VZCZCXYZ0019
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHSJ #0980/01 1292347
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 092347Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY SAN JOSE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4934
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SAN JOSE 000980 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL CS
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT OSCAR ARIAS'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF MAY 
8, 2006 
 
REF: SAN JOSE 979 
 
¶1.  On being presented the presidential sash on May 8, 2006, 
Oscar Arias delivered his inaugural speech entitled, "I 
Choose Life, Democracy and the Challenge of Peaceful Change." 
 Below is the full text of the speech in English.  The 
translation was provided by the Arias Foundation, an NGO 
founded by Oscar Arias after being awarded the Nobel Peace 
Prize in 1987.  See reftel for Embasy's summary and analysis 
of the speech. 
 
¶2.  Bgin Text: 
 
Honorable heads of state; esteemed memers of the Supreme 
Authorities of Costa Rica, oficial government 
representatives; winners of theNobel Prize for Peace, my 
dear friends: 
 
We hae come here today to celebrate an act that renews ur 
faith in the creed of democracy and in the spiit of the 
people of Costa Rica. Today, once more a President whom 
Costa Ricans freely elected wil transfer his authority to 
another President wh was also chosen through the votes of 
our citizens. And just as the repetitive nature of the sun,s 
rise every morning does not detract from the miracle of 
light, the repetition of this ceremony does not diminish its 
value, but rather confirms its transcendent character. 
 
This act embodies the most profound truths our nation has 
learned, truths to which we are guardians and heirs. Today we 
relive the beautiful historical journey of this nation, which 
over the course of almost two centuries has built a way of 
life defined by love of liberty and solidarity, respect for 
our institutions and complete dedication to living in peace. 
 
Today we confirm that whatever challenges we confront as a 
society, whatever disputes temporarily separate us, the 
people who call this country their home are determined to 
live under the one political system that makes possible the 
peaceful transition of power, equal justice under law, and 
the basic right of all human beings to define their own 
destiny. This is the creed that this nation professes. 
 
Today more than ever we should anchor ourselves to the values 
that encourage and sustain us. These convictions*especially 
the conviction that it is possible to construct societies 
that are ever more just, without extremism and in peace*are 
the only ones capable of guiding us in these turbulent times. 
 
 
These are times of change, and times of definition. As human 
beings, as Latin Americans and as Costa Ricans we cannot 
afford the luxury of indecision. We have reached a crossroads 
and we must make decisions. 
 
As human beings, we cannot blindly trust the immense 
scientific and technological changes of our era to 
automatically resolve the great dilemmas of humankind. We 
cannot trust them to preserve our planet, increasingly 
threatened by greed and lack of foresight. We cannot trust 
them to make possible the peaceful coexistence of 
civilizations, civilizations which are increasingly 
endangered by political and religious fundamentalism and by 
the weakening of international law. We cannot trust them to 
promote the principle that we are all children of God and 
equal in His eyes. This principle is undermined by rising 
levels of inequality on a global scale, and by certain 
outcroppings of misery that continue to be incompatible with 
all we claim to profess. 
 
None of these problems will resolve themselves, because it is 
clear that neither economic progress nor scientific progress 
necessarily entails ethical progress on the part of humanity. 
Ethical progress is not inevitable. We cannot wait for it 
like we wait for the passing of a comet. It requires that we 
desire it and build it with all our strength. 
 
As Latin Americans we must decide if we are to continue 
seeking utopias and blaming others for our misfortune, or if, 
on the contrary, we will acknowledge that our destiny depends 
on what we do today to create societies that are better 
educated, more productive, more just, and more dedicated to 
building solid institutions than to listening to the 
passionate words of politicians. 
 
We must decide, for what we have today is a Latin America 
that is confused about its role and its relevance in the 
world, that is less and less definite in its adherence to 
fundamental democratic values.  The great historical 
achievement of the current generation of Latin Americans ) 
that of having left behind the interminable night of military 
rule) is beginning to founder, in part because of the 
 
refusal of our political elite to confront the secular 
afflictions of inequality and exclusion, and in part because 
of the chronic incapacity of many of our politicians and 
intellectuals to see the world as it is, and not as they wish 
it were; because of their incapacity to read the world in 
prose and not in poetry. 
 
We must decide, then, if the democratic adventure which the 
region launched in the past three decades will be only a 
parenthesis of rationality in a history marked by 
intolerance, violence, and frustration, or if it will be the 
beginning of our long-postponed journey to modernity and 
development. 
 
