Suchergebnisse

Costa Rica is an apparent exception to the trend towards military regimes, violent changes of power and local wars in Third World countries. In this Central American republic with about 2 million inhabitants, the armed forces were disbanded in 1948. For over 30 years Costa Rica has maintained a stable civilian government without a regular army, though surrounded by dictatorships. We discuss the history behind the abolition of the Costa Rican army, consider the country's handling of external and internal conflicts since 1948, present the growth of its paramilitary forces, and evaluate the reality of its public policy of demilitarization. Our main conclusion is that Costa Rican demilitarization was a response to an internal conflict rather than a deliberate international policy. The country has actually built up police forces that are used against labor and peasant unrest. But it is also the case that demilitarization has been stressed so consistently in policy declarations that regular military build up has been inhibited. Costa Rica is partly demilitarized, but may become more or less so in the future. 1. See also Kjell Skjelsbæk: 'Militarism, its Dimensions and Corollaries: An Attempt at Con ceptual Clarification,' Journal of Peace Research, XVI (1979), 3, pp. 213-229, and Miles Wolpin: Militarization and Social Welfare in the Third World. Oslo: PRIO, 1981. 40 pp. (S-4/81). 2. J. D. Cozean, The Abolition of the Costa Rican Army, Master's thesis, George Washington University, 1966, p. 31. 3. op. cit. p. 33. 4. S. Stone, La dinastia de los conquistadores. La crisis del poder en la Costa Rica contemporanea, Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana (EDUCA), San José, 1976. 5. D. Tobis, 'United Fruit is not Chiquita', in S. Jonas and D. Tobis, Guatemala, North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), New York, 1974, p. 122-131 and M. A. Seligson, 'Agrarian Policies in Dependent Societies: Costa Rica', Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Af fairs, 19, 2 (1977), pp. 201-232. 6. Q. Duncan and C. Menendez, El negro en Costa Rica, Editorial Costa Rica, San José, 1978. 7. The history of the civil war is well covered — see, e. g., M. Acuña, El 48, Libreria, imprenta y litografía Lehmann, S. A., San José, 1974, O. Aguilar Bulgarelli, Costa Rica y sus hechos pol iticos de 1948. Problemática de una década, Edi torial Universitaria Centroamericana (EDUCA), San José, 1974, J. P. Bell, Crisis in Costa Rica. The 1948 Revolution, Latin American Monographs No. 24, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1971, R. Obregon Loria, Conflictos militares y politicos de Costa Rica, Imprenta la Nacion, San José, 1951, and J. Schifter, The Costa Rican Civil War: An tecedents and Projections, Master's thesis, Uni versity of Chicago, Chicago, 1975. 8. S. Stone, ibid, p. 314. 9. J. D. Cozean, ibid, p. 26, and W. L. Worth ington, The Costa Rican Public Security Forces: A Model Armed Force for Emerging Nations?, Master's thesis, University of Florida, 1966, p. 100. 10. O. Aguilar Bulgarelli, La Constitución de 1948: Antecedentes y Proyecciones, Editorial Costa Rica, San José, 1977, pp. 55-56, and C. D. Ameringer, Don Pepe: A Political Biography of José Figueres of Costa Rica, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1978, p. 66. 11. C. D. Ameringer, The Democratic Left in Exile. The Antidictatorial Struggle in the Caribbean 1945-1959, University of Miami Press, Coral Gables, Florida, 1974. 12. M. Monteforte Toledo, Centro America: Subdesarrollo y Dependencia, Volumen II, Uni versidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, México D. F., 1972, p. 182. 13. J. D. Cozean, ibid., p. 59. 14. C. Urcuyo Fournier, Les forces de Securite Publique et la politique au Costa Rica, 1960-1978, Diss. Université de Paris V, Paris, 1978. 