| Language | Spanish |
| Capital | Nicoya |
| Head of state | President Armando Araya |
| Independence | 1988 (de facto); 1995 (declared) |
| Area | approx. 2500 km² |
| Population | 50,000 |
| Currency | Costa Rican Colón and Nicaraguan Córdoba used together |
Rough map of the region
Nicoya is a small breakaway state in the northwest of Costa Rica. Formed by the spillover of the Contras into Guanacaste during their war with the Sandinistas, the Contras and local paramilitaries became so entrenched that they refused to return civil control to the central government in San José. Today, Nicoya is an eccentric feature of Central America. It is internationally recognized as part of Costa Rica, with its citizens often carrying Costa Rican passports, although the federal government has little to no presence.
History[]
Background: Before 1983[]
Named for a 16th-century chief, the Nicoya Peninsula was a distinct cultural sub-region in pre-Columbian times, the southern limit of the Mesoamerican civilization. Nicoya was part of Nicaragua province in the colonial era, but shortly after independence it was annexed by Costa Rica together with the rest of Guanacaste, in an event known as [Day], in which the Nicoya Party held a referrendum to secede from Nicaragua and join Costa Rica. Within Costa Rica, Nicoya was one of the few regions with a substantial indigenous population. Divided between Guanacaste and Puntarenas provinces, its main settlement has always been Nicoya city, one of Costa Rica's oldest.
A map showing the 19th century Nicoya movement
Pataki ceramics from the pre-Colombian era, found in the Nicoya region
Costa Rican-Nicaraguan War[]
Nicaragua's Sandinista government invaded Costa Rica shortly after Doomsday in pursuit of Contra rebels. Initial confrontations along the border with Contra and US Special Forces operatives led to Ortega declaring the Costa Ricans a belligerent party to the conflict. A fire in Managua International Airport -- accused of being Contras who fled southbound into Costa Rica led to a surprise ground invasion -- by 1987 Guanacaste at large was severely contested, with the city Liberia - one of the largest in Costa Rica - being stormed by armed Sandinistas, which key points in the province remaining in their hands for years to come.
Allyship with Costa Rica[]
In December 1987, an alliance of Contra groups with the local Costa Rican tropas, dozens of bands of 10-50 lightly armed men from various localities in northern Guanacaste, was formed; the Contra-Tico alliance stormed through Guanacaste and seized the cities of Liberia and Nicoya, pushing back the Nicaraguans all the way back to La Cruz. The main Sandinista stronghold, near Puntarenas city, was cut off from Nicaragua. Through a stunning midnight ambush, the Sandinistas managed to shatter the Contras' organization in Guanacaste and drive them out of most of the city of Liberia. The Costa Rican "military" - with its rapidly repurposed SWAT-like outfits faring terribly against Ortega's jungle-trained militants, who seemingly had a higher breaking point, barely held on in the parts of the border facing Lake Nicaragua, with the help of clandestine American units which had been supplying the Contras on Doomsday. With the Nicaragua advance back into Liberia, the rump of the Contra army held out to the south in the city of Nicoya. That rump army included a number of prominent Contra leaders, including Alfonso Robelo and former Sandinista Edén Pastora.
The RP lost contact with Contra groups in Nicaragua soon after, when its fuel supplies would be exhausted, its generators failing soon after. But within their lines in Guanacaste, they were somewhat secure. The Nicaraguans' attention was turned elsewhere: one Contra group had moved into Costa Rica's Central Valley; others assailed them across the south of Nicaragua, and into the Mosquitia region; and Costa Rica's government was contesting the Nicaraguans' occupation of Liberia with increased force. The Sandinistas judged that attacking the remnant of the Contras after wresting them from most of Nicaragua was not worth a costly campaign in the rugged terrain of the peninsula.
4 years on from Doomsday, Nicaragua still held on to everything north of Liberia minus the small outfit to the north in the Parque Nacional Santa Rosa, where American special operatives and intel advisors had been training the Contra clandestinely on Doomsday. The Nicoya peninsula, cut off from the Costa Rican government but free from the Sandinistas, was in the no-man's-land between them. The Contras in the peninsula were able to take advantage of the situation and hunkered down during the stalemate.
