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| President of Costa Rica,
Abel Pacheco |
| Courtesy Office of the
Presidency |
Abel Pacheco was sworn
in as President of Costa Rica on May 8 2002, promising
to try and pull the Central American nation out of
a nagging economic slump. The president has taken
on the task of improving the lives of the 20 percent
of Costa Rican families currently living in poverty.
The 69-year-old Pacheco, a poet, boxing fan, and grandfather
of nine, hopes to eliminate Costa Rica’s budget
deficit by the end of his term in 2006. He is also
pursuing a free trade agreement with the United States.
You have received the highest
100-days in office rating in three decades. Even
those people who didn’t vote for you now say
that they like you more and more every day. What
is your secret?
President Pacheco:
I get along very well with people, and this is because
I am a very humble man who has not forgotten his
origins. I grew up in a banana plantation, and through
visiting factories and walking on the streets, I
learned to talk the language of the people –
ordinary people.
I have been a medical doctor, involved in commerce
and agriculture, and I am also a psychiatrist. I have
always been on the side of the people. When I was
a medical doctor, I worked for the poor. As a psychiatrist,
too, I was always in a fight against alcoholism and
drugs. I always worked with the people who most needed
my help.
Therefore, people know that I became the President
because I wanted to help them and work for them. I
didn’t come here to make money or to receive
honors. I came here to work and that’s what I’ve
been doing.
You have a very human background
– having been a psychiatrist, clothes seller,
writer, and TV commentator. This probably makes
the whole institution of the presidency more populist.
However, if we look at your team - advisors, economists,
etc. - most of them are private sector pragmatists.
Do you think that there will be a clash between
these two ideologies?
President Pacheco: In
my cabinet, I have people from all the parties in
Costa Rica, with all kinds of social status: black
people, white people, Catholics, Protestants, young
people and old people. All of them get on really
well because we have excellent communications and
we have common goals to achieve – the well-being
of Costa Rica.
A few days ago there was one person, a minister, who
did not fit into the team, and now he is gone. Unfortunately
sometimes in life you have to do things against your
heart and against a person you love very much. And
if there is ever a clash again… well, I am a
psychiatrist, and that’s what psychiatrists are
for!
Part of the Costa Rican
personality is the so-called social democracy, which
promises equality, fair distribution of wealth,
and accessibility to education and health care.
Many countries in the world that used to follow
this model of governance have given it up due to
the cost. How positive are you that Costa Rica will
be able to hold on to social democracy under the
pressure of globalization?
President Pacheco:
Costa Rica is not only a country… Costa Rica
is an answer. Costa Rica is evidence that if you
handle things with honesty and order, you can make
a poor country survive and provide good services,
mostly education and health, to its people.
Sometimes we say it is expensive to keep it, but I
want to ask: How expensive is war? War comes, and
people lose their chance for education and health.
I hope that new tendencies of governance will realize
that the best deal is to give people health and education,
and that this is the only access to peace. We have
been working on this for a very long time – long
before all the new economic problems appeared. We
haven’t had an army for decades. Instead of spending
money on weapons, we spent it on education and health.
I have heard about your
intensive fight against the fiscal deficit, which
is now 4.7% of the GDP. Will the cuts in public
expenditure affect social democracy? Will the introduction
of the so-called “ethical accord” (limitations
on public expenditure) and the creation of temporary
taxes on services, banks, private companies and
autonomous institutions, be enough to beat the deficit?
What will the percentage of fiscal deficit be at
the end of your term?
President Pacheco:
I hope we can control the deficit, and decrease
it little by little, and perhaps we will be able
to stop it in four years. This is our dream. If
we can do it, I don’t know. But making it half
of what it is today would already be good.
How are we going to do this? Right now, we are making
an emergency plan for collecting more taxes. For so
many years we were spending in a crazy way. I believe
that with order and honesty, we can do this.
As a matter of fact, we don’t have as much money
for poor people’s houses as other governments,
but by working with the new order we will eventually
be able to give more houses to poor people than all
the previous governments put together. You just have
to look where to spend your money.