15. The U. S. Secretary of State Lansing sent a telegram which read: '... the Government of the United States under no circumstances can consider Mr. J. B. Quiros authorized in any manner to act as President of Costa Rica.' Quiros was given 24 hours to leave office, which he did, M. A. Seligson, Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1980, p. 58. 16. U.S. Department of State, Treaties in Force: A List of Treaties and Other International Agree ments of the United States in Force on January 1, 1971, Government Printing Office, Washington D. C., 1971, p. 57. 17. J. C. Ropp, In Search of the New Soldier: Junior Officers and the Prospects of Social Reform in Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua, Ph. D. diss., University of California at Riverside, 1971, and R. N. Adams, Crucification by Power: Essays on Guatemalan National Social Structure, 1944-1966, University of Texas Press, Austin & London, 1970. 18. For the following discussion see Note 7., S. Stone, ibid, and C. D. Ameringer, 1974, ibid. 19. M. Monteforte Toledo, ibid. 20. O. Aguilar Bulgarelli, 1977, ibid, p. 72. 21. Decreto No. 37 de 25 de mayo de 1948, Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, Tomo III, Im prenta Nacional, San José, Costa Rica, 1956, p. 621. (Our translation.) 22. W. L. Worthington, ibid, p. 101. 23. C. D. Ameringer, 1978, ibid, p. 86. 24. C. D. Ameringer, 1974, ibid, p. 216. 25. J. A. Booth and M. A. Seligson, 'Peasants as Activists. A Revaluation of Political Participation in the Countryside', Comparative Political Studies, 12, 1 (1979), pp. 29-59. 26. C. Urcuyo Fournier, ibid, pp. 212, 205. 27. M. Fernandez, A. Schmidt and V. Basauri, La población de Costa Rica, Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, 1976, pp. 123. 28. R. Cerdas Cruz, La Crisis de la Democracia Liberal en Costa Rica, Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana (EDUCA), Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, Costa Rica, 1978, pp. 89-92. 29. C. Urcuyo Fournier, ibid, pp. 204-205. 30. J. Schifter, 'La democracia en Costa Rica como producto de la neutralizacion de clases', in Democracia en Costa Rica? Editorial Universidad Estatial a Distancia, San José, 1978, pp. 171-246. 31. V. H. Cespedes S., Costa Rica: La distribu tion del ingreso y el consumo de algunos alimen tos, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Serie Economia y Estadistica No. 45, Ciudad Uni versitaria 'Rodrigo Facio', San José, 1973. 32. W. L. Worthington, ibid. 33. La Asamblea Legislativa de la Republica de Costa Rica, Proyecto de 'Ley Organica del Min isterio del Interior', Procuraderia General de la Republica, San José, 1978. 34. See Ministerio de la Presidencia, Oficina de Planificación Nacional y Politica Económica (OFIPLAN), Oficina de Presupuesto Nacional, 'Datos relevantes del Presupuesto Nacional, de ingresos y egresos del Gobierno Central. Ejercicio fiscal 1978', Imprenta Nacional, San José, 1978, H. I. Blutstein, et al., Area Handbook for Costa Rica, American University Foreign Area Studies Division, Washington D. C., 1969, p. 270, and Urcuyo Fournier, ibid, pp. 401-403. 35. J. Saxe-Fernández, 'The Central American Defense Council and Pax American', in I. L. Horo witz, et al., Latin American Radicalism, London, 1969, pp. 75-101, and S. Jonas, 'CONDECA Mil itary Maneuvers', NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report, 11, 3 (1977), pp. 38-39. 36. Urcuyo Fournier, ibid., p. 327. 37. This sparked off a discussion of whether Costa Rica was militarizing, the best known con tributions beeing those of John Saxe-Fernandez and Mario Fernandez Arias, both titled 'The Mil itarization of Costa Rica,' and first published in Costa Rica in 1971. A more recent and more substantial work, motivated by the same events, is the French doctoral dissertation of Constantino Urcuyo Fournier from 1978. 38. A. Stepan, Authoritarianism in Brazil, 1977, p. 130.

