by WILLIAM RURODE
On December 22, Nicaragua will begin construction on a $50 billion USD canal that once in operation will open a new link between the Atlantic (via the Caribbean Sea) and the Pacific oceans. However, domestic opponents from all political parties and social classes are gathering to oppose this ambitious undertaking. At the core of their concerns is the fact that the canal project will lead to the forcible removal of almost 300 communities in protected indigenous zones. The project is the brainchild of President Daniel Ortega of the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN, Sandinista National Liberation Front). Ortega and the FSLN led the revolution throughout the 1900’s that overthrew the often cruel and pervasively harsh Nicaraguan Somoza dictatorship in 1979, replacing it with a government that championed the interests of the nation’s poor. But now it appears that Ortega is ready to brush aside the interests of some 30,000 Nicaraguans who would lose their homes and their communities as the canal project presses forward.
The canal will be a massive undertaking, running more than 172 miles from Venado Island in the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific port town of Brito. The route makes use of Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest lake, but elsewhere would cut a path up to 1,700 feet wide and 90 feet deep.[1] President Ortega is the canal’s largest advocate, he claims that the project will, “create 250,000 jobs, lift Nicaragua out of poverty and make it the maritime capital of the world.”[2] Ortega has taken his nation into an agreement with the Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, which would oversee all aspects of construction. There is undeniable promise with the project, as Nicaragua is a logical, geographical route and today, is the safest country in Central America. If and when the canal is completed, it would secure Ortega’s legacy, placing him in the history books as the leader of Nicaragua that finally gave the country an interoceanic canal.
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