But it is, above all, as Costa Ricans that we must make 
decisions.  For years, out of fear and out of convenience, we 
have been postponing the solutions to our most pressing 
problems.  We have preferred to believe, against all 
evidence, that not deciding does not carry any cost and that 
the indisputable achievements that we have realized as a 
society guarantee our success in perpetuity. 
 
We have chosen to adopt indecision as a way of confronting 
life.  For many years now, we as a country have lost our 
energy and direction, and on a steep path this can only 
result in backsliding. 
 
We have gone as far as this route can take us.  We cannot 
continue wandering without a compass, discussing endlessly 
among ourselves, pursuing the mirage of unanimity, consuming 
the best of our days and our efforts as if time did not 
exist, as if the march of history had stopped to wait for 
little Costa Rica to decide someday to lift anchor. 
 
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind 
is favorable," Seneca correctly wrote.  I am convinced that 
Costa Rica has all that it needs to arrive at a proposed 
destination, but first it must know where it wants to go. 
 
That is the task that begins today: that of defining a course 
for Costa Rica and beginning to sail towards it. 
 
If we must define this course, it is necessary that we 
recover the courage to agree; the capacity to recognize the 
opportunities that we have; the humility to know that our 
vision of the world is not the only one; and the nobility to 
place the interests of the country above our personal 
interests. 
 
We must recover the wisdom to discern what is essential and 
what is secondary in our nationality; to separate those 
traditions and values that are worth conserving in this 
search for our destiny from those that have simply become 
heavy burdens. 
 
Above all, we must recover our disposition to innovate, to 
change, to explore new paths.  And in this, it seems to me, 
we are agreed: for all of the political and social sectors in 
the country the status quo has ceased to be an option. 
 
From this day forward, Costa Rica must recover the confidence 
that it has all it needs to move forward, that it can think 
on a grand scale and look to the future, beyond the small 
disputes that today consume our energies.  It is time that we 
return to having a historic purpose worthy of our exceptional 
past. 
 
That, friends, is the mission that we have: that Costa Rica 
might once again see the future with optimism, that it might 
again believe in itself, that it might become convinced that 
it can change. 
 
That is what we must do and that is what we will do. 
 
From this day forward we will forge a clear path in the 
struggle against poverty and inequality. 
 
We will not remain passive before the pain of millions of 
Costa Ricans living in misery. We will not remain passive 
before the social chasms that today divide the Costa Rican 
family. We will not remain passive before the discrimination 
suffered by the most vulnerable groups in our society, in 
particular the disabled, the elderly, ethnic minorities, 
children and single mothers. 
 
We will renew this country,s fidelity to its best 
traditions, traditions that have understood the expansion of 
human opportunities as the underlying thread of history,s 
great adventure. Such is the legacy of solidarity bequeathed 
by Flix Arcadio Montero, Omar Dengo, Alfredo Gonzlez 
Flores, Jorge Volio, Manuel Mora, Rafael Angel Caldern 
 
Guardia, Jos Figueres, and all of those who throughout our 
 
history have helped us to understand that Costa Rica is not 
simply a group of individuals, but a community and a family 
that must never abandon its weakest members to fate. 
 
The social policies of this administration will emphasize the 
strengthening of universal public services, above all 
education and health care provided by the Costa Rican Social 
Security system. These must continue to be supported by all 
Costa Ricans, for the benefit of all Costa Ricans. 
 
We will work to coordinate anti-poverty programs, making 
possible a clear and progressive assignment of social 
investment, and a rigorous evaluation of its results. 
 
We must understand that effective social policy cannot be 
created in a vacuum: it takes significant resources. 
Therefore, I want to emphasize the following: in this 
administration we will resolve the state,s perennial fiscal 
crisis, making possible the social investments that Costa 
Rica needs. 
 
We cannot advance towards the future without a great 
qualitative and quantitative boost in social investment. 
Without it, we will have neither development, nor social 
justice, nor peace. The creation of an appropriate, 
progressive tax system is vital for our future. 
 
From this day forward, we will forge a clear path for the 
productive sector of Costa Rica. 
 
We will promote policies for sustained improvements in 
competitiveness; for a gradual opening of the economic 
structure; for the sustainability of our productive 
processes; and for an intelligent alignment with the global 
economy. We will not resign ourselves to watch impotently 
while this country slips ever lower in the most important 
measures of competitiveness. 
 
We will strive towards the most important goal that any 
economic policy can have: the creation of more and better 
jobs for Costa Ricans, and especially for youth. Beyond 
social policy, our first task in reducing poverty in Costa 
Rica is to stimulate the creation of formal jobs in the 
private sector. 
 
