Don Pepe Figueres

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to Mexico
in 1942. (Cockcroft, 232) Figueres returned in 1944, and an alleged fixing of the 1948 Costa Rican election was the window that he had been waiting for. Supported by the governments of Guatemala, Cuba, and the U.S., Figueres and his Army of National Liberation would force the surrender of President Picado, a puppet of Calderon, and the
Vanguardia forces, Figueres would seize control of Costa Rica as the head of the revolutionary junta for eighteen months. Control was then turned over to the rightful winner of the 1948 election, and Figueres would return for three terms as president, the
first in 1953 and the final beginning in 1970. (Longley, 3)
During his interim term following the revolution and his subsequent terms as president, Figueres would institute a number of changes that would steamroll Costa Rican democracy. Don Pepe began by extending suffrage and full political rights to blacks and
women, a certain democratic move. He then instituted a ten percent ...

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state control of the economy by nationalizing the banking and insurance systems. He abolished all labor unions, an unheard of step in many revolutionary Latin American countries, where the opposite has proven a main concern and action toward democracy.
In perhaps his most anti-democratic move, he banned the press, the outlet which he himself had been exiled for using. (Baker, 5) In a much darker move, Don Pepe reneged on the peace terms that guaranteed the safety of calderonistas that had been ousted following the revolution. While most of the calderonistas were exiled to Mexico, many had their property seized, were thrown in prison, or in the most extreme cases murdered. Thus, ...

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