One of the ways to fight
against the fiscal deficit is to lobby for free
trade agreements and more investment. After your
successful initiation of the free trade negotiations
with Taiwan, I assume that now, since you are back
in Costa Rica, your focus will again be the Free
Trade Agreement between Central America and the
US. How is this going to change the regional dynamics,
and how pleased are you that Central America will
negotiate as a whole?
President Pacheco:
Costa Rica is doing very well in free trade negotiations.
We have been able to form free trade agreements
with Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Central
America, and recently with Canada. This is the first
time in history that a very powerful nation has
made an alliance with a tiny, poor country. I think
this is a big chance for Costa Rica. Now the US
and Europe, as well as Taiwan, want to do the same,
too. With Trinidad we are signing in few days.
We have been very successful in uniting our commercial
interest with other Central American countries.
The old fight we had with Nicaragua is over, and
we are getting on really well. As a matter of fact,
we are opening the airport in Liberia, in the Northern
part of Costa Rica, to international flights. There
will be three weekly flights from Atlanta to Liberia.
This will also open tourism for Nicaragua, since
soon we will be able to offer two countries for
the price of one. This is going to be great for
Nicaragua, as they need work, and they can use that
airport for getting more Americans in. We are really
cooperating. On the inauguration flight from Atlanta
to Liberia, the airline asked me to invite another
couple to join me and I thought: Why not invite
the President of Nicaragua? This gives you an example
of how we work together.
We are incorporating the whole Caribbean area. And
this is just the beginning of an integration for the
benefit of our people. We don’t care of their
origins, whether Dutch, British, Portuguese, Danish,
etc., I think this diversity only makes it more beautiful.
The Caribbean region has so many different cultures
and we get on so well. Europe has given us a good
example of so many different people working together
in harmony.
Could you please give me
some concrete examples of where you would like Costa
Rica and the US to collaborate in the near future?
President Pacheco: We
are collaborating very much on the war against drugs
and terrorism. I think that the US really wants
to help us. They have been able to understand that
we are neighbors. It is not good to be disliked
by your neighbors. The cost of disliking in history
has led to poverty. Poverty means hate. I believe
that it is not so difficult, with the help of the
US and Canada, to decrease poverty in Costa Rica.
We are very optimistic, and it is a matter of sharing
technology and justice.
What can Costa Rica learn
from the US, and what can the US learn from Costa
Rica?
President Pacheco:
We can learn a lot about organization, honest dealing
in public affairs, technology, and democracy.
The Americans can learn a lot, too, and let me
tell you in a humble way. They can learn about getting
along with nature and saving the planet. They can
learn about living without an army. They can learn
about happiness. In spite of poverty in Latin countries,
sometimes we know how to smile, laugh and sing better
than you rich countries. Sometimes money is not
everything. Sometimes a guitar makes a difference.
What is your level of satisfaction
with the Johannesburg Summit?
President Pacheco:
I am not very happy about the Summit, but I am very
happy about my country, because we were able to
show that here on the Caribbean coast there is a
small, peaceful a nation that is trying to save
the planet. We didn’t get many promises from
Johannesburg.
Why do you think that was
so?
President Pacheco:
People don’t understand that all of us have
to save nature. Perhaps it has been our fault, maybe
we haven’t been able to communicate very well.
We have to work on that, like we have worked in
Costa Rica. If there are no animals and no trees,
there is no planet. It is no use asking for more
and more money if there is less and less oxygen.
What for? It is crazy.
You have a very extraordinary
region here in Costa Rica –the Osa Peninsula.
This is a very unique region, even in a global context,
as it has four percent of the world’s total
biodiversity. What are the development plans for
this area, and what are you doing to protect this
large amount of biodiversity?
President Pacheco: To
protect nature, we have to work more on education
and teach children and schools about trees and animals.
People have been very influenced by globalization,
and they want money no matter what. For the sake
of the future, we have to take care of this aspect,
too.