Likewise, we will reform and appropriately regulate the 
telecommunications, infrastructure and energy sectors to make 
them internationally competitive. Our efforts will 
immediately turn to the formation of an integral energy 
policy, one that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels and 
promotes the use of renewable energy sources. Costa Rica must 
rethink the current energy model, for its continuation would 
be nothing less than a grave risk to our future economic 
growth. 
 
We will deepen Costa Rica,s ties to the world economy. We 
will continue to vigorously attract foreign investment and to 
be resolute in our commercial policy, which permits the 
greatest number of Costa Rican producers to integrate into 
export markets. 
 
 
Turning our backs on economic integration, returning to 
commercial protectionism, and disdaining the attraction of 
foreign investment at this time constitute the surest ways to 
condemn Costa Rica,s youth to unemployment and Costa Rica to 
underdevelopment. They also constitute the surest ways to 
waste the human and institutional capital that the country 
has accumulated over the past 50 years and that has allowed 
us to successfully integrate ourselves into the global 
economy. 
 
In this, I want to be very clear: sovereignty is not defended 
with prejudices and slogans, but rather, with work and 
concrete plans for creating prosperity in Costa Rica.  A 
country that is afraid of the world and is not able to adapt 
to it inexorably condemns its youth to seek a livelihood 
beyond its borders.  If it does this, it is less sovereign, 
less just and less of a country. 
 
Favoring the isolation of Costa Rica from the great phenomena 
of the modern world is a reactionary cause and a betrayal of 
our youth.  It will not be my government that, out of fear 
and prejudice, isolates Costa Rica from the international 
economy. 
 
From this day forward we will chart a clear course for public 
education.  This should once again be one of the motors of 
our productivity, an instrument for reducing inequalities and 
reproducing our best values. 
 
Over the next four years, we will spare no effort to dedicate 
 
8% of Gross Domestic Product to educational investment.  We 
are going to work to ensure that the profession of educator 
is well compensated so that our educational system attracts 
sharper and sharper minds with a greater focus on service. 
 
Above all, we are going to work every day to universalize 
secondary education, providing economic support from the 
state to the poorest families so they keep their adolescent 
children in the classrooms.  We will not allow the lack of 
access to education to reproduce, generation after 
generation, an infernal cycle of misery. 
 
We will chart a clear course on fighting crime and drugs.  We 
are going to be tough on crime, but even tougher on the 
causes of crime.  We are going to take a close look at the 
preventative orientation of the police force and we will 
provide it with more resources. 
 
We will improve the mechanisms for reporting crime, and, in 
particular, for reporting domestic violence, the most 
insidious and widespread type of crime. 
 
We will fight without rest against drug trafficking.  And not 
just large-scale drug trafficking ) the kind that requires 
us to patrol our seas and our airports ) but especially the 
small-scale trafficking of drugs, which occurs on corners in 
our neighborhoods, in parks in our communities, in doorways 
and halls at our high schools.  That will be one of the main 
priorities in terms of the security of our citizens. 
 
Starting today we will chart a clear course for our efforts 
to modernize the state.  We will focus urgently on the task 
of providing the country with agile, efficient and 
transparent institutions that will support the pursuits of 
our citizens rather than undermine them; that will be 
instruments of, and not obstacles to, democratic governance. 
 
We will chart a clear course for national investment in 
infrastructure and transportation.  Nevermore will our 
highways, ports and airports be a cause of national 
embarrassment; nevermore will our producers be condemned to 
pass through a nightmare in order to sell the fruits of their 
labor; nevermore will our most remote rural communities be 
relegated to isolation and underdevelopment. 
 
 
From this day forward, we chart a clear course for our 
foreign policy. We return Costa Rica to its leading role in 
the international theater.  Our foreign policy will be based 
on principles and values deeply rooted in Costa Rican 
history: defense of democracy, full promotion and protection 
of human rights, the struggle for global peace and 
disarmament; and commitment to human development. 
 
We will again align our foreign policy with the peaceful ways 
of the Costa Rican people. We will defend multilateralism, we 
will strictly adhere to International Law and the founding 
principles of the United Nations Charter*the most 
fundamental safeguard against anarchy in the world. 
 
As a country without an army, starting today we call on the 
world, especially industrialized nations, to come together so 
that, together, we might give life to the Costa Rican 
Consensus.  With this initiative, we seek the establishment 
of mechanisms to forgive debts and provide international 
financial resources to developing countries that invest more 
and more in health, education, and housing for their people, 
and less and less in weapons and soldiers.  It is time that 
the international financial community reward not just those 
who use resources prudently, as has been the case until now, 
but those who use resources morally. 
 
