Oscar Arias Sánchez
Former president of Costa Rica and 1987 Nobel Peace laureate, Oscar Arias holds
international stature as a spokesperson for the Third World. Championing such
issues as human development, democracy, and demilitarization, he has traveled
the globe spreading a message of peace and applying the lessons garnered from
the Central American Peace Process to topics of current global debate. The New
York Times reported that Oscar Arias' "... positions on Central American issues
have become the standards by which many people in Congress and elsewhere have
come to judge United States policy." In a similar way, he has come to take a
leading position in international discourse.
Dr. Arias was born in Heredia, Costa Rica, in 1940. He studied Law and Economics
at the University of Costa Rica. His thesis, Grupos de Presión en Costa Rica
(Pressure Groups in Costa Rica) earned him the 1971 National Essay Prize. In
1974, he received a doctoral degree in Political Science at the University of
Essex, England. After serving as Professor of Political Science at the
University of Costa Rica, Dr. Arias was appointed Costa Rican Minister of
Planning and Economic Policy. He won a seat in Congress in 1978 and was elected
secretary-general of the National Liberation Party in 1981. In 1986, Oscar Arias
was elected president of Costa Rica. Dr. Arias assumed office at a time of great
regional discord. The fall of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and the
introduction of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua had already been a source of
contention in Central America. Even before assuming the presidency, Arias
traveled throughout Central and South America to personally invite the Latin
American heads of state to visit Costa Rica for his presidential inauguration.
On the day he took office, the presidents of nine Latin American countries met
in San José. In this meeting Arias called for a continental alliance for the
defense of democracy and liberty. He affirmed that all Central Americans were
entitled to the same liberties and social and economic guarantees of democracy,
that each nation had the right to select, through free and fair elections, the
type of government that could best meet the needs and interests of its people,
and that neither armies nor totalitarian regimes were entitled to make this
decision. At that moment Costa Rica, led by Oscar Arias, assumed an active role
in the search for democracy and peace for the countries of the region. In 1987,
President Arias drafted a peace plan to end the regional crisis. Widely
recognized as the Arias Peace Plan, his initiative culminated in the signing of
the Esquipulas II Accords, or the Procedure to Establish a Firm and Lasting
Peace in Central America, by all the Central American presidents in 1987. In
that same year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1988, Arias used the
monetary award from the Nobel Peace Prize to establish the Arias Foundation for
Peace and Human Progress. Dr. Arias has received numerous prizes, among them the
Jackson Ralston Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Martin Luther King Jr.
Peace Award, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Liberty Medal of
Philadelphia, and the Americas Award.
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