• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Rural Assistance Guard
Guardia de Asistencia Rural

The Rural Assistance Guard, Costa Rica's second largest security force, was responsible for enforcing law and order in all parts of the country except the national capital and the six provincial capital cities under the jurisdiction of the Civil Guard. Officially designated the Town and Village Police until 1970, the Rural Guard is organized along political administrative lines at the province, canton, and district levels.

Overall police supervision is exercised by an inspector general, appointed by the minister of government and police, and six locally appointed provincial inspectors, but each governor has supreme authority over the force in his domain. It is noteworthy, however, that a governor had no police authority within his own capital, where the power rests with the Civil Guard under centralized control from San Jose.

There were some 3,000 Rural Guardsmen who performed basic police duties in detachments at the canton or district level or as individuals in smaller villages or hamlets. According to the law, these agents should not have additional employment.

The duties of the Rural Guardsmen extend beyond ordinary police activities. Crime is low in most rural areas, except in territory near the Nicaraguan border, and the "public service" aspect of police work is emphasized. In many outlying communities the police are the only representatives of the government, and the people turn to them for public services of all kinds. In a majority of districts, Rural Guardsmen also serve as letter carriers. A police agent frequently becomes the local arbiter in answering questions and resolving disputes. Rural guardsmen also are active in local construction efforts, helping to build their own police stations as well as roads, schools, and clinics. They might, in some areas, distribute government information and school supplies.

The Rural Guard is oriented exclusively to local communities. Guardsmen have been used in evicting squatters and controlling striking plantation workers, but the central government never called on them to repel outside invaders.

Pacification is the military, political, economic, and social process of establishing or re-establishing local government responsive to and involving the participation of the people. It includes the provision of sustained, credible territorial security, the destruction of the enemy's underground government, the assertion or re-assertion of political control and involvement of the people in government, and the initiation of economic and social activity capable of self-sustenance and expansion. Defined as such, pacification is a broad and complex strategic concept which encompasses many fields of national endeavor.

According to government estimates, the proportion of rural families living below the poverty line (those unable to satisfy basic needs of food, clothing, housing, health, and education) rose from 42 percent in 1980 to 71 percent in 1982. The official unemployment figure (persons actively seeking work) was 9.5 percent in mid-1983, historically a high one for Costa Rica. When the underemployed were included, the portion of the work force regarded as underutilized was estimated at more than 20 percent. Costa Rica's economic plight was compounded by the fact that the weakened republic is not immune from the effects of leftist revolutionary and rightist counterrevolutionary disorder that threatened large areas of Central America and the Caribbean.

The role of the Rurales in Costa Rica may be contrasted to the situation in the Vietnamese countryside in the mid-201t Century, which suffered most from destruction and privations and was the feeding ground for social injustice, crimes, oppressions and all the vices generated by a colonialist and feudalistic heritage. Land was inequitably distributed; most private land being in the possession of wealthy landlords. The majority of farmers did not own the land they cultivated but had to lease it from landlords who charged exorbitant rents. It was also plagued by debilitating diseases, lack of medication and sanitation, shortages of food and clothing, and widespread illiteracy. Because of the lack of schools and teachers, most rural children were denied an education and forced at an early age to work as farmhands under harsh and difficult conditions. The prospects for the future looked grim and disheartening.

The activities of civilian agencies as well as military efforts to provide security and defeat the Viet Cong guerrillas were part of a coordinated US effort to support the government of South Vietnam through a nation-building program known as pacification. This term had become a substitute for “counterinsurgency” in 1964-1965. Lyndon Johnson wanted to make Vietnam a showcase of economic, social, and political development in Asia. Pacification was the “Great Society” transplanted thousands of miles away.