Costa Rica’s ‘Safe Haven’ Faces a Reckoning
The country is experiencing an unprecedented security crisis ahead of the February 2026 election.
SAN JOSÉ—Costa Rica’s foundational myth of exceptionalism has never been more in question. The country that famously has no armed forces, that has long welcomed refugees from its Central American peers, that marketed itself to the world as a “safe haven” in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is now questioning its very identity amid a surge of organized crime and political scandals. Security has been deteriorating for years as Costa Rica became one of the region’s main transshipment points for cocaine and other drugs to the United States and Europe, according to...
Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.
