VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHSJ #0225/01 0841658
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 251658Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY SAN JOSE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0634
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHUB/USINT HAVANA PRIORITY 0057
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 0825
RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SAN JOSE 000225 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CEN, WHA/PPC, WHA/CCA AND PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2019 
TAGS: CS CU PGOV PINR PREL PREF
SUBJECT: COSTA RICA: FULL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH CUBA 
 
REF: A. SAN JOSE 018 (ALL NOTAL) 
     ¶B. 08 SAN JOSE 629 
     ¶C. 08 SAN JOSE 129 
     ¶D. 07 SAN JOSE 1106 
     ¶E. 06 SAN JOSE 1841 
     ¶F. SAN SALVADOR 229 
 
Classified By: DCM Peter M. Brennan for reason 1.4 (d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY.  On March 18, Costa Rica re-established full 
diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending 48 years of limited 
contact.  In an open letter to the Costa Rican people and in 
his press conference announcing the change, President Oscar 
Arias said "the time had come" for "direct and open dialogue" 
with the island, adding that the decades of official silence 
between the two countries had yielded benefits to neither. 
The GOCR's move was characteristically sudden, but not 
unexpected; the Arias administration had been mulling this 
over for some months.  FM Stagno informed the Ambassador "as 
a courtesy" two days in advance, making clear that Arias was 
inclined to upgrade relations as soon as possible after the 
FMLN election win in El Salvador, and before VP Biden's 
upcoming visit to Costa Rica.  Although maintaining a healthy 
degree of skepticism, Stagno believes that the GOCR (and 
other regional governments) will be able to work with the new 
Cuban foreign affairs team (Rodriguez and Malmierca).  Local 
media coverage was swift, in some cases critical of the 
change in Arias' attitude, but brief.  If Arias was hoping 
for a significant positive media bounce, he did not get it. 
With this announcement, Arias has completed his pledges to 
open or improve relations with the Arab world, China and Cuba 
during his administration.  END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
PRESIDENT ARIAS: "OPEN PATHS AND BUILD BRIDGES" 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶2. (U) After nearly 48 years of limited and strained 
relations, on March 18, Costa Rica re-established full 
diplomatic relations with Cuba.  In a letter to the Costa 
Rican people, President Arias said that Costa Rica should be 
recognized by the international community for "its friendship 
and not for its enmity," and for "its disposition to help and 
not for its intransigence."  He also said that today's 
reality in international relations was far different than 
that of 1961 and that Costa Rica should adjust its policy 
accordingly. 
 
¶3. (U) With this preamble, President Arias signed an 
Executive Order on national television, re-establishing full 
diplomatic ties (which had been at the consular level since 
1961).  Arias said that the time had arrived for "direct and 
open dialogue" between the two countries, whether on topics 
of common agreement or disagreement.  Bringing up Costa 
Rica's establishment of relations with regimes far different 
from Costa Rica's "way of governance," such as the People's 
Republic of China (Ref D), Arias asked in his statement, "How 
could we not open relations with a country that is 
geographically and culturally far closer to Costa Rica?" 
Without giving a specific date, Arias said that "in the next 
few weeks" the two countries would be exchanging ambassadors. 
 
 
¶4. (U) Arias repeated his arguments in an op-ed on March 23, 
adding that "Costa Rica can not be the only country in Latin 
America that still . . . contemplates the shadow of the 
Berlin Wall.  Our foreign policy must be coherent and in tune 
with the times."  He added that re-establishing full 
relations with Cuba gave more authority to his long-held 
views that the USG should lift the embargo and close 
Guantanamo completely.  There was no explicit criticism of 
Cuba's record on human rights or democracy in any of Arias' 
written or verbal comments. 
 
---------------------------------- 
SUDDEN, BUT NOT TOTALLY UNEXPECTED 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) Over the last nine months, Arias' desire to upgrade 
relations became increasingly clear behind the scenes (Refs. 
A-B).  He told then-HHS Secretary Leavitt in January that 
"dialogue was important" among opponents in Central America 
during the 1980s conflicts and that talking to the opposition 
was key, hinting broadly that he now favored this approach 
with Cuba.  Arias added that Costa Rica would have to "think 
carefully" about its relationship with Cuba (i.e., upgrade 
relations) if the FMLN won the March elections in El Salvador 
(which they have, Ref F).  Expecting the FMLN government to 
upgrade ties to Cuba, Arias did not want Costa Rica to be the 
only country in Central America without full diplomatic 
relations with the island.  He added that Cuba might follow 
China's path leading to openness in the economy in the short 
term and political reforms later. 
 
¶6. (C) FM Bruno Stagno echoed and amplified these arguments 
with the Ambassador and DCM on March 16, making it clear then 
that an announcement on re-establishing relations was 
imminent.  Stagno acknowledged that full relations might not 
lead to a productive dialogue with Cuba, but at least there 
would be official channels for dialogue.  He noted that Costa 
Rica was already behind; "all" the other Latin American 
leaders had visited Cuba and in some cases had signed "very 
important" agreements.  Costa Rica did not want to continue 
to be left out.  The FM could see some benefits to being the 
last principled opposition in the region without full 
relations with Cuba, but on balance, he saw more negatives if 
Costa Rica did not upgrade relations.  Given some 
"interesting" signs that U.S. policy was softening toward 
Cuba, and that Stagno thought favorably of new Foreign 
Minister Bruno Rodriguez and new Foreign Trade Minister 
Rodrigo Malmierca from their service together at the UN, he 
judged the time ripe for the change in GOCR policy.  Stagno 
concluded that the government would consider delaying the 
announcement until after VP Biden's visit, if that was the 
USG preference. 
 
