The Juntas Progresistas were founded in the early 1940s by leaders of the Popular Vanguard Party (PVP).^ The Juntas Progresistas were registered as legal associations and became the main form of organization of the PVP during the 1960s.® A Federation was established (FENAJUP)* and grew very fast to control 300 juntas all over the country.
From the early 1960s the Juntas Progresistas reflected the internal crisis of the PVP, particularly its political directives on the relationship between the party and the mass organizations. The PVP tried to use the Juntas Federation to maintain its own presence in the political scene and during electoral periods. This divided the Juntas and caused hundreds of resignations of local leaders who rejected the PVP leadership. Many Juntas simply disappeared and others were reduced to one or two members. Some others organized a different Federation to avoid the PVP control.'* By the late 1960s FENAJUP had lost most of its earlier influence (Argüello, 1983a:206-217).
By the mid 1960s, the government’s introduction of new legislation and the establishment of a specific institution to control community organizations had as central goal the obstruction of PVP’s influence over community groups. The National Direction for Community Development (DINADECO) which would develop the Associations for Integral Development (ADI), was the government’s alternative to FENAJUP. It was not only a national reaction, but an international proposal linked to the Alliance for Progress and the USA government’s response to the Cuban revolution.® From 1967 DINADECO conducted an aggressive campaign against the so-called
'Federacion Nacional de Juntas Progresistas (FENAJUP).
’communist Juntas’ and its officials organized hundreds of ADIs all over the country, particularly in San José, where the Juntas had been concentrated.
DINADECO also developed Specific Associations for Development (AED) and Community Development Committees (CDC) which tried to involve community leaders in voluntary work supported by government institutions. These organizations were strongly controlled by DINADECO officials. During the first 10 years they developed hundreds of small projects in the communities, including housing projects for poor families, building and repairing of basic infrastructure and community facilities.* They were highly involved in local political activities. Deputies and councillors all over the country obtained ’specific assignments’ from the central government budget to develop local projects controlled by local party leaders.® Many municipalities worked together with local Integral Associations to get special financial support for their programmes. The ADI, AED or CDC became merely instruments of a political system based upon a client-patron relationship.
Local leaders only had to organize a meeting every two years to appoint members of the community association. This directorate of seven was normally reduced to two or three persons who conducted formal procedures to obtain financial support. Salaried officials from DINADECO controlled and regulated their activities, including the repression of left-wing local leaders and their expulsion from the leadership (Argüello, 1981b:102). This double system of local community organizations (ADI, AED, CDC) and DINADECO, allowed the National Liberation Party (PLN) to control the local political system for almost ten years.
During the seventies, various new left-wing political parties begin to compete with the PVP and organized their own community organizations for the control of communities.^ These left-wing parties focused their community work on the development of land invasions and independent self-help housing projects. Their influence, however was weak in conventional barrios, due to the overwhelming presence of the PLN organizers, councillors and deputies. For some local politicians, the community associations became the first step in the career to become a councillor. DINADECO became a crucial political instrument for the traditional parties. The director of DINADECO became a political figure, and since the mid 1970s, being DINADECO director assured him a future appointment as deputy to the Legislative Assembly. By the late 1970s, during the Carazo Administration, DINADECO had 300 officials and more than 700 registered associations with more than 95,000 members (Mora-Agüero, 1988).
The Carazo Administration, which defeated the PLN in the 1978 elections, tried to neutralize the power of DINADECO and the associations, which functioned almost as PLN local committees. The government cut back the financial support to DINADECO and assigned it new tasks, particularly the organization of a new housing programme: the Urban Development Programme, supported and directed by USAID officials. From 1978 onwards, DINADECO officials
‘Such as community centres, churches, sport centres and parks, bus stations, public lighting, water and electricity networks, nurseries, play grounds, green areas, roads, health centres and primary schools.
had to concentrate their work on this project, coordinating it with INVU, IMAS and local governments. This sudden change and lack of financial support through partidas especfficas, caused a sharp decline in the associations’ activities. However, during the 1980s, DINADECO still managed hundreds of community groups all over the country.
Throughout the Carazo administration the PLN tried to develop new community organizations from outside DINADECO, that is from the opposition. The PVP also developed new groups during these years of decline in the capacity of control by DINADECO. Other left-wing parties also organized community groups, including the new housing community groups organized by the Socialist Workers Organization (OST), a Trotskyist political party. PLN and PVP local leaders came together to organize a conference to discuss the housing problem and the conditions for development of community organizations. They wanted to evaluate DINADECO activities and criticized the Carazo government’s lack of support for local community development projects. DINADECO successfully obstructed the realization of such a conference, but local leaders from all over the country established a new national organization independent of DINADECO, but largely led by PVP leaders: the National Union of Associations for Community Development (UNADECO)*. This permanent dispute allowed the growth of many new local associations, not just those normally created by DINADECO officials. Many more were encouraged by local organizers of the PLN, the PVP and other left-wing parties. By the end of the Carazo Government in 1982, there were 918 ADIs, 110 ADEs and more than 3,000 CDCs, as well as 30 cantonal unions and one federation of associations. These encompassed more than 200,000 formal members all over the country, with 203 ADI, 44 AED and 4 cantonal unions in San José alone.®
Opposition parties also encouraged many housing community groups with no legal status, which became members of the new housing fronts, although never associations. Many community groups invaded land and after that established links with officials and leaders of the fronts, but they never develop into associations or established links with DINADECO. The main influence on housing policy came from the housing fronts and community organizations independent from DINADECO, which continued with little activity during the second administration. It was only in the last administration of the period, that ADIs were encouraged to develop their housing projects, and IMAS developed dozens of projects in rural areas under the control of local ADIs. In 1987, a new official report said that there were more than 6,000 organizations linked to DINADECO with more than 300,000 members all over the country. But the change in housing policy began when community organizations concentrated their demands on housing and freed themselves from the control of DINADECO officials.
‘ Union Nacional de Asociaciones da Desarrollo Comunal (UNADECO).