Óscar Arias Sánchez has not joined FLAPSS and has not endorsed it. This page is a reference record assembled from published interviews and public remarks. Every answer below is a direct quotation with the source and date shown next to it.
President of Costa Rica, 1986–1990 and 2006–2010
Costa Rica · b. 1940
Served two non-consecutive terms as President of Costa Rica. Authored the Central American peace plan signed by five regional presidents in 1987, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year.
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Seeing the size of the challenge, no wonder many are prey to discouragement; or that apocalyptic prophets abound, announcing the failures of the fight against poverty, proclaiming the immediate fall of the democracies, forecasting the futility of peace-making efforts. I do not share this defeatism. I cannot accept to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 11 December 1987 source
My country is a country of teachers. It is therefore a country of peace. We discuss our successes and failures in complete freedom. Because our country is a country of teachers, we closed the army camps, and our children go with books under their arms, not with rifles on their shoulders. We believe in dialogue, in agreement, in reaching a consensus. We reject violence. Because my country is a country of teachers, we believe in convincing our opponents, not defeating them. We prefer raising the fallen to crushing them, because we believe that no one possesses the absolute truth.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 11 December 1987 source
Seeing that the past dictatorships were only capable of creating misery and crippling hope, how absurd to pretend to cure the evils of one extreme dictatorship by means of its opposite! No one in Central America has the right to fear freedom, no one is entitled to preach absolute truths. The evils of one dogma are the evils of any dogma. They are all the enemies of human creativity.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 11 December 1987 source
History was not written by men who predicted failure, who gave up their dreams, who abandoned their principles, who allowed their laziness to put their intelligence to sleep. If certain men at times were alone in seeking victory, they always had at their side the watchful spirit of their peoples, the faith and destiny of many generations.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 11 December 1987 source
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