| Founder, Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez |
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President of Costa Rica from 1986-1990, Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez was once again elected president of the republic in 2006. Dr. Arias has international stature as a spokesperson for the developing world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. 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 fora and 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 from 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. The ideological and military interference of the superpowers, still entrenched in the Cold War, threatened to broaden this conflict in both scope and definition.
Such intervention heightened the state of civil war that had by then claimed more than one hundred thousand lives in Guatemala. It aggravated internal unrest in El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as border tensions between Nicaragua and its neighboring states: Honduras and Costa Rica. Despite the previous presidential administration's decision not to become embroiled in the growing conflict, Costa Rica's involvement seemed almost unavoidable. In the face of these threats, Dr. Arias intensified his efforts to promote peace.
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