We don’t have a lot of resources, but we are
trying. In terms of education we are doing rather
well. In regards to the police etc. we are not doing
very well, and this is because we have no money. I
hope we can get it. Some nations are helping us. We
also want to develop more regions. We are very strict
on ecological tourism, and because it is well administered,
there will be no harm.
But the South you are talking about: Peninsula de
Osa, Corcovado, Isla de Caño, Golfito –
some of the most beautiful places in the world! I
know all these places and I am in love with these
places. People there are so nice. When foreigners
discover the Peninsula de Osa, they fall in love with
it. We are trying to organize it better by opening
an airport –after Liberia and Limon –for
international tourism. But we don’t want any
sexual tourism or massive tourism, which will eventually
destroy nature. We want selected, educated people
to share our idea of ecologically respected work.
Are you going to build a
massive hotel in that area?
President Pacheco:
No, no, that area is for very small hotels. We will
focus on the existing hotels. I do believe that
in some areas big hotels are needed, and I don’t
mind them as long as they take care of the ecology.
We have seen examples in Guanacaste, where the ecology
has been destroyed. Now, certain hotels have understood
that we need ecology for tourism and that therefore
we have to protect it. One of the problems is handling
water. The hotels need to understand that we need
no pollution or contamination, and that we are happy
to have them here as long as they make good use
of water and give it back to the earth.
The introduction of the
Bill of Environmental Rights means saying no to
some investors and further sources of cash flow,
for example from oil exploration, as we have seen.
How do you tackle this?
President Pacheco:
Saying no to oil companies, as we did recently,
means that now we need to pay some money that legally
belongs to them. It is their right. We hope to get
this from the friends of ecology we have around
the world. We are making Costa Rica free of oil
exploration.
How much will this conflict
with the Free Trade Agreement?
President Pacheco:
They respect us. We want to get involved in globalization,
but not only globalization of commerce, also culture
and preservation. To destroy everything for money
makes no sense to us. It is crazy.
Costa Rica is a great contributor
to world democracy and peace: you have the Inter-American
Institute of Human Rights, the Permanent Court of
Arbitration in Latin America and the UN University
of Peace, just to mention a few. Don’t you
think that prostitution being legal in Costa Rica
contradicts all these other aspects? Will we see
a change in the constitution soon that would ban
prostitution?
President Pacheco:
Prostitution, I believe, has to be respected. It
is a matter for adults. It is one of the oldest
professions in the world and I would be hypocritical
to deny that.
However, those people who are forcing children into
prostitution –that is very cruel and we are fighting
very hard against it. Costa Rica, unfortunately, has
had certain publicity as a sexual destination for
child exploitation. This makes us very, very upset
and sad. We have been working so long for our beautiful
children, working so hard to give them care and education.
Our children are so beautiful, they have teeth, shoes,
clean skin, not like in some other countries. However,
some beasts do come here to take advantage of our
beautiful healthy children, and this is very sad.
We are going to pass a law on this and we want the
nations of the world to help us.
What is your sweetest memory
of Costa Rica?
President Pacheco:
People in Limon, where I grew up, showed me how
to appreciate nature. There was an old man, Mr.
Wal’ker, and he used to sit with us kids and
ask: What do you see? And we would answer: Clouds.
What else, he asked. Trees, animals, we responded.
What do you hear? The wind. What else? The river,
your voice, the train coming. What do you smell?
It was a sort of game. He used to ask us about colors,
what things look like, how they sound, what they
taste like. I learned more from Mr. Wal’ker
than in the school of medicine!
According to Costa Rican
law no President can be elected more than once.
What are your plans after the term?
President Pacheco: Thank
the Lord for that! My plans are to go back to writing,
planting and teaching. That’s what I like.
I have a small farm on the Pacific coast where I
farm all kinds of trees. It is full of trees, like
a jungle. Every time it starts raining I go there
with my son to plant some more trees.
I have written many books, short stories and poems.
I won a national prize for my stories. I will go back
to teaching. I would like to teach literature and
history in schools in Costa Rica. So, I will go back
when I am done with this thing. |
