Our former Nobel Peace prize winning president, Oscar Arias, opened the recent TEDx Pura Vida event, with the following quip (and I translate), “I am here because the organizers of this event wanted to open it with the “nerdiest” person in Costa Rica, but Franklin Chang could not speak until 11:30 AM.”  Arias then went on to speak on a topic he has been vehemently advocating as of late, the need for Latin American countries to stop spending so much on their armies (See Recent Post on Arias speech of Latin American summit).  “Imagine,” Arias stated (reflections of John Lennon), “a world where we grant more power to designers and programmers and less to colonels and generals.”  “Where we dedicate more resources to buy books and computers, in place of missiles and tanks.”  During the last year, countries of the region directed some $60 billion to their armies.  Arias pointed out that in this region, the cost of just one military helicopter could school thousands of primary school children.  One military jet less could cover the cost of protecting 100’s of kilometers of forests.  One soldier’s salary less could pay the cost of a professor of English.  At the end of the talk Arias received a standing ovation.   I wonder if his words reached the ears of who most need to hear them, the authoritative “quasi-dictators” who spend the resources of their countries consolidating their military power rather than empowering their citizens.

Link to Tedx Pura Vida web site

Link to Article in La Nación