Federico Tinoco Granados
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Federico Tinoco Granados (November 21, 1868 – September 7, 1931) was a Dictator of Costa Rica from 1917 to 1919.
After a career in the army, he was appointed Minister of War in the cabinet of President Alfredo González. On January 27, 1917 he and his brother José Joaquín Tinoco Granados seized power in a coup d'état and established a repressive military dictatorship that attempted to crush all opposition.
Though his government won support from the upper classes because it turned back the austerity measures adopted by President González, and declared war on the German Empire in May 1918, it failed to win the recognition of the United States, where President Woodrow Wilson supported the deposed government.
Popular sentiment against Tinoco, which began on June 13, 1919, quickly came to a head, and his brother was assassinated in early August. On August 13 Tinoco resigned in favor of Juan Bautista Quirós and went into exile in Europe. He died in Paris in 1931.
Due to a dispute over the legitimacy of the government of Tinoco, Costa Rica was not a party to the Treaty of Versailles and did not unilaterally end the state of war between itself and Germany. The technical state of war ended after World War II only after they were included in the Potsdam Agreement. Costa Rica did not issue a declaration of war against Germany in World War II.
Biography edit
After the coup, Tinoco tried to give legitimacy to his government by calling the presidential elections of 1917, although with him as a single candidate and his party, the Peliquista Party (formed to sustain the regime and legal only) as a single party. He also convened a Constituent Assembly that discussed a new constitution drafted by a board made up of prominent former presidents (although not all former presidents agreed to participate).
Finished this process and promulgated the new constitution, the regime called elections to fill the newly created Senate and Chamber of Deputies of Costa Rica, although again the elections took place in an environment of political authoritarianism and without opposition.
The secret police created by Cleto González Víquez for internal security was used by Tinoco to repress the opposition and terrorize the civilian population. Nicknamed Los Esbirros "the minions", the Tinoquist agents had the task of identifying and arresting opponents, applying torture and in some cases executions.
The government of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the coup government and even blocks Costa Rica's participation in the First World War with which Tinoco unsuccessfully sought to ingratiate himself with Washington.
However, the US blockade and the Wilson administration's support for the anti-Tinocist opposition, in addition to the declaration of war that Costa Rica made to the German Empire, served Tinoco to justify the application of martial law and imprison hundreds without habeas corpus hundreds of opponents.
Marcelino's murder set fire to public outrage. Julio Acosta García leads the armed anti-Tinoco opposition which, together with popular protests, leads to the murder of José Joaquín Tinoco and Pelico Tinoco's escape together with his family and close friends and collaborators. Tinoco would die in exile on September 7, 1931.