### Contra War Hub Guanacaste Province was an isolated northern area of [[Costa Rica]] infested with Contra camps, rural landing strips, and easily bribed government and police officials during the 1980s Contra war. According to a special Costa Rican legislative commission, during 1984 and 1985 the area served as headquarters for "an organization made up of Panamanians, Colombians, Costa Ricans and citizens of other nationalities who dedicated themselves to international cocaine trafficking, using Costa Rica as a bridge for the refueling of planes that came from Colombia."[^1] ### Drug and Weapons Operations The drug ring, run with the help of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, worked closely with the [[Contras]]. "Specifically, use was made of the same landing strips and the collaboration of the same Costa Rican authorities that had aided the Contras," the legislative commission reported. Contra pilots provided "the gasoline that was used for refueling the planes of the organization." Drug planes loaded cocaine in Colombia, refueled at Contra airstrips in Guanacaste, then continued to the United States, dumping loads in Louisiana and Texas.[^1] The head of the Costa Rican Rural Guard in Guanacaste Province, Colonel Edwin Viales Rodriguez, was convicted in 1988 of providing security for drug and weapons flights. He allegedly told a friend he was doing it for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and was paid between $20,000 and $30,000 per flight.[^1] ### Intelligence Failures Despite the number of American agents stationed in Costa Rica during the Contra war, and U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and spy satellites making routine overflights photographing the region, a U.S. Senate subcommittee reported in 1988 that "despite obvious and widespread trafficking through the war zones of northern Costa Rica, the Subcommittee was unable to find a single case against a drug trafficker operating in those zones which was made on the basis of a tip or report by an official of a U.S. intelligence agency." Costa Rican prosecutor Jorge Chavarria, who investigated Contra drug cases for the OIJ, said the DEA "knew about the Contras and drugs. All these flights and pilots that were flying in and out with drugs could not have been ignored by the DEA. They were looking in the other direction."[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"