José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer (25 September 1906 – 8 June 1990) was a Costa Rican farmer, revolutionary leader, and statesman who served as the 32nd and 36th President of Costa Rica from 1953 to 1958 and from 1970 to 1974. He was also the head of the Founding Junta of the Second Republic from 1948 to 1949 and the founder of the National Liberation Party.

As the victorious leader of the Costa Rican Civil War and principal architect of the Second Republic, one of Figueres's most notable achievements was the abolition of the Costa Rican army, making Costa Rica one of the first countries to permanently eliminate its standing armed forces, though the motivations for the decision have been widely debated. His junta government also nationalized the banking system, secured suffrage for women and Afro–Costa Ricans, and extended Costa Rican nationality rights to people of African descent.

During his two constitutional presidencies, Figueres oversaw the creation of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, the National University of Costa Rica, and the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) as an autonomous institution, among other reforms. His administrations also promoted industrialization, social mobility, and the strengthening of the Costa Rican middle class.

His son José María Figueres served as President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.

Early life and career

Figueres was born on 25 September 1906 in San Ramón in Alajuela province. Figueres was the eldest of the four children of Mariano Figueres Forges (a doctor), and his wife, Francisca Ferrer Minguella (a teacher) who had recently immigrated from Catalonia to San Ramón in west-central Costa Rica. Figueres' first language was Catalan.

In 1924, he left for Boston, United States, on a work and study trip. There he studied hydroelectric engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Figueres returned to Costa Rica in 1928 and bought a farm in a remote area in the mountains of San Cristóbal, Desamparados. He named the farm "La Lucha Sin Fin" (lit. "The Endless Struggle") .. This would be his home and operational headquarters until his death in 1990.

Figueres became a successful coffee grower and rope manufacturer, employing more than 1,000 sharecroppers and factory laborers. Describing himself as a "farmer-socialist", he built housing and provided medical care and recreation for his workers and established a community vegetable farm and a dairy with free milk for workers' children.

His sharecroppers could either sell hemp grown on his plantation to him at market price for use in his rope factory, or sell it elsewhere if they were offered a better price.

Former President Calderón supporters prevented and invalidated the 1 March 1948 presidential election in which Otilio Ulate had allegedly defeated Calderón in his second term bid with fraud. In March–April 1948, the protests over the election results mushroomed into armed conflict, then into revolution. Figueres defeated Communist-led guerrillas and the Costa Rican Army, which had joined forces with President Picado.

  • enabled women and illiterates to vote,

Figueres stepped down after 18 months, handing his power over to Otilio Ulate, and ever since Costa Ricans have settled their arguments constitutionally.

Border war with Somoza's Nicaragua (1954–1955)

Figueres's support for the Caribbean Legion nearly cost him his job during this second presidency. Implicated in an invasion of Nicaragua in April 1954 by anti-Somoza exiles linked to the Caribbean Legion, Anastasio Somoza García launched a counter-attack, allowing the exiled former Costa Rica president Rafael Calderón to invade Costa Rica in January 1955.

The Nicaraguan dictator withdrew, but not before extracting a commitment from Figueres that he would sever links with the exiles.

1958 testimony before U.S. Congress

In 1958, during a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon was spat at by anti-American protesters who also disrupted and assaulted Nixon's motorcade, pelting his limousine with rocks, shattering windows, and injuring Venezuela's foreign minister. The event prompted the United States Congress to create a special committee to investigate the reasons behind it. Many people were invited to speak before it, including Figueres, who testified on 9 June 1958. Figueres condemned the Venezuelans, but said that he understood them, criticizing the United States for their support of Rafael Trujillo, resource extraction, and enabling of corruption and autocracy.

Third presidential term (1970–1974)

The termination of Alliance for Progress funds as well as the collapse of the Central American Common Market, threatened to cripple the country's economy until Figueres discovered a new market by selling 30,000 tons of coffee to the Soviet Union in 1972. Costa Rica then became the only Central American nation to establish diplomatic relations with Moscow. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund also delivered millions of dollars to keep the economy afloat.

When opponents of Nicaragua's President Anastasio Somoza Debayle seized a plane flying from Managua to Miami and forced it to land in San José in 1971, holding the passengers hostage and demanding fuel for a diverted flight to Cuba, Figueres ordered Costa Rican police to shoot out the engines and tires. The hijackers demanded a new plane in return for the release of hostages, to which Figueres agreed, and the hostages were released; however, when the four hijackers themselves debarked, the 160-centimetre-tall Figueres, with a submachine gun in hand, met them with 200 armed police, and a shootout ensued in which 2 hijackers were killed.

By his own account, he also nearly ruined a 1973 Central American summit when he lambasted five army generals, saying, "Isn't it odd that all you bastards are generals, and I'm the only civilian, but I'm the only one who's ever fought a war?"

In 1974, a KGB report to Leonid Brezhnev revealed that Figueres had agreed to publish materials advantageous to the KGB. For this reason, he was given $10,000 under the guise of stock purchases in his newspaper.

A proposal by his supporters for a fourth presidential term in the 1980s was quickly crushed. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

Personal life

Figueres married Henrietta Boggs from the United States in 1941. They had two children, Muni and José Martí, before the marriage ended in divorce in 1954. He later married Karen Olsen Beck, also from the United States. They had four children: José María, Karen Christiana, Mariano and Kirsten. His wife was a member of the country's Legislative Assembly.

He was a good friend of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín, praising his political achievements in one of his essays.

His son, José María, also served as president from 1994 to 1998. His daughter, Muni Figueres Boggs, was a former Ambassador from Costa Rica to the United States. His other daughter, Christiana, is a Costa Rican diplomat who served from 2010 to 2016 as the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and is widely considered to be the architect of the Paris Agreement.

Death

He died on 8 June 1990 in San José aged 83 from natural causes. He was given a state funeral by the government and his former comrades who fought with him in the 1948 & 1955 revolutions. After the funeral, his remains were taken to La Lucha Sin Fin, his farm which he owned since 1928.

Awards

  • : Order of Propitious Clouds (1973)

See also

  • Costa Rican Civil War

Notes

References

  • Costa Rica and the 1948 Revolution
  • Truman Library: Oral History Interview with Jose Figueres Ferrer, 8 July 1970

Further reading

  • "Figueres best biographer" according to Mr. La Feber
  • Costa Rica: Child in the Wind, 1988. (Video) (58 min.)
  • A Bold Peace: Costa Rica's Path of Demilitarization, 2016. (Documentary film) (90 min.)