Costa Rica blocks pacifists

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 6

Costa Rica blocks pacifists

NZPA-AFPSan Jose, Costa * Rica About 310 North American, Asian, and European peace “marchers” were blocked at the Costa Rican border yesterday when they tried to proceed northwards from Panama in five buses. Costa Rica’s Government explained that it could not guarantee the pacifists’ security from attack by Costa Rican Right-wingers, who accuse them of being

stooges of Nicaragua’s Leftist Sandinist regime. Authorities at the Paso Canoas border post. 350 km south of San Jose, offered to have the police escort the buses non-stop across Costa Rica to Nicaragua if the pacifists would refrain from demonstrations or other “public actions”. But they rejected that offer. Their representatives in San Jose said that they would respect the ban on public events, but wanted to

have “private” meetings with the Costa Rican people in slums or churches. The marchers demonstrated outside a ' United States air base in the Panama Canal zone on Friday, with signs in English, Japanese, Spanish, and French objecting to United States and other foreign intervention in Central America. Each demonstrator in turn asked to enter the base. A guard refused 310 times.

The Right-wing Free Costa Rica Movement had 50 members at the border to keep the pacifists from “poisoning our youth”. Their leader, Alberto Nielsen, said that other groups of his members were guarding various points along the Pan-American Highway. The peace trek began in Panama on Thursday. If the marchers reached Nicaragua, they would be welcomed with “open arms”,

said a Sandinist directorate member, Bayardo Arce. The pacifists plan to demonstrate there against United States support for the anti-Sandinist guerrillas, and to help harvest coffee in the guerrilla-infested north. 1 Costa Rican border officials said that their Government would decide today whether to let the pacifists pass through.