A Chinese writer tells of her two years in a labour camp Yang Jiang was a professor emeritus of English and translator at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing (Peking). Her husband, Qian Zhongshu, was also a professor at the Academy. He is perhaps better known abroad as the author of The Besieged City, an extraordinary novel published by the Indiana University Press in 1982. Written over thirty years ago, it satirised the weaknesses and absurdities of the generation of Chinese in the thirties, who were pretenders to intellectual status. Yang Jiang was born in Beijing in 1911 where she came from a prominent family. She graduated from the American University in Soochow and Qinghua University in Beijing. Qian Zhongshu was born in 1910 and also went to Qinghua University where he met his future wife. They later went to study in France and at Oxford University, England. Both Yang and Qian returned to China in the late thirties and could have left the country in 1949 before the Communists came to power; they were made generous offers to live and teach abroad. Instead, like so many Chinese intellectuals at the time, they chose to stay in China, hoping to help in the reconstruction of a devastated country. Later, also like many other liberal intellectuals, they suffered greatly during the turbulent periods of the Anti-Rightist campaign in the fifties and the Great Cultural Revolution a decade later. A number of intellectuals were reported killed or driven to suicide during these campaigns; many were humiliated, persecuted, and sent to labour camps to be reformed. In 1970, Yang and Qian were sent to such a camp, a 'cadre school', run by the Academy in the countryside of Henan. The reform camps were established for intellectuals throughout China following Chairman Mao's '7 May Directive' in 1966. From 1966 to 1978, it is estimated that over twenty million people went through such camps — virtually the whole Chinese intellectual class. Yang Jiang's book A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters is about their two-year experience in the Cadre School in Henan. It was first published in Beijing in July 1981, in a semi-clandestine way and known to only a small circle. Later in 1982, the Joint Publishing Company, a small publisher in Hong Kong, brought out a limited English edition. The book was described by W. J. F. Jenner, a specialist of modern Chinese literature, as 'an outstanding book, quite unlike anything else from twentieth-century China available in English translation'. 'What Yang tells', Jenner wrote, 'is not sensationalised into a horror story. The tone is quiet and reasonable and there is no posturing. She has none of the youthful naïvety of the committed writers of the 1930s: she simply tells something of what happened — without protest, without shouting. This quality of ordinariness, even banality, that pervades the book makes it all the more effective … Yang Jiang makes no pretence to martyrdom. Indeed, one feels that she has written this record of what was not extraordinary but perfectly normal as a warning for posterity, and as a reminder to the countless other members of more or less privileged groups in the cities who went down to the countryside at that time.' Jenner added that 'this is not the world of prisons and the penal labour-camps — China has yet to publish its Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch — and the harshness it describes is more the result of bad planning and silliness than deliberate cruelty' (Times Literary Supplement, 24 June 1983). In his Foreword to the book, Qian Zhongshu wrote that his wife had left out a chapter, one that might be called 'Politics: Chapter on Shame' — perhaps because of fear of censorship. 'An acute sense of shame can result in selective amnesia,' Qian wrote. 'No one wants to remember things that have caused him or her a loss of face or embarrassment. It is not surprising then that uncomfortable memories can slip unnoticed from conscious recollection into oblivion. A guilty conscience makes you guarded and circumspect; it can hinder a person's struggle for existence. Someone weighed down by contrition and remorse may hesitate to advance and so fall by the wayside for the rest of his life. It is quite natural then that feelings of shame and guilt should be discouraged rather than cultivated. The ancients knew the wisdom of this and did not include "shame" in their list of the Seven Emotions of Man. In this day and age, too much dwelling on the past and morbid feelings of guilt can be positively detrimental; better to be free of such things, leaving oneself with a clear conscience and a happy heart.' The following is an extract from the first chapter, called 'Going Down: Chapter on Separation'. The translation is by Geremie Barmé, with the assistance of Bennett Lee. A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters is to be republished, in association with the Joint Publishing Company, by Readers International and will be available in the UK, United States and Canada. Information about the non-profit-making Readers International and its literary series can be obtained from 8 Strathray Gardens, London NW3 4NY. The French edition 'Six Récits de l'Ecole des Cadres' is published by Christian Bourgois, 8 Rue Garancière, 75006 Paris.