Stalemate - Contra rule[]
For several years, the Nicoya peninsula was governed by the bands of guerillas that roamed its roads. In Nicoya city proper, Rebel leaders debated their next course of action. The energetic Pastora wanted to gear up for more attacks on the Sandinistas as quickly as possible. The more cautious Robelo wanted the guerrillas to bide their time in Nicoya for an indefinite period, securing their territory and waiting for a more opportune time to strike. While the more aggressive party was in power, they were unable to make good on their promises to attack. Even Pastora saw that it would be suicide for the small remnant force to provoke the Sandinistas in either Nicaragua or Costa Rica. So Contra energies were focused inward, on making sure Nicoya could support them in the long term. This meant establishing the rudiments of a government over the peninsula and making sure adequate food could be produced for both the guerrillas, and the people they now depended on.
Alfonso Robelo and his followers staged an internal coup in 1995. Pastora fled to Puntarenas and disappears from the story at this point, with some assuming he was murdered by someone loyal to the Sandinistas after being identified for his previous betrayal. Robelo declared the Republic of Nicoya, claiming that both Nicaragua and Costa Rica were "infested" with Communists. However, Robelo was not in power long. Another coup was accomplished in 1996 with substantial aid from local Nicoyanos. Robelo himself was killed, and many of his followers were either killed or driven to certain execution in Sandinista territory. In order to win local support, the new regime pledged an expansion of rights and democracy - pledges it had no intention of fulfilling.
The Counter-Counter Revolution[]
In 2001 yet another power struggle removed the last of the old Contra leaders from power. The new ruling clique was a mix of aging lower-ranked ex-Contras weary of the ideological movement along with Costa Ricans who saw it as in their interest to preserve the state's separation but resented the old power structure and deference to the war to the north. Even more so than the 1996 coup, the leaders of '01 tried to cloak their rise in the appearance of democracy. They officially dissolved the FPN and held elections for a local Congress. Congress met sporadically for a few years but eventually was phased out quietly. Today, local committees hold the most power, who in turn answer to the executive of Nicoya.
In 2010 Costa Rica finally secured its northeastern border with Nicaragua with the thanks to South American Confederation, which even before Doomsday had been disputed. The Eastern Contras and US-military detachments allied to them had formed a jungle society of sorts, with several hundred civilian women and children. This left Nicoya as the only piece of prewar Costa Rican territory still occupied by rogue groups.
The Carillo Incident[]
The success of the campaign in the northeast filled Costa Rican leaders with confidence, and two years later they tried to replicate it. In October of 2012, three columns of troops entered the Nicoyan zone from different directions, seeking to occupy it quickly before the ill-equipped Nicoyans could respond. But Nicaragua was not willing to concede the peninsula, even after years of cooperation and improving relations between the two countries. Nicaraguan ground forces were rushed to the border, planes took off, and a naval squadron blockaded the Costa Rican base at Carillo.
At this point, the Nicoyan guerrillas sprang into action. They launched a major attack on Carillo and on the Costa Rican flanks. They kept up the attacks until the invading force withdrew. The Costa Ricans abandoned Carillo before the end of the year, and the Nicoyan leaders celebrated their victory.
Populist rule[]
These encroachments on Nicoya's territory prompted the regime to change tactics again. Nicoya took on a more populist flavor as the leaders tried to harness the people to support their own power. Marco Calderón, a local Nicoyano who had risen through the ranks of the militia and local administration, secured the presidency in 2013 and led the way on these changes. He consciously worked to stoke the Nicoyan identity, emphasizing the peninsula's 30 years of separation from Costa Rica. He made new concessions to democratic rule. Congress was allowed to meet again, but elections were far from free, with the armed tropas and their party equivalents often doing most legislation from the back room.
Amid this populist awakening, Nicoya began more assertively to present itself as a real country and not just a guerilla-run breakaway state. Calderón actively sought partners elsewhere, including with some of the South American nations and with longtime trading partners Hawaii and Mexico. Formal diplomatic recognition still did not come, but this outreach was able to secure more trade and a little humanitarian aid.
Today[]
The Nicoyanos themselves do not live as isolated an existence as most people expect, especially since the status of Guanacaste was resolved and peace returned in 2004. Today, most Nicoyans are Costa Rican citizens, although the federal government has zero presence in the province. Agricultural products and some other goods are traded across the ill-defined border. Radios and televisions primarily rebroadcast Mexican and Colombian programmings, in an effort to distance themselves from the "cowardly" central Costa Rican government and the "enemy" in Managua - with whom they trade heavily on a daily basis.
