By James Brodell

Although far away, Costa Rica suffered major and long-term impacts from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

The most immediate impact was the freeze on air travel that left thousands of tourists stranded here and hospitality operators fearful of the future. At least 500 tourists were awaiting flights that Tuesday at Juan Santamaría airport when the United States grounded incoming and outgoing flights. Some tourists ended up spending six or seven extra days in Costa Rica until commercial flights resumed the following Monday. There were no new arrivals.

Costa Rican officials later reported an unexpected 2 percent dip in tourists that quarter and some exporters of perishable agricultural products calculated their big losses.

The longer-term impact became obvious over months and even years. America went to war and some Costa Ricans and one Tico-American were casualties. Travel rules tightened. And Costa Rica's several high-interest borrowing operations, so beloved by North Americans, collapsed under the weight of new currency restrictions.

Two Costa Rican women avoided death at the World Trade Center. One was about to enter when the first plane struck, and another who worked there managed to flee. Some Costa Ricans living near the New York tragedy were trapped in their apartments by the ash-filled air when the towers collapsed.

Just hours after the attack members of the local Republicans Abroad met at a La Sabana restaurant. The group said the meeting would not be canceled because to do so would be to give satisfaction to the terrorists. The U.S. Embassy and the Association of Residents of Costa Rica fielded a steady string of calls from concerned Americans.

Local bomberos were shocked by the deaths of the 343 firefighters plus other first responders in the collapse. The Friday following the attack, some 75 members of the Cuerpo de Bomberos arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Pavas along with their trucks to place a wreath honoring the fallen in New York. The wreath joined the many placed there by Costa Ricans and foreigners.

The Catedral Metropolitana hosted a memorial Mass that Sunday and a ceremony mostly for the North American community took place a few days later at the Centro Costarricense-Norteamericano. Officials beefed up security at U.S.-related facilities. Streets around the U.S. Embassy were blocked by police.

There was a feeling of detachment and even impotency by those here whose participation was reduced to watching events in New York and at the Pentagon unfold via television. The Spanish-language press printed more than 130 opinions and reports from Costa Ricans, including one that blamed the terror attack on U.S. policies in the Mideast. Then-president Miguel Angel Rodríguez called upon all people of goodwill to make sure that terrorists  "never, never, ever repeat these acts of blood." He was speaking at the nation's Independence Day celebration four days after the attack.

Some readers sent opinion articles to the new A.M. Costa Rica that had been founded less than a month before. Another tried unsuccessfully to organize a blood drive.

A.M. Costa Rica, because it is produced digitally, was able to update its front page by 8:30 a.m. Sept. 11 to provide news in English of the attack. The major story was a first-person account from a man who watched the disaster unfold from the west side of the Hudson River. The man, Robin O'Brien, said in part:

“I just watched the second tower of the World Trade Center collapse. The first imploded into a cataclysmic cloud that quickly enveloped lower Manhattan.  The ferries scurried from the piers as we watched in disbelief.  Just as the smoke was clearing, Tower 2 just disintegrated, I-beams flying like matchsticks, an even greater cloud rushing out into the river, obscuring the downtown once more.”

A day later, the newspaper published the first-person account of an 18-year-old Costa Rican student, Jessica Pérez, who lived near the New York site. She wrote an email to her mother that was shared with the newspaper. She said in part:

“I am shaking right now. Mom. It was so scary. All of a sudden we heard another explosion and we weren't sure if it was another bomb or what and all of a sudden we look out our window and there is a huge cloud of debris covering the hundreds of people running down the streets. And we couldn't see out our window cuz it was covered in black smoke. And people in the building starting running and crying, and there were people coming into our building covered with ashes."

The country's resident remained jittery for weeks. Among the victims of the heightened alert was a man unfortunately dressed in camouflage and carrying a backpack who tried to enter the Banco Nacional branch in Sabana Oeste. He quickly was waylaid by police and security. He was just a customer.

In the long run, Costa Rica reinforced its status as a neutral nation. Then-president Abel Pacheco raised a political storm when he listed Costa Rica as a U.S. ally in the later armed action against Iraq. A poll showed that most of his citizens disagreed.

Perhaps the greatest impact from the attacks for U.S. and Canadian citizens here was the subsequent tightening of money movement. At the time of the attack at least a half dozen companies here offered up to 3 percent a month interest on cash investments. Those who invested were not particularly critical of the deals. Luis Enrique Villalobos and his brother Oswaldo ran a money exchange operation and were said to be linked to secret U.S. overseas financing. Roy Taylor at his company, The Vault, promoted a number of land deals. Luis Milanes, known as the Cuban, ran a more upscale operation called Savings Unlimited, complete with an engraved glass door at the Edificio Colón office that also sported a teller's window.

Taylor invested heavily in the Villalobos operation, his books showed later, and so did some smaller firms. But the Villalobos money exchange system suffered badly under tightening U.S. financial restrictions, and his dealing with Colombians became more difficult. Finally a year and a half after the Sept. 11 attacks some 6,000-plus mostly U.S. investors were left in the lurch when Enrique Villalobos shut down and vanished. His brother, Oswaldo, eventually was convicted of aggravated fraud and served time off and on in a prison for adult males. Taylor killed himself, and Milanes returned to Costa Rica after a long absence. Eventually, he went free after his lawyers raised the issue of double jeopardy.

Many foreigners fled the country for cheaper climes.

The tighter money restrictions also present difficulties today for anyone seeking to move large amounts into the country even for legitimate deals. U.S. citizens, in particular, are strongly scrutinized by bankers here because of U.S. rules.

The requirement to hold a foreign passport to enter Costa Rica quickly replaced the previous laid-back rule that a driver's license would suffice.

And the massive flow of immigrants who pass through Costa Rica on the way to the United States can, in part, be blamed on the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent U.S. actions in the Middle East, as drug gangs seek to expand their marketing to include human trafficking.


Editor's note: James Brodell, founder and long-time editor of A.M. Costa Rica can be reached at jay@amcostarica.com

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