SummaryLAND OWNERSHIP IN DENSELY POPULATED AND INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIESThe relationships between man and land are social phenomena. That means that man‐land relationships are related to society as a whole, to its culture, its structure and its function. In certain periods of history certain laws, rules or institutions ‐ like the phenomena of leasehold ‐ come into existence and afterwards they often continue to exist.The main issue discussed is whether in modern, industrialized and densely populated countries (exemplified by the Netherlands) property in land is still in accordance with the real needs and functions of society. To tackle the problem the author investigates the functions of land in the nineteenth century in relation to its functions in present‐day society.Whereas in the nineteenth century private property seemed to be the most appropiate form of land ownership, the present‐day situation shows an 'erosion of private property rights', although private ownership is still accepted everywhere in non‐communist Europe. Re‐allocation has become very important from an economic point of view (mechanisation), and the owner can also be expropiated for planning and on purposes. Furthermore local government authorities interfere with fixed rents for land. It is stated, however, that a really rational system consisting of large, well‐shaped parcels of land, fitted for large‐scale mechanized agriculture now and in the future, would be only possible when the land is in sole ownership. Other reasons for discussing land as property are that it is more profitable to rent land nowadays, and that it has lost much of its former psychological value and status.Individual property rights are at present strongly restricted by physical planning, for instance for housing, industrial use, road construction, agricultural and recreational purposes or for the protection of nature. With few exceptions all land for non‐agricultural purposes in the Netherlands becomes, at least temporarily, government property, which is necessary for a balanced economic policy and planning.It is concluded that private property in land has weakened as a system and that it does not work efficiently in densely populated, industrialized countries. It tends to become a cultural lag, and to an important extent it is already disfunctional.RésuméLes relations entre l'homme et le sol constituent un phénomème social. Cela signifie que ces relations sont intégrées a la société dans son ensemble, à sa culture, sa structure et sa fonction.Des lois, règlements ou pratiques ‐ tel le phénomène de la tenure à bail ‐ sont apparues à certaines périodes de l' histoire et, souvent, ont persistś.l' auteur s'interroge sur le fait de savoir si, dans les pays modernes, industrialisés et à forte densité"démographique ‐ dont les Pays Bas sont un exemple ‐ la propriété" fonçière est encore compatible avec la réalité des besoins et fonctions de la société. Il aborde le problème en faisant un inventaire comparatif des fonctions de la terre au XIX ème siècle et maintenant. Alors que la propriété privée semblait être, au XIXème siècle, le mode le plus approprié, nous constatons actuellement «une érosion des droits de la propriété privée» bien que celle‐çi soit encore acceptée par l' ensemble de l' Europe non‐com‐muniste.Une rédistribution est devenue, du point de vue économique, extrêmement importante (mécanisation). De plus, les propriétaires peuvent être expropriés pour des raisons de zonages ou d'urbanisme. En fixant autoritairement le taux des loyers de la terre, les administrations locales vont encore plus loin dans le même sens.Il a été cependant démontré qu'un système réellement rationnel, fondé sur de vastes parcelles, de formes régulieres, convenant à une agriculture très mécanisée, actuelle ou future, n'est possible que dans