¶7. (C) When the Department signaled that the USG preferred a 
later announcement, but urged the GOCR to act as far in 
advance of the Biden visit if Arias wanted to move sooner, 
the President went ahead with his plans to announce the Cuba 
news after the weekly cabinet meeting on March 18.  His 
announcement followed the pattern established with the Arias 
Administration's sudden move of its embassy in Israel from 
Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in 2006, its recognition of China in 
2007, and its recognition of "Palestine" in 2008 (Refs C-E). 
 
----------------------------------- 
MEDIA CRITICAL; STORY DOES NOT LAST 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) Although local media initially gave the Cuba news 
prominent coverage on March 18, the story had been pushed off 
the front pages by the next day.  Leading daily La Nacion's 
coverage highlighted the contradiction between Arias' harsh 
2006 criticism of the Castro regime, which compared it to 
Pinochet's "bloody" regime, to his mild comments as he 
upgraded relations.  During the press conference, an 
obviously uncomfortable Arias stuck to the line that "the 
time had come for official and normal relations with Cuba," 
without responding directly to reporters' pointed questions 
about what Costa Rica would do now to influence Cuba's human 
rights record. 
 
¶9. (U) By March 23, the media coverage was less critical. 
Leading political analyst (and adviser to PLN presidential 
candidate Laura Chinchilla) Nuria Marin wrote in an op-ed 
that full diplomatic relations were a "necessary step" in 
accord with "new geopolitical realities," that she hoped 
would help open Cuba to the world.  She applauded the Arias 
administration's "pragmatic vision," which had also prompted 
the Costa Rican opening with China, and stressed that the 
opening with Cuba did not undermine Costa Rica's commitment 
to liberty and democracy on the island. 
 
¶10. (U) Most media also reported our statement, which 
acknowledged Costa Rica's sovereign decision to upgrade 
relations, but expressed our hope that Costa Rica would 
advocate for freedom, human rights, democracy, and the well 
being of Cuba's citizens.  Some media noted that the USG did 
not object, and that the news had not taken the USG by 
surprise. 
 
------------------ 
POLITICAL REACTION 
------------------ 
 
¶11. (U) Reaction from the heads of factions in the National 
Assembly were (predictably) mixed.  Jose Merino, chief 
of Frente Amplio (socialist party), said that the time had 
arrived and that the Cold War was long over.  Francisco 
Molina of the Citizens Action Party (PAC) said that relations 
with Cuba should have been opened up at the same time as 
China (in 2007).  The head of the National Liberation Party 
(PLN) Oscar Nunez, the President's party, said that Costa 
Rica had a great responsibility to the world to export its 
model of liberties and to not be afraid to do it.  On the 
other hand, the Libertarian Movement chief Luis Barrantes 
questioned the "chamelion-like change" of Arias' position. 
 
¶12. (U) Not unexpectedly, the Cuban Consul in San Jose, 
Antonio Pardo, welcomed the decision, indicating that the 
Castro regime seemed to have no (current) lingering 
resentment towards the Arias Administration from the 
president's 2006 remarks. 
 
--------------------------- 
POSSIBLE IMMIGRATION IMPACT 
--------------------------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) Immigration Director Mario Zamora was one 
interlocutor who had warned us that a change was coming in 
Costa Rican-Cuban relations.  He did not view reestablished 
relations as positive news, however, and predicted that more 
Cubans would now try to get visas to visit Costa Rica.  From 
an immigration point of view, he noted that: 
 
 -- In 2006, over 12,000 Cubans received visas; 
 
 -- in 2007 and 2008 respectively, this number dropped to 
4,900 and 4,500; 
 
 --  the higher number in 2006 was due to a political climate 
accepting more Cuban immigration, but changes to immigration 
laws since 2006 tightened up "family reunification" 
requirements resulting in the lower numbers in 2007 and 2008; 
 
 -- Cubans are targets of what Costa Rican immigration 
believes to be a well-organized human trafficking network; and 
 
 -- Zamora believed a "significant" number of Cubans who come 
to Costa Rica intend to move on to the U.S. and that his 
office viewed these immigrants more as "economic" rather than 
"political." 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶14. (C) Costa Rica's upgrade in relations has more to do with 
the Arias administration (and indirectly, with its view of 
the U.S. administration) than it does about Cuba.  The GOCR 
did not want to be the "last man standing" in the region 
without full diplomatic relations with the island, and 
President-elect Funes' announcement of a future upgrade in 
Salvadoran relations with Cuba stole a little of Arias' 
thunder.  Although he had been contemplating re-establishing 
relations as another "dramatic" foreign policy gesture, Arias 
was clearly more comfortable acting after the new U.S. 
administration took office, hopeful of continued softening in 
USG policy toward Cuba.  Now that Arias has opened the door 
to "dialogue" with Cuba, we should press him to work with 
other Latin American leaders to develop a more vigorous and 
constructive regional role in encouraging Cuba to embrace 
democratic rule and human rights. 
CIANCHETTE