Along these same lines, starting now, the protection of the 
environment and of the right to sustainable development will 
become a priority of our foreign policy.  Our goal is that 
Costa Rica,s name becomes synonymous with basic human 
values:  love of peace and love of nature.  That will be our 
distinguishing mark as a country.  That will be our calling 
card to the world. 
 
I have left my most important commitment for last. Starting 
today, there will be a clear and unalterable path of honesty 
in public office. 
 
This ethical path means speaking to Costa Ricans with honesty 
- always telling them what they should know, and not just 
what they want to hear.  I have not arrived at this position 
to please any particular group, but rather to defend the 
interests of Costa Rican society as a whole, according to my 
abilities to understand them given my human limitations.  I 
could err in my decisions, and surely I will many times, but 
I will never say or do anything with any criteria except 
 
this: the wellbeing of my country. 
 
This ethical path means keeping campaign promises, a minimum 
requirement for Costa Ricans to believe in politics again. 
It means being accountable to citizens for all of our 
actions, as difficult as that may sometimes be.  It means 
requiring the highest level of integrity and accountability 
from our partners.  It means understanding the Presidency not 
as an opportunity to seek glory or popularity, but as a space 
to serve those who are most in need. 
 
This, friends, is the path that Costa Rica embarks on today. 
 
I would like to think that the path that I have outlined will 
inevitably result in a more prosperous Costa Rica for our 
children.  I would like to think that the Presidential sash I 
wear is the talisman that will make it possible for us to 
arrive at the bicentennial of our independence as a developed 
nation.  But there is no certainty in this*there are only 
possibilities. 
 
I think that a good part of success will depend on the 
political maturity we demonstrate at this crucial time, on 
our high mindedness, on our willingness to devote ourselves 
to basic rules of civility, without which no form of 
democracy is possible. 
 
 
For all of the political parties and social organizations of 
the country, I today have a message that is also a request. 
A request that we might work together for our future.  A 
request that we might learn that no party and no organization 
has a monopoly on honesty, on patriotism, on good intentions, 
and on love for Costa Rica.  A request that we might 
understand that the responsible exercise of political power 
is much more than pointing fingers, denouncing, and 
obstructing, and that it consists, above all, in carrying out 
dialogue, in collaborating, and in building.  A request that 
we might know how to distinguish between adversaries and 
enemies; that we might understand that a willingness to 
compromise is not a sign of weakness, just as intransigence 
is not a sign of strength. A request that we might cast aside 
the meanness of our political debate; that we might raise our 
heads, look forward, and think in grand terms. 
 
Only thus will we meet the grave responsibilities that we 
have before us as public officials, as political leaders, as 
social leaders, or simply as citizens. 
 
Friends: 
 
 
The rare privilege of living in a critical moment in history, 
when the old still has not died and the new still has not 
been born, has been given to us.  At this crossroads, 
humanity must choose whether it will eliminate all forms of 
poverty or all forms of life on the planet. 
 
We Latin Americans must choose whether we will nourish, with 
knowledge and patience, the democratic flower that has taken 
root or crush it beneath the weight of stale prejudices and 
our legendary tolerance of injustice. 
 
We Costa Ricans must choose whether we will take our destiny 
in our hands, whether we will take advantage of our 
opportunities and create a prosperous country in which there 
is a dignified place for all, or whether, on the contrary, we 
will resign ourselves to seeing the world pass by at a 
distance, to squandering the achievements that we have 
accumulated, and to living, like that downfallen family in a 
tale of Jorge Luis Borges, "in the resentment and insipidness 
of poor decency." 
 
All these paths are open, but the time in which we have to 
decide is not great.  For my part, I choose life, democracy, 
and the challenge of changing in peace.  It is time that 
humanity, Latin America, and Costa Rica change, not by 
chance, but out of conviction; not because there is no other 
path, but because it is the correct one. 
 
With humility I ask all Costa Ricans ) men and women, young 
and old, of all political persuasions and religious creeds ) 
to accompany me in this undertaking.  I am only the director 
that you have freely and temporarily chosen for this 
collective work that we begin today.  But I clearly recognize 
that the actors and the protagonists, today, tomorrow, and 
always, will be you. 
 
I ask all Costa Ricans to respond to fear with optimism; to 
powerlessness with enthusiasm; to paralysis with dynamism; to 
apathy with commitment; to small-mindedness with unbreakable 
faith in the bright future of Costa Rica. 
 
 
And to God Almighty I ask that, with his infinite wisdom, He 
might guide our steps in this new era as we continue to build 
our beautiful and indestructible nation. 
 
Thank you very much. 
 
End text. 
 
LANGDALE