge resigned and fled the country as soon as votes were counted, leaving Calderon to pick up the pieces.

The truce collapsed even sooner than expected as Contra forces stormed Sandinista positions in Guanacaste province on December 15, 1987. The now three-way war resumed. Oscar Arias suspended his movement and urged supporters of the legitimist government to follow Calderon. General Cuadra, cut off from Nicaragua, began to recruit local Costa Ricans sympathetic to Marxism and the Sandinista cause. Over the course of several months, they regained control of the province and drove the bulk of the Contra rebels into the far end of the Nicoya Peninsula.

By 1988 the FPN had ceased to function as an organization. The Contra movement was again divided among numerous guerrilla organizations with differing goals scattered across wide areas in Nicaragua annd Costa Rica. In the middle of 1989 a Contra group entered Alajuela at the west end of the Central Valley. A force of Costa Rican Sandinistas recruited by General Cuadra followed and won control of the entire valley. On January 2, 1990, the Costa Rican Sandinistas declared themselves the legitimate rulers of the country. They announced their independence of the FSLM in Nicaragua and installed a three-person junta to consolidate their control. Cuadra was the junta's leader. He had decided to sever ties with Ortega and carry on the new revolution in Costa Rica. The junta enjoyed the support of part of the population.

At first, it seemed that the two Sandinista governments could work together. But they disputed control of Guanacaste Province, which Ortega wanted to annex to Nicaragua. By 1991 the two sides were fighting, even while Cuadra's faction was once again losing control of the Central Valley. President Calderon in Limón had begun arming guerrilla groups in support of the legitimast government, by now known as the Limónese faction. Limóneses were fighting in Cartago and San Jose by the end of the year.

1992-2000: The center collapses
right|thumb|200px|Footage of a Contra guerrilla group consisting mainly of child soldiers (1990)

Costa Rica today
Today, the Limón government controls the Caribbean coast, including a substantial portion of coastal Panama. Further inland, Limónese control extends only as far as its guerrillas can control. There has been no Limónese presence in the Central Valley since 2000 or so.

The population of the Limónese territory contains a large number of refugees from inland, but the Limonese minority, African and English-speaking, now plays a much larger role in the affairs than they did when Costa Rica was a united country. Edwin Patterson Bent, a left-winger considered a moderate limonisto, is currently President. He has made reaching out to the Sandinistas and to Cuba a cornerstone of his foreign policy, and the debate continues over the country's future identity. Patterson has hinted that he may offer to drop claims to all of Costa Rica and embrace a future as a Caribbean coastal country. Some within his party even believe Limón should join the mostly Anglo-African.

Puntarenas remains the base of power for the Costa Rica Sandinistas. They maintain active urban guerrilla groups in the burned-out remains of the Central Valley, but they have also largely adjusted to existence as a local power hugging the coast

Guanacaste remains in the hands of the Nicaraguan government. Much of the northeast and southwest is in the hands of small guerrilla groups, some Sandinista, some Contra, some merely non-ideological bandits.

The Central Valley remains a no-man's-land, and since Doomsday no single faction has had control over the entire valley for more than one year. Much of Alajuela has consistently been under the control of the Partido Urbano, a left-wing movement - nowadays more like a street gang - organized in San Jose in 1993, but never able to hold the capital. The Catholic Archdiocese maintains its precarious control of a small enclave in Cartago.

The only part of Costa Rica to enjoy stable government is the Isla del Coco, 550 km offshore. A base for pirates throughout the 90s, the island was occupied and later annexed by Colombia.