Notes of a Scandal – The Memo from Hell (or Heaven – depends on who you ask)

The Memorandum Scandal broke in the afternoon of Sept.6 with the publication of that week’s university newspaper, Semanario Universidad. The Semanario had received an anonymously delivered letter, written by Kevin Casas, one of the vice presidents, and Fernando Sánchez, PLN congressman and nephew of the president. The document, addressed to president Arias and dated July 29th is entitled “Algunas acciones urgentes para activar la campaňa del SÍ al TLC” (Some urgent actions to activate the campaign for the Yes to the TLC). In it, Casas and Sanchez give a surprisingly blunt analysis of the status of the debate over the CAFTA. “The campaign regarding the TLC is turning into something we never should have allowed: a fight between the rich and the poor, the people and the government.”[1] They also argue that it was a mistake to have let the executive branch and the CAFTA negotiators from the foreign trade ministry COMEX, handle the campaign for ratification: “ At this point nobody believes a word the government or the politicians are saying.”
But it is the suggestions they make to ensure a victory of the Yes-Campaign that are providing the fuel for the scandal. Among them, (there are a few more harmless ones, like creating a social coalition for the TLC) a strategy of creating fear in the population that will cause people to vote yes on the 7th. But they don’t leave it at that; they detail four distinct fears to be mongered in the extensive media campaign suggested.
1) Stimulate fear of loss of employment. This is clear, the employment argument has been used ad nauseum. It depends on who you believe, the government (who argues that CAFTA will create between 150 000 and 500 000 new jobs, or so – they keep downgrading the numbers lately), or everybody else, including national and international academic and IGO sources, or the facts of the cases of Mexico, and the countries that have already ratified the CAFTA. (CEPAL recently removed a document created in conjunction with the Costa Rican foreign ministry regarding the estimated economic effects of ratification of the CAFTA were not supportable with any reasonable research methods.)
2) Stimulate fear of an attack on democratic institutions of the country. They suggest turning “the no-campaign into the equivalent of violence and disloyalty to democracy,” ostensibly to activate emotion in the supporters of the TLC, who, according to the authors, are not sufficiently emotional about the TLC to compete with the motivation of the supporters of the “no”. “ Let’s be clear about this,” they say, “nobody is prepared to die for free trade, but maybe for democracy.”
3) Stimulate fear of foreign involvement in the No-Campaign. “Rub in wherever possible the connection between Fidel, [Hugo] Chavez, and [Daniel] Ortega and the NO-campaign in the most resounding manner.” This is presumed by the authors to resonate especially with the simple folk and anyone who has spent some time in this country knows how completely communism and communists are vilified here. It has its special irony, but that’s why they call it “national myth building”, right? Anyway, in spite of trying hard, they have not been able to come up with any evidence of this what so ever.
4) Stimulate fear of the consequences of a NO victory. Casas and Sánchez point out here that most people simply have not made the connection that a NO victory would leave the government in a precarious and ineffective condition. The connection between a NO victory and ingovernability has to be “induced”. They also refer to “sowing the doubt” as sufficient to sway potential NO voters.

A few comments here: the opposition to the TLC has been accusing the YES campaign of fear mongering for some time now and this document appears to be a god-sent to prove their point. The propaganda coming out of the NO camp in the last few days has been almost exclusively focusing on this aspect. One particularly favored flyer features a cartoon of president Arias reading bedtimes stories out of book entitled SI to a completely horrified looking family hiding under their covers, while a ghost entitled unemployment looms in the corner.
Secondly, the cynicism of the document has to be pointed out. If there is a campaign that is foreign-influenced, or, to be more exact, foreign-funded it is the YES campaign. Eugenio Trejos, university director and one of the leaders of the NO campaign has been challenging the YES camp in vain to open their accounts and show where the money for the media campaign originates. (While the NO finances are publicly available at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to anyone interested, it is the YES campaign that shrouds itself in secrecy. For a good reason, but that is another blog entry altogether. In my personal experience, the people of the No are extremely wary of foreign influence and flat out reject it because they are aware of how deeply suspicious Costa Rican society is of the Latin American left. The ghosts of the “communists” command a lot of power here and the NO campaign knows better than to fall into that trap. Shortly after the memo, by the way, whole page advertisements with pictures of Castro, Ortega and Chavez and the question of whether the viewer would want to have the “communists” run the country in case the NO wins appeared in the major newspapers. The Semanario has published a study by Media Guru, which shows that the YES campaign has spent the equivalent of about $560.000 on advertisements in TV, radio, and newspapers between January and July of 2007, while the NO campaign has spent about $60.000.
But there is more: Casas and Sánchez then suggest presenting the local mayors, especially the 59 belonging to the PLN , with a very direct threat: “One has to make them responsible of the campaign in each canton and inform them, with all the crudeness necessary, of a very simple idea: The mayor that does not win his canton on October 7 [for the ratification of the CAFTA] will not receive one cent from the government in the next three years. The same reasoning can be applied to local city counselors, which can be made responsible of specific districts. In this last case, they need to be reminded of their personal aspirations: on the victory of the CAFTA depends whether or not they have realistic possibilities to continue as councilors, obtain mayorships, or become deputies [members of congress].” This is not only a blatant admission of corrupt practices at their best, it also sounds to me like a recipe for fraud at the ballot box as the ultimate resort of a major or councilor who is determined to keep his (in some cases her) job.
Sánchez for his part admitted that the document was his when presented with it unexpectedly in a phony interview by the Semanario. Upon realizing the possible consequences of this admission, the congressman who is (was?) handled as a possible presidential aspirant in the next elections tried to suppress this information by arguing that he had a legal entitlement to his property, namely the memo, but the Semanario published it arguing public domain. I am not sure if the opposition to the TLC could have asked for a better scandal to exploit three and a half weeks before the referendum.


[1] Author’s translation, see document below for exact phrase…