la mesure où la terre est entre les mains d' un seul détenteur.D'autres raisons font que la propriété fonçière fait l' objet de discussion et, en particulier, le fait qu'il est, à l' heure actuelle, plus rentable de louer de la terre et que cette derniére a perdu sa valeur psychologique et son statut.La. propriété individuelle est sévérement contrôlée par l' aménagement du territoire: Habitations, industries, construction de routes, zones agricoles et de loisirs, protection de la nature.Il existe peu de cas aux Pays Bas, où les terres destinées à des usages non agricoles ne deviennent pas, au moins temporaitement, propriété de l' Etat; caractéristique qui est, du point de vue de la politique économique et de la planification, extrêmement satisfaisante.l' auteur conclut que la propriété foncière s'est affaiblie en tant que système et que son rôle, au sein des pays industrialisés a forte densité démographique, n'est plus efficace. Elle tend à devenir une rémanence culturelle, dont le rôle peut être, déjà, dans une large mesure, dysfonctionnel.ZusammenfassungBODENEIGENTUM IN I NDUSTRIA LI SIER TEN UND DICHTBESIEDELTEN LÁNDERNDie Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Boden sind soziale Phänomene. Das bedeutet, daß diese Beziehungen sich auf die Gesellschaft als Ganzes ‐ auf ihre Kultur, ihre Struktur und Funktion ‐ beziehen. In bestimmten Phasen der historischen Entwicklung entstehen bestimm‐te Gesetze, Regeln oder Institutionen ‐ wie z.B. das Pachtrecht ‐, die haufig auch in späteren Phasen fortbestehen.In diesem Beitrag wird die Frage diskuriert, ob in modernen industrialisierten und dichtbesiedelten Ländern (dargcstellt am Beispiel der Niederlande) das Bodeneigentum noch den tatsächlichen Bedürfnissen und Funktionen der Gesellschaft entspricht. Um das Problem lösen zu können, untersucht der Verfasser die Funktionen des Bodens im 19. Jht. und vergleicht sie mit den Funktionen in der heutigen Gesellschaft.Während das Privateigentum im 19. Jht. die sinnvollste Form des Bodeneigentums zu sein schien, zeigt die heutige Situation eine "Erosion der privaten Eigentumsrechte", obwohl das Privateigentum noch überall im nicht‐kommunistischen Europa anerkannt ist. Die Frage der Neuverteilung ist gleichwohl vom ökonomischen Standpunkt aus (Mechanisierung) sehr bedeutsam geworden; darüber hinaus kann der Eigentümer auch aus planerischen Erwägungen oder aus Gründen der Gebietsabgrenzung enteignet werden. Des weiteren beeinflussen die Kommunalverwaltungen mit festgesetzten Pachtpreisen die Entwicklung. Es wird jedoch festgestellt, daß ein tatsächlich rationales System ‐ auf der Grundlage von großen, gut geschnittenen Teilstücken, die für die in hohem Maße mechanisierte gegenwärtdge und zukünftige Landbewirtschaftung geeignet sind ‐nur bei einer Konzentration des Bodens in einer Hand möglich wäre. Weitere Gründe für die heutige Diskussion über das Bodeneigentum sind die Überlegungen, daß die Landpacht heute gewinnträchtiger ist, und daß der Boden viel von seinem früheren psychologischen und sozialen Wert eingebüßt hat.Die individuellen Eigentumsrechte werden heute in starkem Maße durch Entwicklungsplanungen eingeschränkt, z.B. für den Bau von Wohn‐ und Arbeitsstätten, für den Straßenbau, für Landbewirtschaftung und für Freizeitzwecke oder für den Naturschutz. Mit wenigen Ausnahmen wird der gesamte Boden für nicht‐landwirt‐schaftliche Zwecke in den Niederlanden zumindest zeitweilig Staatseigentum, soweit es für eine ausgewogene Wirtschafts‐ und Planungspolitik wünschenswert ist.Aus allem wird der Schluß gezogen, daß das Privateigentum an Boden an Bedeutung verloren hat, und daß es in dichtbesiedelten Industrielandern nicht leistungsfähig genug ist. Auf diese Weise kommt es langsam zu einer kulturellen Phasenverschiebung; bereits heute ist das Privateigentum an Boden zu einem wesentlichen Teil dysfunktional.