By Francisco Xavier Aguirre Sacasa
It seems that every five years or so, Nicaragua and Costa Rica clash over the San Juan River. This is a recurrent theme in our modern history and is unfortunate.
As countries, Nicaragua and Costa Rica go back a long way. They have deep roots, including a common history and deep family bonds. In fact, at birth they were, quite literally, joined at the hip. During the mid-16th century, when Central America was being absorbed into Spain’s American empire, the province of Nicaragua actually included all of today’s Nicaragua, half of Honduras, half of El Salvador and all of Costa Rica.
The province’s capital, León, was the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Nicaragua, which also had ecclesiastical authority over Costa Rica.
At the time of independence from Spain in 1821, Nicaragua and Costa Rica emerged as independent countries, but their border was quite different from what it is today. Nicaragua included what is now the Costa Rican province of Guanacaste, and Nicaragua’s frontier ran in a straight line from the Gulf of Nicoya in the west to the south bank of the mouth of the Colorado River on the Caribbean coast. This border was actually recognized in Costa Rica’s Constitution of 1825.
In the late 1850s, during Nicaragua’s National War, when it was invaded and temporarily occupied by William Walker and his army of filibusteros – whose aim was to incorporate Nicaragua as a slave state into the United States – Costa Rica came to Nicaragua’s assistance.
Shortly after the war’s end, the two neighbors signed the Jerez-Cañas Treaty in 1858 whereby Nicaragua acknowledged Costa Rica’s annexation of Guanacaste and its right to navigate “with commercial goods” on the eastern stretch of the San Juan River. Costa Rica, in turn, recognized Nicaragua’s sovereignty over the San Juan. Finally, Costa Rica’s border with Nicaragua was fixed as the south bank of the San Juan River running from three miles east of El Castillo to the Caribbean.
This treaty should have put an end to border disputes between the two nations, but it did not. In 1888, both countries appealed to U.S. President Grover Cleveland to review border issues, and Cleveland issued a ruling confirming the original border treaty, including Nicaragua’s sovereignty over the San Juan River.
Near the end of the 19th century, at the request of both governments, further fine-tuning on the border was made at the request of the two countries by a U.S. engineer, Gen. Edward Porter Alexander, in the lead-up to what Nicaragua believed would be the construction of a U.S.-built interoceanic canal across the isthmus, running roughly along the San Juan River, across Lake Nicaragua, and cutting across Rivas to the Pacific Ocean.
The Nicaragua canal was never built, and in the late 1990s the dispute flared up again. The matter was submitted to the International Court of Justice, which confirmed in 2009 Nicaragua’s sovereignty over the river while reaffirming Costa Rica’s rights to navigate on part of the river. We in Nicaragua heaved a sigh of relief and hoped the matter was finally settled.
Our optimism was short-lived. The present crisis threatens the harmony that should exist between nations, and, if not handled with extreme care and serenity, could truly harm relations between our two countries.
The Nicaraguan government and its people have closed ranks around the issue of Nicaraguan sovereignty over the San Juan River. We believe we have the right to dredge the river to keep it open to navigation. We are also certain that our army and police have the right to patrol the river and continue to interdict contraband in the area around the river, including and especially illegal drugs headed north to the U.S.
At the same time, we genuinely want harmonious, fraternal relations with Costa Rica. To its credit, Nicaragua’s government has not fueled the fire of xenophobia against Costa Rica or its people during this time of trouble. Most responsible Nicaraguans hold the same view. We understand that our two countries are not only bound by a common history but that we have a symbiotic relationship that is mutually beneficial to both countries.
In my speech when the Nicaraguan National Assembly held an extraordinary session in San Carlos, where the San Juan begins its journey from Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean, I said that this was “a time for peace.” I meant what I said then, and I am convinced that the vast majority of my compatriots share in this conviction. What unites our two nations is far greater than our differences. And these differences must not be allowed to sour the relations between our two countries.
Francisco Xavier Aguirre Sacasa was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2002 and is currently president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