By 2023, Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans and others alike travel to Nicoya on a daily basis for various purposes without issue, but terms of politics and power, Nicoya remains a closed society. The Costa Rican central government has not been able to gain a foothold on the peninsula, with the Tempisque River continuing to act as the border checkpoint so Nicoyan security forces can check for unauthorized entry of security officials. The "multi-party autonomous democracy" is in fact dominated by a cluster of Contra splinters, Christian Democrats, chauvinist-parochial types, and other hallmarks of Central American politics. Intimidation and occasional violence are still cornerstones of state action against those deemed to be rogue actors, although things have cooled drastically in recent years, to the point where the zone is a popular tourist destination today. In spite of all the trauma seen, the Nicoya Peninsula remains a "blue zone" -- with an unusually high cluster of centenarians which has baffled scientists since even before Doomsday.
Symbols[]
The Contras who occupied Nicoya in the late 1980s used a white flag with the name of their organization in Contra blue. When Alfonso Robelo declared the Republic of Nicoya in 1995, he put the letters on a blue and white Central American tricolor in a pretense to legitimacy. He also changed his party's name from the Frente Popular de Nicaragua to that of Nicoya, keeping the same initials. The coup of 2001 overthrew the Contra leaders and ended the FPN as an organization, so its initials were replaced with the word LIBERTAD.
International Relations[]
Nicaragua and Costa Rica[]
Besides having a rugged terrain defended by a brutal regime, Nicoya has lasted as an independent state mostly because it prevented Nicaragua and Costa Rica from achieving the others objectives, with both preferring the status quo over the other's absorption or re-absorption of the province. The two countries spent twenty years wrangling over Guanacaste province between 1984 and 2004; throughout this period, both Costa Rica and Nicaragua tried several times to improve their relative positions by occupying all or part of the peninsula. But each side worried that a major operation in Nicoya would provoke the other to send its own troops. This could lead to open war, something neither side could afford. Overall Costa Rica has had slightly more success than Nicaragua in extending its control. Its foothold on the southeastern tip of the peninsula steadily grew over the years, and between 2000 and 2012 Costa Rica maintained a base at Carillo.
Beginning in 2004 Costa Rica and Nicaragua tried to build a more cooperative relationship, and any attempt to settle the Nicoya Question would seriously complicate matters. The Nicoya Incident of 2012 was the closest that the two sides came to fighting over the land, and after that they agreed tacitly to leave it as a neutral space. With neither country willing to either give up or enforce its claim to Nicoya, the local regime has been left to its own devices.
Anti-communist Nicaraguan refugees in Nicoya protest against recent negotiation talks with Managua.
Other countries[]
Nicoya has looked in vain for supporters abroad. The complex geopolitics of Latin America, where three major blocs and a few neutral powers compete for influence, has served to keep the would-be nation cut off from the wider world.
Foreign powers have sometimes toyed with the idea of supporting Nicoya to affect the balance of power in the region. South American and Australia-New Zealand strategists have considered arming the breakaway state, or at least extending it diplomatic recognition, as a way to push against Siberian-allied Nicaragua. However, any scheme of this sort would be an even greater offense to neutral Costa Rica, a country that both blocs wish to keep on good terms lest it too slide into the Siberian camp.
Mexican and Hawaiian ships have traded with Nicoya over the objections of both claimant nations. Mexico is the strongest neutral power in the region, and Nicoyan leaders have sometimes looked hopefully in that direction for a potential patron. But Mexico also would have little to gain from supporting Nicoya, as in fact the nation has formed close ties with Costa Rica. Hawaii maintains an Interest Office in Nicoya city proper.
The only neighboring state that has been willing to engage at all with Nicoya has been El Salvador, and that has much more to do with corruption than with geopolitics. El Salvador is an Australia-New Zealand ally and has not given Nicoya any official support, but elements within its government have been happy to sell weapons to the breakaway state. Other arms have come from organized crime within Mexico, and the Mexican government has not always been dilligent about preventing this.
The League of Nations officially lists the territory as an "unrecognized state." South American relief workers affiliated with the International Health Organization have brought humanitarian aid to the people on several occasions. Since 2015 there has been an IHO office in Nicoya City.
A map used by ANZC archaeologists which also highlights the capital and the Rio Tempisque, de facto border between Nicoya and the CR Central Government
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