Nicaraguan Canal

Nelson Jesus Zeas Paz is one of the 55,000 Nicaraguan refugees and exiles who have fled to Costa Rica. This is his story.

Environmental and indigenous activists claim Costa Rican Byron Reyes Ortiz and five other detained foreigners were holding a workshop on building efficient wood-burning stoves.

Leaders in the Rama and Kriol communities in eastern Nicaragua say they were coerced into signing a document by government officials and police.

One year after a Chinese consortium began work on a canal across Nicaragua, there is little sign of progress.

The government of Daniel Ortega has approved environmental and social impact studies allowing construction of the Nicaragua Canal to commence in 2016.

It isn’t looking good for Chinese billionaire Wang Jing and his planned $50 billion Nicaragua canal project. New financial, social and environmental concerns have cast doubt on the feasibility of the proposed interoceanic canal, and construction has now been delayed until March.

Nicaragua’s proposed $50 billion interoceanic canal – the biggest earthmoving project in world history – will cut poverty in half, double the country’s GDP growth and energize Central American integration by servicing a boom in global shipping that will quickly outgrow even the newly enlarged Panama Canal. So claims Paul Oquist, a key adviser to President Daniel Ortega.

"What's going to happen if along the [canal] route it will require land expropriation, and how are they [the Sandinista government] going to do it?" U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Phyllis Powers asked in an interview published Monday in the Nicaraguan news magazine Confidencial. "Because we have U.S. citizens who have property along the route."

It's looking less likely by the day that it will actually happen, says Bloomberg View columnist Justin Fox.

Organizers of Saturday’s march said they hope to send a message to outside investors that the 373,000 people estimated to be affected by the mega-project will not roll over without a fight.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Opponents of Nicaragua’s dubious plans to build a $50 billion interoceanic canal are trying to rally U.S. help in fighting the controversial project. But it’s not clear if official Washington is listening.

Manuel González: “Nicaragua has been buying heavy military equipment from Russia. They just publicized the purchase of MiG-29s, supposedly to fight drug trafficking. Well, we’ve been very effective in fighting drug trafficking, and we don’t need MiGs to do that.”

“It’s common to see Ortega trying to steal the show.”

The group of environmentalists and human rights organizers plan to present an open letter to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry to present to CELAC leaders decrying a lack of transparency, and threats to indigenous land rights and Lake Nicaragua.